Muscular India: Masculinity Mobility & The New Middle Class

Muscular India: Masculinity Mobility & The New Middle Class
Author :
Publisher : Context
Total Pages : 268
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9789395073622
ISBN-13 : 9395073624
Rating : 4/5 (624 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Muscular India: Masculinity Mobility & The New Middle Class by : Michiel Baas

Download or read book Muscular India: Masculinity Mobility & The New Middle Class written by Michiel Baas and published by Context. This book was released on with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: About the Book MICHIEL BAAS BRINGS ALIVE A WORLD OF MEN SCULPTING BODIES, REDEFINING MASCULINITIES AND CONFRONTING THEIR VULNERABILITIES IN THE GYMS OF URBAN INDIA. The gyms of urban 'new India' are intriguing spaces. While they cater largely to well-off clients, these shiny, modern institutions also hold the promise of upward mobility for the personal trainers who work there. By improving their English, 'upgrading' their dressing style and developing a deeper understanding of the lives of their upmarket customers, they strategise to climb the middle-class ladder. Their lean, muscular bodies—which Bollywood has set the tone for are crucial to this. Diverging from an older masculine ideal represented by pehlwani wrestlers, these bodies not only communicate (sexual) attractiveness, but also professionalism, control and even cosmopolitanism. With the gym aspiring to be a safe space for women, trainers must also find a way to break with the toxic masculinity that dominates life outside. Yet, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Class barriers are less permeable than they appear. The use of bodily capital to breach them is more fraught with danger than one might anticipate. And the profession is riddled with pitfalls and contradictions. Michiel Baas has spent a decade studying gyms, trainers and bodybuilders, and finds in them a new way to investigate India. He walks us through the homes and workspaces of these men - yes, they are almost all men - to bodybuilding competitions and also into their most intimate worlds of ambitions, desires and struggles. An unusual study of an unusual subject, Baas unveils a fascinating world, hidden in plain sight.


Muscular India: Masculinity Mobility & The New Middle Class Related Books

Muscular India: Masculinity Mobility & The New Middle Class
Language: en
Pages: 268
Authors: Michiel Baas
Categories: Health & Fitness
Type: BOOK - Published: - Publisher: Context

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

About the Book MICHIEL BAAS BRINGS ALIVE A WORLD OF MEN SCULPTING BODIES, REDEFINING MASCULINITIES AND CONFRONTING THEIR VULNERABILITIES IN THE GYMS OF URBAN IN
Muscular India: Masculinity Mobility & The New Middle Class
Language: en
Pages: 268
Authors: Michiel Baas
Categories: Health & Fitness
Type: BOOK - Published: - Publisher: Context

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

About the Book MICHIEL BAAS BRINGS ALIVE A WORLD OF MEN SCULPTING BODIES, REDEFINING MASCULINITIES AND CONFRONTING THEIR VULNERABILITIES IN THE GYMS OF URBAN IN
Muscular Nationalism
Language: en
Pages: 220
Authors: Sikata Banerjee
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012 - Publisher: NYU Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Concerned chiefly with views and events of the 19th and 20th centuries. Discusses deviations from a putative ideal of femininity characterised by chastity and i
Make Me a Man!
Language: en
Pages: 194
Authors: Sikata Banerjee
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-02-01 - Publisher: State University of New York Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Looks at the ideals of masculine Hinduism—and the corresponding feminine ideals—that have built the Indian nation, and explores their consequences.
Gender, Nation and Popular Film in India
Language: en
Pages: 152
Authors: Sikata Banerjee
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-12-08 - Publisher: Taylor & Francis

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Interpretations of manhood have unfolded in India within a middle class cultural milieu shaped by an assertive self-confidence fuelled by liberalisation, a proc