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9789395073622 642188abf60b8c126a852c41 Muscular India Masculinity, Mobility & The New Middle Class https://www.midlandbookshop.com/s/607fe93d7eafcac1f2c73ea4/642188acf60b8c126a852c87/51zjtlhztpl-_sx316_bo1-204-203-200_.jpg

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.

About the Author

Michiel Baas has a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam, and has held various academic positions with the National University of Singapore, Nalanda University (Rajgir), the International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden) and the University of Amsterdam. Most of his work centres on the Indian middle class. He has published extensively on the topic of fitness and bodybuilding in India; Indian student- migration to Australia; the migration trajectories of skilled professionals in Singapore; the Indian migration industry; and the lives and lifestyles of IT professionals in Bangalore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Review

‘Baas’s rich, textured and deeply insightful ethnography of body building provides us with profoundly important insights on masculinity and sexuality in South Asia. His analysis produces a critically incisive understanding of embodiment, establishing a new and important anthropological perspective on the anxieties and ambivalences of middle-class identity in modern India.’ — Joseph S. Alter, author of The Wrestler’s Body: Identity and Ideology in North India and Gandhi’s Body: Sex, Diet, and the Politics of Nationalism

‘It’s rare to find a study that effectively combines theory and practice, but Michiel Baas’s study of masculinity and the middle class in India does just that. Muscular India is conceptually sophisticated and ethnographically immersive; it moves fluently from idea to detail, and back, all the while introducing us to a cast of well-rounded characters who play out their lives in fascinating, little-explored settings. Along the way, the book also makes detours into a host of important contemporary issues, including consumerism, urbanisation, sexual mores, food adulteration and the nation’s technology industry. What all of this adds up to is a nuanced and layered portrait of modern India.’ — Akash Kapur, author of India Becoming: A Portrait of Life in Modern India

‘Through his illustrative and eloquent writing, Michiel Baas takes us on a vivid journey through the bumpy, aspirational worlds of lower-middle-class male fitness trainers in India. In all its ethnographic vitality, the author successfully captures how a poignant search for economic status and social respectability, intersects with the desire for muscularity and transformed bodies among these men. Baas’s lucid and nuanced reflections, on how these robustly modelled bodies become emblematic of a new India, is a must-read for those interested in the expanding market for body-building in middle-class and urban India.’ — Atreyee Sen, author of Shiv Sena Women: Violence and Communalism in a Bombay Slum

‘Michiel Baas uses bodybuilding and the gym culture to provide deep insights into the Indian middle class, notions of mobility, cultures of consumption, the obsession with Bollywood bodies and sexual desire. Based on years of ethnographic research, the book is invaluable in understanding the paradoxes of urban India.’ — Ronojoy Sen, author of Nation at Play: A History of Sport in India

About the Author

Michiel Baas has a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam, and has held various academic positions with the National University of Singapore, Nalanda University (Rajgir), the International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden) and the University of Amsterdam. Most of his work centres on the Indian middle class. He has published extensively on the topic of fitness and bodybuilding in India; Indian student- migration to Australia; the migration trajectories of skilled professionals in Singapore; the Indian migration industry; and the lives and lifestyles of IT professionals in Bangalore.

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Muscular India Masculinity, Mobility & The New Middle Class

Muscular India Masculinity, Mobility & The New Middle Class

ISBN: 9789395073622
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  • ISBN: 9789395073622
  • Author: Michiel Baas
  • Publisher: Context
  • Pages: 328
  • Format: Paperback
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Book Description

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.

About the Author

Michiel Baas has a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam, and has held various academic positions with the National University of Singapore, Nalanda University (Rajgir), the International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden) and the University of Amsterdam. Most of his work centres on the Indian middle class. He has published extensively on the topic of fitness and bodybuilding in India; Indian student- migration to Australia; the migration trajectories of skilled professionals in Singapore; the Indian migration industry; and the lives and lifestyles of IT professionals in Bangalore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Review

‘Baas’s rich, textured and deeply insightful ethnography of body building provides us with profoundly important insights on masculinity and sexuality in South Asia. His analysis produces a critically incisive understanding of embodiment, establishing a new and important anthropological perspective on the anxieties and ambivalences of middle-class identity in modern India.’ — Joseph S. Alter, author of The Wrestler’s Body: Identity and Ideology in North India and Gandhi’s Body: Sex, Diet, and the Politics of Nationalism

‘It’s rare to find a study that effectively combines theory and practice, but Michiel Baas’s study of masculinity and the middle class in India does just that. Muscular India is conceptually sophisticated and ethnographically immersive; it moves fluently from idea to detail, and back, all the while introducing us to a cast of well-rounded characters who play out their lives in fascinating, little-explored settings. Along the way, the book also makes detours into a host of important contemporary issues, including consumerism, urbanisation, sexual mores, food adulteration and the nation’s technology industry. What all of this adds up to is a nuanced and layered portrait of modern India.’ — Akash Kapur, author of India Becoming: A Portrait of Life in Modern India

‘Through his illustrative and eloquent writing, Michiel Baas takes us on a vivid journey through the bumpy, aspirational worlds of lower-middle-class male fitness trainers in India. In all its ethnographic vitality, the author successfully captures how a poignant search for economic status and social respectability, intersects with the desire for muscularity and transformed bodies among these men. Baas’s lucid and nuanced reflections, on how these robustly modelled bodies become emblematic of a new India, is a must-read for those interested in the expanding market for body-building in middle-class and urban India.’ — Atreyee Sen, author of Shiv Sena Women: Violence and Communalism in a Bombay Slum

‘Michiel Baas uses bodybuilding and the gym culture to provide deep insights into the Indian middle class, notions of mobility, cultures of consumption, the obsession with Bollywood bodies and sexual desire. Based on years of ethnographic research, the book is invaluable in understanding the paradoxes of urban India.’ — Ronojoy Sen, author of Nation at Play: A History of Sport in India

About the Author

Michiel Baas has a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam, and has held various academic positions with the National University of Singapore, Nalanda University (Rajgir), the International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden) and the University of Amsterdam. Most of his work centres on the Indian middle class. He has published extensively on the topic of fitness and bodybuilding in India; Indian student- migration to Australia; the migration trajectories of skilled professionals in Singapore; the Indian migration industry; and the lives and lifestyles of IT professionals in Bangalore.

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