Helen Owton

Intense Embodiment Senses of Heat in Women’s Running and Boxing

In recent years, calls have been made to address the relative dearth of qualitative sociological investigation into the sensory dimensions of embodiment, including within physical cultures. This article contributes to a small, innovative and developing literature utilizing sociological phenomenology to examine sensuous embodiment. Drawing upon data from three research projects, here we explore some of the ‘sensuousities’ of ‘intense embodiment’ experiences as a distance-running-woman and a boxing-woman, respectively. Our analysis addresses the relatively unexplored haptic senses, particularly the ‘touch’ of heat. Heat has been argued to constitute a specific sensory mode, a trans-boundary sense. Our findings suggest that ‘lived’ heat, in our own physical-cultural experiences, has highly proprioceptive elements and is experienced as both a form of touch and as a distinct perceptual mode, dependent upon context. Our analysis coheres around two key themes that emerged as salient: (1) warming up, and (2) thermoregulation, which in lived experience were encountered as strongly interwoven.

Take a deep breath: Asthma, sporting embodiment, the senses and ‘auditory work’

There has been a veritable efflorescence of interest in sporting embodiment in recent years, including more phenomenologically inspired sociological analyses. A sociology of the senses is, however, a very recent sub-discipline, which provides an interesting new dimension to studies of sporting embodiment, focusing inter alia upon the sensory elements of ‘somatic work’: the ways in which we go about making sense of our senses within a socio-cultural (and sub-cultural) framework. The present article contributes to a developing sociological-phenomenological empirical corpus of literature by addressing the lived experience of asthma in non-élite sports participants. Despite the prevalence of asthma and exercise-induced asthma/bronchoconstriction, there is a distinct lacuna in terms of qualitative research into living with asthma, and specifically in relation to sports participation. Here we focus upon the aural dimension of asthma experiences, examining the role of ‘auditory attunement’ and ‘auditory work’ in sporting embodiment.

Close But Not Too Close Friendship as Method(ology) in Ethnographic Research Encounters

“Friendship as method” is a relatively underexplored—and often unacknowledged—method, even within ethnographic inquiry. In this article, we consider the use of friendship as method in general, and situate this in relation to a specific ethnographic research project, which examined the lived experience of asthma amongst sports participants. The study involved researching individuals with whom the principal researcher had prior existing friendships. Via forms of confessional tales we explore some of the challenges encountered when attempting to negotiate the demands of the dual researcher-friend role, particularly during in-depth interviews. To illustrate our analysis, four sets of tales are examined, cohering around issues of: (1) attachment and when to “let go”; (2) interactional “game-play”; (3) “rescuing” participants; and (4) the need for researcher self-care when “things get too much.” The need to guard against merger with research participants-as-friends is also addressed. In analysing the tales, we draw upon insights derived from symbolic interactional analyses and in particular upon Goffman’s theoretical frameworks on interactional encounters.

Leaning: A Poetics of Personal Relations

This intriguing book, told from the heart to other hearts by Ronald Pelias, is part of a wider series entitled “Writing lives—ethnographic narratives” (Series editors: Bochner and Ellis). As part of this series, which aims to publish narrative representations that blur boundaries between humanities and social sciences, this book offers an autoethnographic, literary, poetic, artistic, multi-voiced, critical, and conversational representation that unfolds Pelias’ critical reflections on personal relations. Initially, when I first turn the crisp pages, I hear echoes of Gergen’s (2009) Relational Being in a way that bonds both writers, through pouring hearts, leaning toward an understanding of personal relations and a methodology of the heart (Pelias, 2004). But I do not draw comparisons here; I will try and ‘pull you in’ to the complex and intricate world of Pelias just as he ‘pulls me in’ to his world when he writes. The book is divided into five parts: (i) language relationships; (ii) listening to myself and others; (iii) watching men; (iv) holding friends and lovers; and (v) carrying family. These are all aimed at constructing a critical ethnographic narrative to show a new way of being—leaning in to a way of being.

