by Thomas Alkemeyer
Observations on the changing physicality of everyday urban life
Adidas, Nike, Puma - they functioned perfectly in a competitive society in which there was hardly anything "that couldn't be turned into a 'challenge'", wrote the Berlin Tagesspiegel on 18 April. But that is no longer the case in these times, and things are also getting tight economically for the three sporting goods giants. The fashion label Filippa K, which markets itself as sustainable, has already reacted. It propagates relaxation instead of competition and optimisation. And the menswear designer from Louis Vuitton, of all companies, believes that humanity is now more important than vanity in fashion too. This fits in with an observation by Freiburg sociologist Ulrich Bröckling that the optimisation imperative loses its "pulling power" "when, in the face of pandemics, climate change and other threats, hopes for the future are reduced to the idea that, at best, things won't be quite so bad." Future scenarios are changing the present: prevention, sustainability and coping are becoming more important than perfection, enhancement and singularity.
The body as an endangered threat
Anyone walking through a major German city at the moment will notice signs of this change in the flesh. Streets, public squares and parks are teeming with walkers, cyclists, joggers and inline skaters, fitness trainees and gymnasts of almost all ages. Some stretch, stretch and stretch their tired bones in the old German way, others knot their bodies in cute yoga asanas to revitalise their exhausted souls. The fact that people are exercising in urban public spaces - especially in the sunshine and early summer temperatures - is nothing new. This trend has been observed since the 1980s. However, the scenery and the sound of the urban space have changed noticeably in the last four weeks. It has become much quieter - streets without motorcades, the sky almost without aeroplanes, neither music nor the babble of voices from pubs and street cafés. Against this backdrop, the countless units travelling on foot, on wheels or on rollers, alone or in teams of two, are all the more striking.
What's more, the number of fans of sporty fresh air exercise seems to have grown. Bicycle dealers can look forward to good business, and you can meet a number of outdoor motorists whose heavy steps indicate that jogging has not been one of their core activities for too long. Experienced endurance runners speak disparagingly of "corona joggers". And, above all, the new mass movement appears to be driven less by a need to outdo and showcase themselves than by completely different motives. Its members are not competing for the fastest pace, the freshest look or the best-defined muscles, they are not playing a self-indulgent game with their own bodies, but are moving moderately and compensating in a completely unspectacular way for the standstill to which the rapid changes in our society are currently condemning them. In this crisis compensation movement, it seems that the body does not have the status of a raw material that is to be optimised and designed for effect in order to increase the chances of success on the labour and erotic markets. Rather, it is being rediscovered as a susceptible and vulnerable variable that requires attention and care in order to stay healthy or even alive. Moderate exercise in the fresh air not only trains the cardiovascular system and muscles, but also strengthens the immune system by stimulating the production of killer cells and lymphocytes, which protect us from bacteria and viruses. Hard performance training, on the other hand, has the exact opposite effect and makes us particularly susceptible to infections, say sports physicians.
This new mindfulness and foresight extends not only to our own bodies, but also to the bodies of others: To the extent that one's own body is perceived as an endangered commodity, other bodies enter the stage of fleeting contact situations as potential sources of danger. In the times ante coronam, the basic rule for contact between the various units of locomotion - cars, cyclists, strolling couples, etc. - called for the prevention of collisions. Now it demands a distance of at least one and a half metres. This leads to sometimes bizarre contortions, evasive manoeuvres and social constellations, especially in crowded places such as parks and cycle paths. Because all sorts of things have to be taken into account: the speed and direction of movement of the bodies encountering the dangers, the available room to manoeuvre, the relationship with your jogging partner (do you live together, can you get closer to each other, etc.). The challenges to your own coordination skills are enormous, your usual body behaviour loses its naturalness.
Distance out of fear
In the first two weeks of the lockdown, the new behavioural insecurity was still palpable. You could see in others and in yourself how you first had to think and take a time-consuming diversions via your reflective consciousness in order to harmonise your own movements with the movements of other locomotion units. Gradually, however, dodging and keeping your distance begins to become a new bodily routine. The physical announcements of the others are now deciphered quite quickly and one's own behaviour - speed, direction of movement, the amplitude of the limbs - can be adjusted to what has been deciphered. Together with the expansion of the "territories of the self" (Erving Goffman) to a radius of at least 1.50 metres, into which intrusion is perceived as a violent violation not only of personal integrity, but potentially also of health, new ways of body-distancing and body-distancing interaction are emerging: you should give other people a wide berth when you pass them, or - even better - stroll, run or cycle where there are only a few people around. After all, you are only safe from others if you keep the necessary distance - and others are only safe from you. Politicians have long been able to say social distancing with the same ease as the black zero not so long ago.
Historically, maintaining distance is a constitutive feature of what the sociologist Norbert Elias described as the process of civilisation: Affects had to be regulated, violence had to be controlled, distance had to be maintained, otherwise the modern, highly differentiated society based on global dependencies would not have been able to emerge and sustain itself. Since the Middle Ages, physical distancing has become a functional behavioural standard of politeness that has gradually permeated society as a whole, starting from the upper social classes. However, the motive behind the distancing practices that can be observed today is not politeness, but the naked fear of the bodies of others. You can never be sure. The mask, which is slowly becoming socially acceptable, is a clear sign of the danger that can emanate from any body. It visibly marks the body as a potential source of infection, whose visible openings must be prevented from flinging its potentially highly contagious viruses into the world in an uncontrolled manner, while at the same time suggesting protection from foreign viruses. Concern for one's own body and fear of the other are mutually dependent.
Elias has shown that the enforcement of distancing rules has lowered the thresholds of shame and embarrassment: Modern people feel embarrassed when they get too close to strangers, especially when they are doing intimate things - sleeping, having sex or doing their business. We are now starting to feel discomfort and embarrassment when we see people sitting, standing or even lying close to each other in public, let alone touching. Images of people celebrating, hugging, drinking from a glass or even protesting together in public places, which were completely normal for us just four weeks ago, now seem to us as if they come from a dark past: something like this was possible, didn't they realise the risks they were taking? Physical proximity has lost its innocence within a very short space of time. It can hardly be practised unsuspectingly any more. It's like the new smoking.
Corona racism
Sometimes the fear of the other body turns into racism. This is the case when the other body is perceived as a specimen, as the embodiment of the characteristics of a whole group of other, similar bodies. In Germany, Asian-looking people in particular are currently experiencing this on a massive scale. Because, according to current knowledge, the virus first appeared in the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan, these people are increasingly being identified as potential carriers and a contagious danger, insulted and, yes, spat on (see Berliner Tagesspiegel of 18 April). Media framing has also contributed to this from the outset. Not only does Trump never tire of locating the origin of the virus in Chinese laboratories, but German mass media also like to illustrate reports about the virus with 'Asian' people running around in protective suits or eating bats, as was the case a few days ago in a programme by Markus Lanz. In other countries, migrants, Muslims, black people or Sinti and Roma are seen as hotbeds of disease whose potential danger cannot be avoided by keeping your distance. From a racist point of view, they are best kept outside or (re)removed. Seen in this light, their bodies seem to pose an even greater danger to 'humanity' than the bomb belts of those Islamist 'danger groups' on which racist fears were focussed just a few weeks ago.
Thomas Alkemeyer, Dr phil. habil., is Professor of Sociology and Sports Sociology at the Institute of Sport Science at the University of Oldenburg.
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