Walking and motoring: Fitness and the social organisation of movement

Abstract

This essay applies the approach of the relational model to the quotidian modes of contemporary movement, walking and motoring, in order to analyse fitness. The social model of disability provides a tool for de-individualising fitness discourse, as well as for embedding fitness within sociomaterial and cultural contexts. Fitness, or 'being able to', is seen as an outcome of the interpenetrations and interactions of mind-bodies moving within their environments. The analysis indicates that the social model has general relevance for the sociology of health and illness. Here, it is extended beyond the study of disability to encompass fitness. In future, the social model may prove fruitful in the analysis of other socially situated conditions as well.