Running: self-management of an enterprising corporality

Abstract

The Running is a phenomenon that has stood out in the Brazilian urban contexts. The runner has become a strategic figure in the reflection on the productions and reproductions of the body perceived these days, governed by competitiveness and the entrepreneurship paradigm. According to this, the objectives that guide this research are: a) to analyze the production of a certain type of subjectivity derived from the practice of street running so as b) to reflect on the dialogues following a type of rationality that characterizes the neoliberal subject. In order to respond to these objectives, I carried on an ethnographic research over a period of eighteen months in the city of São Carlos-SP, close to two groups of runners. Four dimensions were identified: management of the physical activity in the present so as to control health risks in the future; motivational and competitive self-management, represented by the idea of "taking pleasure" in the competition with yourself and referring to the constant persecution of challenges; the investment of time and an aesthetic of muscular utility; and the self-management of pleasure, which involves the incorporation of skills to overcome the pain caused by making an effort