“KOM IGEN, NU ÖSER VI. VI ORKAR LITE TILL!”: En socialantropologisk studie av jympa på Friskis och Svettis.

Abstract

This bachelor thesis examines the group workout class jympa at the Swedish gym chain Friskis och Svettis, which can be understood as an actor in the popular fitness community. The aim is to explore jympa and try to understand what makes it meaningful to its practitioners. The thesis includes discussions about the facility itself and what it can mean to practitioners, as well as discussions about the views on the body itself and of other people’s bodies when it comes to clothes and movements to music. Finally, there will be a discussion about the health effects and how jympa workout classes help the practitioners to encounter life outside the facility. The findings from this study show that jympa participants associate jympa with movement to music and the social context that exists within the jympa community. Overall, the results indicate that the jympa practitioners tend to care less about external influences, although social structures, such as the fitness culture, find their way into the jympa workouts. The concepts utilized throughout this thesis are Heterotopia, Liminality, Embodiment and Sense of Coherence. These terms are utilized in several ways to give a new perspective on the views on jympa as a practice. The study is mostly based upon participant observations in multiple jympa workouts at various Friskis och Svettis facilities during the beginning of 2022. Furthermore, there are in-depth interviews with instructors and participants from the jympa workouts where we dig deeper into the meaning of jympa workouts.