Men have increasingly been dedicating time and effort to childcare. Consequently, the idea of the ‘new’ emotionally involved father has been discussed in the literature. This article focuses on narratives of divorced Swedish fathers with joint physical custody of their children. This arrangement, a new model of post-divorce parenting, has become increasingly popular in several Nordic countries. The article aims to analyse the experiences attached to and emanating from this particular form of post-divorce agreement, and how it is understood in relation to the Swedish childcare system. The fathers interviewed had a strong ambition to share things equally, as well as to carry on family practices in gender-equal ways. This desire was, however, balanced with a number of obstacles, such as work requirements, living conditions and conceptions of gender differences. In this way, the fathers’ subjective aspirations and strivings were filtered through structural and cultural conditions in society, with clear connections to Swedish family and gender politics.

This article describes and analyses the historical development of gym and fitness culture in general and doping use in this context in particular. Theoretically, the paper utilises the concept of subculture and explores how a subcultural response can be used analytically in relation to processes of cultural normalisation as well as marginalisation. The focus is on historical and symbolic negotiations that have occurred over time, between perceived expressions of extreme body cultures and sociocultural transformations in society—with a perspective on fitness doping in public discourse. Several distinct phases in the history of fitness doping are identified. First, there is an introductory phase in the mid-1950s, in which there is an optimism connected to modernity and thoughts about scientifically-engineered bodies. Secondly, in the 1960s and 70s, a distinct bodybuilding subculture is developed, cultivating previously unseen muscular male bodies. Thirdly, there is a critical phase in the 1980s and 90s, where drugs gradually become morally objectionable. The fourth phase, the fitness revolution, can be seen as a transformational phase in gym culture. The massive bodybuilding body is replaced with the well-defined and moderately muscular fitness body, but at the same time there are strong commercialised values which contribute to the development of a new doping market. Finally, it is possible to speculate on the development of a fifth phase, in which fitness doping is increasingly being filtered into mainstream gym and fitness culture, influencing the fitness doping demography.

This book investigates extreme sports, defined as sports in which athletes challenge and transgress societal perceptions of what is humanly possible to achieve, in terms of physical training and bodily development/performance. Situated within a growing body of literature analysing the impact of new training trends on an individual’s body, identity, lifestyle and perception of his/her social surroundings, Extreme Sports, Extreme Bodies focuses on the gendered and embodied experiences of bodybuilding, Ironman triathlon, and mixed martial arts.Through their ethnographic analysis, Andreasson and Johansson present a unique and updated account of the increasing phenomenon of extreme sports and extreme bodies in contemporary Western society, grounded in the sociology of sport, body studies and embodiment literature.

Situated within a framework of a globalized gym and fitness culture, this paper aims to investigate and compare how fitness doping can be understood in relation to, and how it is affected by, different national and local contexts. Representing different forms of welfare state regimes, the comparative analysis focuses on policy, practice, and prevention in the United States and Sweden. The findings indicate, among other things, how national level policy and implementation reflect local priorities, understandings, and values. Sweden’s choices form a pattern reflecting the priority of protecting the collective good over individual pursuits. Conversely, that the U.S. does not police outside formally governed competitions in sports or in criminal contexts. Further, U.S. bodybuilders do not feel targeted for their appearance in the same ways, illustrating the priority of individual choice. Further, the paper discusses how each country implements anti-doping in ways consistent with global policies, but are also informed by various local understandings and values. This interplay between the supranational structures and locally diverse implementation is not only complex, but can seem contradictory as each locality partly remains within a global system of anti-doping in sport, and partly operates outside this context. We suggest glocal fitness doping needs to be understood as a process through which global ideals, organisations, and more contribute to influencing local and national prevention policies and cultures, and vice versa.

Drawing on qualitative interviews with Mixed martial arts (MMA) athletes and stakeholders, this study aims to investigate the relationship between, on the one hand, MMA as a spectacle and imaginary world, and on the other, the fighters’ experiences of violence, pain and ‘the real’. Analytically, we are influenced by the literature on the spectacle and on hyperreality. The results show that athletes’ negotiations concerning the sport largely connect to a particular way of approaching violence – culturally and in terms of physical experience. On the one hand, there is a desire to portray MMA as a civilized and regulated sport. The athletes develop different strategies by which to handle or renegotiate the physical force and violence in the cage. On the other hand, however, the fighters’ bodily control and management of their fear sometimes breaks down. When the spectacle of the octagon becomes ‘real’, the legitimacy of the sport is questioned.

This study focuses on the physical expressions and intensity of embodiment that occur in the Ironman Triathlon. More specifically, the study investigates the transformational bodily experiences taking place during Ironman competitions. Using an ethnographic approach, a total of 29 Ironman triathletes participated in the study (15 men and 14 women). Theoretically, the article focuses on how triathletes’ bodies ‘move’ between different forms of embodiment. The results show that, in the process of disciplining the body, the athletes reconceptualized feelings of pain, nausea and even disgust, making these emotionally expressive aspects of the corpus into a part of the experience and bending them towards the pleasure of reaching potential divinity. Situated in a long tradition of philosophical and sociological explorations of the transgressing and transcending body, the study interprets and understands the performing body as a site for change and utopian possibilities. Thus the study adds to existing debates on contemporary individuals’ exploration of the existential and corporeal dimensions of modernity.

The widespread availability of doping and its growing prevalence among fitness groups has contributed greatly to the realization of an emergent public health issue. Emanating from an ethnographic study in Sweden, the purpose of this study was to describe and analyze the processes involved in becoming and "unbecoming" a fitness doping user. The study employs a cultural and sociological perspective as its theoretical framework and discusses how the participating users gradually develop their knowledge about the drugs and how the process of becoming a user is negotiated in relation to ideas and ideals concerning health, gender, and individual freedom and Swedish law. Regarding exit processes, (re)entering into what is perceived to be an ordinary "normal" life was seldom a straightforward process. To understand the complex and sometimes complicated transition processes involved in becoming respectively unbecoming a fitness doper, the results highlight the limitations of using stage models for understanding exit process as heuristic tools. Furthermore, the article argue for the necessity to investigate the negotiations of fitness doping, taking place in the intersection between subcultural affiliations/spaces, doping legislation, and mainstream perceptions of living a "Normal" life. It is argued that processes of (un)becoming a fitness doper are anything but linear and thus need to be understood in relation to sociocultural belonging and ongoing negotiation of the individual's sense of self.

Departing from a qualitative research approach, this article focuses on Swedish amateur Ironman triathletes and their family life. The purpose of the paper is to investigate how an elite amateur lifestyle is upheld and balanced with the demands of a sustainable family and social life. The results indicate that the process of becoming and staying an Ironman creates tensions in intimate relationships, making it hard to bring the family life puzzle together. Although the participants interviewed often talk about family life in terms of sharing things fairly equally, in terms of gender equity and involved parenthood, this seemingly is not always an easy ideal to fulfil in practice. On a broader cultural level, these findings can thus be contextualized in relation to discourses associated with the gendering of families and functions, and, of course, the gender of sport and performance.