Theses and Dissertations from UMD

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

Browse

Filters

2011 - 20122

Settings

Subject: search.filters.subject.Fitness

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Postcolonial Play: Encounters with Sport and Physical Culture in Contemporary India
    (2012) Maddox, Callie Elizabeth; Andrews, David L; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Drawing upon the idea that India and the West are "tethered geographies" (Reddy, 2006), this dissertation project explores how the ongoing and dialogic relationship between contemporary India and the West is represented, experienced, and contested in and through the realms of sport and physical culture. With escalating rates of economic growth, a rapidly expanding middle class, and increasing international political clout, India is emerging as a global power while simultaneously defining itself as a postcolonial nation against, and in tandem with, the West. Utilizing a fluid theoretical vocabulary (Andrews, 2008) and employing mixed qualitative research methods that include participant observation and interviews, I examine how various sites of physical culture serve as points of meaningful exchange between India and the West. This project presents a necessarily partial and contingent understanding of the chosen sites, tempered by considerable reflexivity and self-awareness, as my own Self is intricately enmeshed in this work. The four distinct, yet related, empirical studies that comprise this project thus focus on the following: 1) the embodiment of gendered nationalism and male power as manifested by the Cheer Queens, a cheerleading squad supporting the Pune Warriors cricket team in the Indian Premier League, and the Great Khali, a professional wrestler from India who performs internationally for World Wrestling Entertainment; 2) the city of Delhi's efforts to (re)create itself as a "world class" metropolis by hosting the 2010 Commonwealth Games that resulted in spatial exclusion and the magnification of social inequalities; 3) changing body ideals amongst the young Indian middle class influenced by Western fitness practices and neoliberal discourses of healthism; 4) perceptions of authenticity held by Western tourists traveling to India to study Ashtanga yoga that reject the syncretic evolution of yoga and contribute to a construction of Otherness that continues to mark India and Indians as exotic, primitive, and poor. Also included is an "interlude" chapter centered on my personal experiences as a white, Western woman navigating the complexities of daily life in India and questioning the place of my own body within a context of fear, harassment, and assault.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Physical Health and Architecture: Architecture as a Catalyst for Sustained Health
    (2011) Norwood, James Wilson; Kelly, Brian P; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Obesity has quickly become the largest contributor to health issues in America. The issue facing society is not only how to combat and address the concerns of preventable chronic disease, but to also find ways to improve health for the individual and the collective. Through architecture, this thesis is intended to design a community health and physical wellness center that has a focus on sustaining improved health. By evaluating the spaces for physiological needs of eating and exercising along with education, this facility is intended to serve as a catalyst for fostering a system of evaluation to reflect an entire lifestyle condition and improve an understanding of health and wellness issues within the community. The program elements of eating, exercising and educating create the spaces that frame the program and the spaces between these functions are where the inadvertent experience with health and wellness takes place. Ultimately, this is a space of recovery and learning; recovering a healthy self-image and physical being through learning ways to sustain and maintain a healthy lifestyle and how to ultimately motivate people into engaging with the facility, whether actively or passively.