Sport—‘It's Just Healthy’: Locating Healthism within Discourses of Social Integration.

Immigration discourses in Switzerland have developed out of a fear of ‘over-foreignisation’. Central to this development are discourses of difference in which Swiss culture is centred and foreign ones are marginalised. At present, Eastern and South-East European cultures are particularly affected. In this article, we challenge perceived cultural incommensurability by examining the socialisation of second-generation girls of immigrant background, through data generated from semi-structured interviews with them. The girls draw on a tightly defined discursive range of linguistic resources to construct the meanings of sport, health and the body. Specifically, the girls refer to healthism, within which sport is seen to provide a means to achieve good health and a slim and feminine body. These references reflect a set of knowledge and discourses important to Western cultures. Alternative discursive resources exist, yet were not utilised. We argue that the girls' adoption of healthist ideas is used to counter cultural narratives—such as the uncultured, and thus non-integrated, immigrant—and that this adoption supports and maintains white healthist ideas, ‘othering’ the (foreign) other. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]