ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the historical and theoretical context for the analysis of "Masculinity, Body, Subjectivity" and "Sport and Culture". It situates the present work in relation to previous research and sets out the conceptual framework for its key themes as well as touching upon important categories or areas of analysis. In the formative stages of bodybuilding in both Europe and the USA, the framing of the reformed male body as a critical unit of the national community borrows motifs and vocabularies from a culturally dominant discourse of degeneration. Bodybuilding can be said to constitute a habitus, that is "a structuring structure that organizes practices and the perceptions of practices". As Monaghan convincingly argues, immersing oneself into the bodybuilding habitus involves a process of becoming whereby perception of self and others, motivations for practice, and aesthetic evaluations change over time.