“It's My Dream to Work With Olympic Athletes”: Neophyte Sport Psychologists’ Expectations and Initial Experiences Regarding Service Delivery

We examined postgraduate students’ experiences of applied sport psychology (ASP) practice and training. We interviewed 5 female and 2 male (21–45 years of age) MSc students 4 times over 6 months before, during, and after their ASP module. Participants kept diaries for 8 weeks when working with clients. Findings extend previous literature on the pivotal transition from student to inexperienced practitioner. For example, ways that live demonstrations of experts, client experiences, and collegial interactions influenced students’ development were identified. These findings may assist ASP educators and supervisors prepare students for their careers.

Sexual Abuse in Sport

This chapter provides an overview of the book. There is a brief discussion on the prevalence of abuse in sport and the taboo nature of abuse in sport. Following this, a summary of the chapters is provided that explores the experiences of one female athlete named Bella who was groomed, sexually abused by her male coach and then subjected to years of athlete domestic violence. Considerations are drawn regarding the researcher’s role and position in the project. Key features that the book includes are outlined, specifically, the strength of the book which is the voice of Bella as a detailed case study, which is weaved throughout the book to connect readers who can then identify with the stories and personal experiences that Bella shares.

Streams of bereavement

This article offers “streams of bereavement” narratives across time. The author seeks to present a multilayered voiced account through vignettes and poems about the loss of her father who died 20 years ago. This aims to address the complex and traumatizing nature of living with grief and the shifting and multifaceted ways a young bereaved daughter might try and make sense of such a loss. This article is in response to reading “Fathers and Sons: Bits and Pieces” and the call for more in-depth qualitative inquiries into parentally bereaved young people. These narratives are offered in the hope that humane connections are discovered that facilitate others to make sense of a similar life event.

‘It stays with you’: multiple evocative representations of dance and future possibilities for studies in sport and physical cultures

Abstract This article considers the integration of arts-based representations via poetic narratives together with artistic representation on dancing embodiment so as to continue an engagement with debates regarding multiple forms/representations. Like poetry, visual images are unique and can evoke particular kinds of emotional and visceral responses, meaning that alternative representational forms can resonate in different and powerful ways. In the article, we draw on grandparent-grandchild interactions, narrative poetry, and artistic representations of dance in order to illustrate how arts-based methods might synergise to offer new ways of ‘knowing’ and ‘seeing’. The expansion of the visual arts into interdisciplinary methodological innovations is a relatively new, and sometimes contentious approach, in studies of sport and exercise. We raise concerns regarding the future for more arts-based research in the light of an ever-changing landscape of a neoliberal university culture that demands high productivity in reductionist terms of what counts as ‘output’, often within very restricted time-frames. Heeding feminist calls for ‘slow academies’ that attempt to ‘change’ time collectively, and challenge the demands of a fast-paced audit culture, we consider why it is worth enabling creative and arts-based methods to continue to develop and flourish in studies of sport, exercise and health, despite the mounting pressures to ‘perform’.

The Grooming Process in Sport

This chapter seeks to show the grooming process in action and the subtle ways the triangulated relationship advances in order for a coach to act on their intent to abuse an athlete in their care. A discussion of the grooming process in relation to David Finklehor’s proposed model of child sexual abuse work and Brackeridge’s adaptations for sport precedes Bella’s memories of abuse via vignettes and poems. Bella’s story aims to draw the reader in to her experiences of abuse so they may be able to empathise, resonate and understand the abuse at a deeper and more complex level. The chapter ends with considerations of links to three main types of coaches in the sport typology.

Sexual abuse and the grooming process in sport: Learning from Bella's story

ABSTRACT Through a process of collaborative autoethnography, we explore the experiences of one female athlete named Bella who was groomed and then sexually abused by her male coach. Bellas story signals how the structural conditions and power relationships embedded in competitive sporting environments, specifically the power invested in the coach, provide a unique sociocultural context that offers a number of potentialities for sexual abuse and exploitation to take place. We offer Bellas story as a pedagogical resource for those involved in the world of sport to both think about and with as part of a process of encouraging change at the individual and institutional levels.