“Bodybuilding Does Not Need American Certifications”: Cultural Entrepreneurship in Times of Globalization in Contemporary Bengal

Abstract

Kolkata—once a bastion of nationalist physical institutions such as wrestling, stick-fighting, bodybuilding, and yoga—now hosts American-styled gyms that aim to neoliberalize the experience of going to the gym. Interviews with twenty personal trainers in the city, however, revealed important continuities that exist between the endogenic physical culture of pre-globalized Bengal and the neoliberal culture of fitness. In spite of their newfound employment in American-styled gyms, and concerted efforts at self-making to increase the economic value of their skills, the men in the study had not uprooted themselves from the physical culture of the city, which made fostering fraternal ties based on relationships of apprenticeship and deference central to the pursuit of fitness. The linking of these worlds was made possible by a form of cultural entrepreneurship that blends the neoliberal ethos of constant self-work to succeed economically with the emotional need to preserve familiar institutions and intimate bonds.

This chapter would not have been possible without the men and women interviewees of this study who took time out of their extremely busy work schedules to talk to me. For their engaged responses, I am deeply grateful. I would also like to extend my thanks to Smitha Radhakrishnan and Gowri Vijayakumar for their careful consideration of my manuscript and thoughtful feedback. A special thanks to Loyola University New Orleans for their generous support through the Marquette Faculty Research Fellowship and Bobet Fellowship that enabled me to write the first drafts of this chapter. My biggest thank you, however, is reserved for my husband Leopold Eisenlohr who took on extra responsibilities of childcare at home, as I worked on this chapter in the middle of a pandemic.