Imposturas, peligros “sanitarios” y estereotipos de clase

As any activity in the context of the pandemic, running in Argentina experienced strong impacts that are not only reduced to the abrupt interruption of the activity and its main interaction rituals, which are the races. In addition, runners were social actors of notorious presence in public agenda, especially in the first months of the pandemic and the Social, Preventive and Compulsory Isolation (ASPO). Their public demands “to go running” stimulated the circulation of discourses that reinstated a common negative stereotype of the Argentine middle class, with the addition that runners came to be defined as one of the main hazards to collective health. In this context, prejudices, impostures and stereotypes were expressed that were firmly embedded in common sense but also in academic discourse. This article therefore critically exposes those analytical and interpretative frameworks that lead to approaches that simplify and even moralize collective behavior, in this case that of the “middle class.”