Seminar Shifting Grounds: Pelle Pelters

Who Rules the Gym? Reflections on Norm-Criticality, Normality and Deviance in Health Contexts

Departing from a foundation in norm-critical education, this seminar explores norm-criticality as a way of raising awareness among members of a moral majority about how they contribute to sustaining a particular normative “X” — that is, how they reproduce X-related norms, discourses, and consequences in terms of privileges for themselves and prejudices about ‘the Other’.

The discussion takes its starting point in a set of fundamental questions: Who constitutes the “moral majority” with the power to define what is normal? Are norms dependent on a powerful group, or do they emerge simply because “everyone” conforms to them? What does it mean to speak of “normal” and “deviating” people, and how might such distinctions affect participants in norm-critical educational interventions or research contexts?

These questions are examined within the field of health, where most studies of “health” are in fact studies of illness. The seminar will consider how normality is constructed in environments governed by multiple, sometimes conflicting, normative frames. It will also address the limits of intersectionality when different norms highlight different groups of deviators and when no single dominant position appears to “rule.”

The discussion will be grounded in an empirical study of gym practices, focusing on experiences of pain — both physical and social — and on the pain of not fitting in within exercise-related norms. By contrasting the normative frames emerging from this study with findings from other investigations of “gym norms,” the seminar raises the question: Who rules the gym?

After a short introductory presentation, the session will primarily focus on an open discussion of these questions.

Pelle Pelters is an associate professor and senior lecturer in (health) education at Stockholm University. S/he is a sociologist with roots in educational science who conducts health studies from a (norm-)critical point of view. Research interests include health as an order of power, its morality and normality, as well as health disparities and the meaning of good health and health-related practices.