Beyond existential and neoliberal explanations of consumers’ embodied risk-taking: CrossFit as an articulation of reflexive modernization

Abstract

This study analyzes CrossFit as a marketplace culture that articulates several key dimensions of reflexive modernization. Through this analysis, we illuminate a different set of theoretical relationships than have been addressed by previous accounts of physically challenging, risk-taking consumption practices. To provide analytic clarity, we first delineate the key differences between reflexive modernization and the two interpretive frameworks—the existential and neoliberal models—that have framed prior explanations of consumers’ proactive risk-taking. We then explicate the ways in which CrossFit’s marketplace culture shapes consumers’ normative understandings of risk and their corresponding identity goals. Rather than combatting modernist disenchantment (i.e., the existential model) or building human capital for entrepreneurial competitions (i.e., the neoliberal model), CrossFit enthusiasts understand risk-taking as a means to build their preparatory fitness for unknown contingencies and imminent threats. Our analysis bridges a theoretical chasm between studies analyzing consumers’ proactive risk-taking behavior and those addressing the feelings of anxiety and uncertainty induced by the threat of uncontrollable systemic risks.