Jannis Ruhnau

Abstract of the dissertation project

Feeling strength, seeing muscles - Narrated body-self relationships of trans* and non-binary people and cisgender lesbians in weight training (working title)
The dissertation project examines the body-self relationships of trans* and non-binary people as well as cisgender lesbians who do weight training in narrative interviews. The research project is theoretically situated between phenomenological and post-structuralist concepts and attempts to subject the ways in which bodies are seen and felt - in short: perceived - to a subjectivization-theoretical reading. In a first step, a phenomenological conception of the felt body following Maurice Merleau-Ponty is linked with the concept of the self-relation following Michel Foucault. In a second step, a methodological framework is designed to analyze self-relations in narrative interviews. Of central importance is the production of body-self relations on 2 different levels of analysis in the interview: On the level of what is told and how, and on the level of the interaction between interviewer and interviewee. By looking at both levels together, an experience can be analyzed in the interview that goes beyond the content of what is said. This analytical perspective decentres the first-person perspective of a speaking subject and ties it back to the relational production in the interview situation.
In the analysis of the manufactured body-self relationships, weight training shows itself to be an opportunity to relate to oneself in a way that is able to block out painful discrimination and devaluation processes and instead create the imagination of a strong and self-sufficient self. The body, which has been normatively shaped by the gaze of others during the socialization process, becomes perceptible in new ways by turning to oneself. This not only changes the feeling of the body, but also the way in which bodies are seen. At the same time, these new gazes always remain referenced to the hegemonic order - working on one's own seeing and sensing thus becomes a daily routine that finds its practical and metaphorical realization in weight training.