Up and Run : Ett antropologiskt perspektiv på löpning

People sign up for various races in Sweden and internationally. I have participated in the practice of running and I have done twenty-five interviews with runners in Belfast and Stockholm. I have also taken part in a training trip to Portugal. This master's thesis answers the question of individuals' experiences of running and the focus has been the physical and emotional experience runners get from running. From a wider perspective I discuss how running create meaning and identity through emotional and physical experience gained trans- locally. With runners, I mean people who run for their own benefit and not professional runners. What kind of bodily experiences and what emotions raise the run? From an anthropological perspective I discuss emotions, which encompass both feelings and meanings of running shared by runners in what I call, with help of Appadurai (1996) a runningscape. The emotions are culturally created in this runningscape, and still perceived as unique to the individual. My study is theoretically infused by Gidden’s perspective on lifestyle and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological focus on the body. Merleau-Ponty thoughts on”embodied consciousness”are linked to the anthropological perspective of emotions. The runner and the run with the bodily and emotional experiences clarify the meaning of "embodied consciousness". That creates meaning and identity and affects the choices we make in everyday life. In this study, I have been able to identify three types of runners. The first one is ”thinking runners” who put more emphasis on learning everything about technicalities of running. For them the feeling of accomplishment is important. The second is ”feeling-runners” in which the bodily experience of rhythm, body, and a meditative sense is important. The third one is”health-runners” where the responsibilities for their own health are in focus. This study has shown that running gives a strong sense of enthusiasm and energy combined with a sense of peace and tranquillity, which combine to create a sense of purpose. I argue that an anthropological perspective based on emotions can in further studies help to discuss the individual's lifestyle choices in everyday life. Key words: Emotions, body, runners, running, embodiment, meaning, identit