David Edgar (UCL) - 2021-22 Students
david.edgar.09@ucl.ac.uk

Good Bodies: Affective Economies of Fitness in “Pre-Post-Conflict” Urban Colombia

An ethnographic study of fitness practices in contemporary Medellín, Colombia.

The analytical focus will be “affective economies”, ie the emotions and sensations produced by exercise, and how these are assigned meaning. The study examines emerging fitness practices in relation to the ways in which recent socio-political changes are being felt through Colombian bodies (the end of the civil war, reintegration of combatants, dramatic urban renewal, and the turn towards neoliberalism).

The research includes fifteen months of fieldwork in Medellín.

Multimedia technologies will be used as research tools and outputs, alongside a written thesis.

Primary supervisor: Dr Aaron Parkhurst, UCL
Secondary supervisor: Prof. Lucia Michelutti, UCL
Secondary co-supervisor: Dr Miranda Sheild Johansson