Familiar strangers: facework strategies in pursuit of nonbinding relationships in a workplace exercise group Article (Accepted Version) http://sro.sussex.ac.uk Rossing, Hilde and Scott, Susie (2014) Copyright and reuse:Sussex Research Online is a digital repository of the research output of the University.Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable, the material made available in SRO has been checked for eligibility before being made available.Copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way.

This reflexive analysis of two sports ethnographers’ studies of an aerobics class and a swimming pool explores the effects of doing fieldwork on a physical activity that one loves. While using our bodies as phenomenological sites of perception initially created an epistemological advantage, researching the familiarly beloved not only ‘took the fun out of’ the activity, but also more profoundly challenged our ‘exercise identities’. Emulating poor technique, enduring interactional awkwardness, and deep acting role performances, combined to take their toll, so that ‘going native’ became a matter not just of intellectual disadvantage but of ontological destabilisation. Doing activity-based ethnography on something personally special is a double-edged sword: on the one hand elucidating awareness, but on the other depriving the researcher of pleasure and ‘spoiling’ aspects of their identity.

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While research has found that a developed exercise identity enables individuals to view exercise participation as self-reinforcing, the social barriers to such exercise identity development and participation have not been fully addressed. The subsequent aim of this study was to explore some of the social complexities at play in terms of how company employees construct and manage their exercise identities within a work place setting. A case-study method was used to address the research issue over a nine-month period. The case to be studied included a sample of 72 employees from a Norwegian public company who participated in an on-going work-based exercise programme called 'Exercise for all'.The principal means of data collection comprised participant observation, individual interviews and exercise logbooks. The data were subject to inductive analysis. The primary barriers to exercise participation included high levels of social comparison in a competitive working context, particularly in relation to 'competent colleagues', and feelings of guilt associated with partaking in 'recreational' activities during work hours.Strategies engaged with to overcome and negotiate such obstacles included justifying participation through a health-related discourse, and constructing a more distinct 'workerexerciser' identity.

Familiar strangers: facework strategies in pursuit of nonbinding relationships in a workplace exercise group Article (Accepted Version) http://sro.sussex.ac.uk Rossing, Hilde and Scott, Susie (2014) Copyright and reuse:Sussex Research Online is a digital repository of the research output of the University.Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable, the material made available in SRO has been checked for eligibility before being made available.Copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way.