I recently published a paper (open access), with my Leeds Beckett colleague Joseph Ibrahim, on a study we did on CrossFit. In this we drew on interviews with CrossFitters to try to conceptualise what kind of community, CrossFit represents. Ultimately, we suggested that the community offered by this loose network of fitness centres represents a meaningful but often temporary type of community focused on self-development that we thought best categorised as what Zygmunt Bauman called “peg communities“.
When we first started working on this project Joseph was an insider with several years of participation in CrossFit behind him. CrossFit has often sometimes been criticised for taking an extreme approach to fitness, for having a “cult like” structure, and for the controversial views of its founder. However, this did not fit with Joseph’s experience, which was part of the impetus of the project. While there is a central philosophy to CrossFit and certain shared standards and practices, as well as regional, national, and international competitions, individual gyms (or “boxes” to use the CrossFit terminology) are somewhat autonomous due to a franchising structure. We wanted to explore how individual participants view their “boxes”, what they get out of their participation, and what kind of collectivity they experience.
In the process of analysing our interviews we found that sociological conceptualisations of different aspects of community were useful. Namely, the intense and meaningful connections which participants formed with other CrossFitters often appeared quite similar to the “gemeinschaft” forms of bonds common in premodern societies and described by 19th-century German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies. However, the connections people felt did not seem to fully align with Tönnies’ all-encompassing ties dominated by good relations, unity of purpose and similarity of lifestyle and interests. So, we turned toZygmunt Bauman’s work as a sociologist who engaged with Tönnies’ in his own his analysis of 21st-century community.
The focus on personal development, achievement of physical and lifestyle goals and self-determination supported by a collection of people not necessarily integrated with other aspects of their lives suggested to us that Bauman’s concept of “peg communities” was useful. Such collectivity allows people to hang their individual concerns on a common “peg” around which they can temporarily align their attempts to define and construct their own identities and body projects. While these communities are meaningful and useful to the individuals involved in them they do not significantly impact or transform broader societal issues or cultures but might help those involved to manage them. For instance, several of our participant highlighted how their engagement with CrossFit that help them to succeed at work, in education or to manage other stressful aspects of their lives.
There is a lot more detail in the paper, including extracts from our interviews. But if you have any thoughts on the project then please do get in touch.
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