Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson

Sporting embodiment: sports studies and the (continuing) promise of phenomenology

Whilst in recent years sports studies have addressed the calls ‘to bring the body back in’ to theorisations of sport and physical activity, the ‘promise of phenomenology’ remains largely under‐realised with regard to sporting embodiment. Relatively few accounts are grounded in the ‘flesh’ of the lived sporting body, and phenomenology offers a powerful framework for such analysis. A wide‐ranging, multi‐stranded and interpretatively contested perspective phenomenology in general has been taken up and utilised in very different ways within different disciplinary fields. The purpose of this article is to consider some selected phenomenological threads, key qualities of the phenomenological method and the potential for existentialist phenomenology in particular to contribute fresh perspectives to the sociological study of embodiment in sport and exercise. It offers one way to convey the ‘essences’, corporeal immediacy and textured sensuosity of the lived sporting body. The use of interpretative phenomenological analysis is also critically addressed.

Feeling the way: Notes toward a haptic phenomenology of distance running and scuba diving:

Along with a resurgence of interest in ‘the body’ within the social sciences generally over the last two decades, in recent years a corpus of sociological research specifically on sporting embodiment has started to develop. Calls have been made to analyse more fully and deeply the sensory dimension of the lived sporting body, including via phenomenological perspectives. This article contributes to this developing literature by bringing to bear insights derived from existential phenomenology on two distinct sporting milieux: middle/long-distance running and scuba diving. As the social sciences in general have been accused of a high degree of ocularcentrism, here we focus upon touch, and specifically upon heat and pressure as two key structures of haptic lived experience.

Feminist Phenomenology and the Woman in the Running Body

Modern phenomenology, with its roots in Husserlian philosophy, has been taken up and utilised in a myriad of ways within different disciplines, but until recently has remained relatively underused within sports studies. A corpus of sociological-phenomenological work is now beginning to develop in this domain, alongside a longer-standing literature in feminist phenomenology. These specific social-phenomenological forms explore the situatedness of lived-body experience within a particular social structure. After providing a brief overview of key strands of phenomenology, this article considers some of the ways in which sociological, and particularly feminist, phenomenology might be used to analyse female sporting embodiment. For illustrative purposes, data from an autophenomenographic project on female distance running are also included, in order briefly to demonstrate the application of phenomenology within sociology, as both theoretical framework and methodological approach.

The sensorium at work: the sensory phenomenology of the working body

The sociology of the body and the sociology of work and occupations have both neglected to some extent the study of the ‘working body’ in paid employment, particularly with regard to empirical research into the sensory aspects of working practices. This gap is perhaps surprising given how strongly the sensory dimension features in much of working life. This article is very much a first step in calling for a more phenomenological, embodied and ‘fleshy’ perspective on the body in employment, and examines some of the theoretical and conceptual resources available to researchers wishing to focus on the lived working-body experiences of the sensorium. We also consider some possible representational forms for a more evocative, phenomenologically-inspired portrayal of sensory, lived-working-body experiences, and offer suggestions for future avenues of research.

Intention and epochē in tension: autophenomenography, bracketing and a novel approach to researching sporting embodiment

This article considers a novel approach to researching sporting embodiment via what has been termed ‘autophenomenography’. Whilst having some similarities with autoethnography, autophenomenography provides a distinctive research form, located within phenomenology as theoretical and methodological tradition. Its focus is upon the researcher’s own lived experience of a phenomenon or phenomena. This article examines some of the key elements of a sociological phenomenological approach to studying sporting embodiment in general before portraying how autophenomenography was utilised specifically within two recent research projects on distance running. The thorny issues of epochē and bracketing within phenomenological and autophenomenographical research are addressed and some practical suggestions tentatively posited.

The Supervision of Practice-based Research Degrees in Art and Design

Literature on the supervision of practice-based research degrees in art and design is at present relatively underdeveloped, particularly in relation to empirical studies. This paper, which is based on qualitative interviews with 50 supervisors engaged in the supervision of practice-based doctorates in a range of UK universities and colleges, aims to begin to remedy this lacuna. It examines specific problems encountered by supervisors of practice-based research degrees, and portrays some of the strategies developed and employed by supervisors as they attempt to guide student endeavour towards the successful combining of creative and analytical work.

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.

Identity change: doctoral students in art and design

For over a decade, practice-based research degrees in art and design have formed part of the United Kingdom research degree education portfolio, with a relatively rapid expansion in recent years. This route to the PhD still constitutes an innovative, and on occasion a disputed, form of research study and students embarking upon the practice-based doctorate find themselves in many ways undertaking pioneering work. To date there has been a dearth of empirical studies of the actual experiences of such students. This article, based upon qualitative interviews with 50 students based at 25 institutions, represents an attempt to begin to fill this lacuna. The article charts the biographical change which students undergo as they pursue their doctorates. It examines the ways in which they construct, maintain, and modify their identities whilst in the role of ‘creator/maker’, and seek to manage and combine the different modes of being required of a ‘creator’ and a researcher.

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.