scholarly journals Dialoguing with Body: A Self Study in Relational Pedagogy through Embodiment and the Therapeutic Relationship

Author(s):  
Chantale Lussier-Ley

This article emerges from a self-study (Baird, 2004; Bergum, 2003; Grumet, 1990; Ham & Kane, 2004; Kitchen, 2005a, 2005b; Loughran, 2004) conducted as a requirement for a doctoral class at the University of Ottawa in the Faculty of Education. In this study, I reflected on my embodied experiences and the role of the body in my consulting practice in sport and performance psychology with athletes and dancers. Inspired by the work of Chehayl (2006), I engaged in a narrative analysis (Sands, 2002; Sparkes, 2002) of my own emerging autobiographic tale, and actively worked towards re-storying my body through a multi voiced dialogue between various "bodies" at play, both mine and those I interacted with. In light of my own personal experiences, combined with my growing understanding of the philosophy of the flesh (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999) and notions of embodiment in the therapeutic relationship, this study aimed to examine a) how I experienced my body in different domains of daily practice, b) what meaning I derived from these embodied experiences, c) what tensions, congruencies, and divergences existed within my embodied experiences, and d) what implications emerged relating to my consulting practice. Emerging from this self-study is the importance of learning to trust feel, learning to let go, and learning that I/matter. An embodied perspective appears to be an important part of a relational pedagogy and has the potential to facilitate healthy therapeutic relationships when integrated into a reflective, consulting, educational practice.

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Josée Perrier ◽  
Shaelyn M. Strachan ◽  
Brett Smith ◽  
Amy E. Latimer-Cheung

Individuals with acquired physical disabilities report lower levels of athletic identity. The objective of this study was to further explore why athletic identity may be lost or (re)developed after acquiring a physical disability. Seven women and four men (range = 28–60 years) participated in approximately 1-hour-long semi-structured interviews; data were subjected to a narrative analysis. The structural analysis revealed three narrative types. The nonathlete narrative described physical changes in the body as reasons for diminished athletic identity. The athlete as a future self primarily focused on present sport behavior and performance goals such that behavior changes diminished athletic identity. The present self as athlete narrative type focused on the aspects of their present sport involvement, such as feedback from other athletes and skill development, which supported their athletic identity. Implications of these narrative types with respect to sport promotion among people with acquired physical disabilities are discussed.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rick Dolphijn

Starting with Antonin Artaud's radio play To Have Done With The Judgement Of God, this article analyses the ways in which Artaud's idea of the body without organs links up with various of his writings on the body and bodily theatre and with Deleuze and Guattari's later development of his ideas. Using Klossowski (or Klossowski's Nietzsche) to explain how the dominance of dialogue equals the dominance of God, I go on to examine how the Son (the facialised body), the Father (Language) and the Holy Spirit (Subjectification), need to be warded off in order to revitalize the body, reuniting it with ‘the earth’ it has been separated from. Artaud's writings on Balinese dancing and the Tarahumaran people pave the way for the new body to appear. Reconstructing the body through bodily practices, through religion and above all through art, as Deleuze and Guattari suggest, we are introduced not only to new ways of thinking theatre and performance art, but to life itself.


Human Arenas ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramiro Tau ◽  
Laure Kloetzer ◽  
Simon Henein

AbstractIn this paper, we attempt to show some consequences of bringing the body back into higher education, through the use of performing arts in the curricular context of scientific programs. We start by arguing that dominant traditions in higher education reproduced the mind-body dualism that shaped the social matrix of meanings on knowledge transmission. We highlight the limits of the modern disembodied and decontextualized reason and suggest that, considering the students’ and teachers’ bodies as non-relevant aspects, or even obstacles, leads to the invisibilization of fundamental aspects involved in teaching and learning processes. We thus conducted a study, from a socio-cultural perspective, in which we analyse the emerging matrix of meanings given to the body and bodily engagement by students, through a systematic qualitative analysis of 47 personal diaries. We structured the results and the discussion around five interpretative axes: (1) the production of diaries enables historicization, while the richness of bodily experience expands the boundaries of diaries into non-textual modalities; (2) curricular context modulates the emergent meanings of the body; (3) physical and symbolic spaces guide the matrix of bodily meanings; (4) the bodily dimension of the courses facilitates the emergence of an emotional dimension to get in touch with others and to register one's own emotional experiences; and (5) the body functions as a condition for biographical continuity. These axes are discussed under the light of the general process of consciousness-raising and resignification of the situated body in the educational practice.


2021 ◽  
pp. 017084062199450
Author(s):  
Lauren McCarthy ◽  
Sarah Glozer

Emotional energy is key to disruptive institutional work, but we still know little about what it is, and importantly, how it is refuelled. This empirical paper presents an in-depth case study of ‘No More Page 3’ (#NMP3), an Internet-based feminist organization which fought for the removal of sexualized images of women from a UK newspaper. Facing online misogyny, actors engage in ‘emotional energy replenishment’ to sustain this disruptive institutional work amid emotional highs and lows. We introduce ‘affective embodiment’ – the corporeal and emotional experiences of the institution – as providing emotional energy in relation to disruptive institutional work. Affective embodiment is surfaced through alignment or misalignment with others’ embodied experiences, and this mediates how actors replenish emotional energy. Alignment with others’ embodied experiences, often connected to online abuse, means emotional energy is replenished through ‘affective solidarity’ (movement towards the collective). Misalignment, surfaced through tensions within the movement, means actors seek replenishment through ‘sensory retreat’ (movement away from the collective). This study contributes to theorization on institutional work and emotional energy by recentring the importance of the body alongside emotions, as well as offering important lessons for online organizing.


2014 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 362-392
Author(s):  
Diana Looser

In the closing scene of René-Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt's melodramaLa Tête de mort; ou, Les Ruines de Pompeïa(1827), audiences at Paris's Théâtre de la Gaîté were presented with the spectacular cataclysm of an erupting Mount Vesuvius that invaded the city and engulfed the hapless characters in its fiery embrace. “The theatre,” Pixérécourt writes, “is completely inundated by this sea of bitumen and lava. A shower of blazing and transparent stones and red ash falls on all sides…. The red color with which everything is struck, the terrible noise of the volcano, the screaming, the agitation and despair of the characters … all combine to form this terrible convulsion of nature, a horrible picture, and altogether worthy of being compared to Hell.” A few years later, in 1830, Daniel Auber's grand operaLa Muette de Portici(1828), which yoked a seventeenth-century eruption of Vesuvius with a popular revolt against Spanish rule in Naples, opened at the Théâtre de Monnaie in Brussels. The Belgian spectators, inspired by the opera's revolutionary sentiments, poured out into the streets and seized their country's independence from the Dutch. These two famous examples, which form part of a long genealogy of representing volcanic eruptions through various artistic means, highlight not only the compelling, immersive spectacle of nature in extremis but also the ability of stage scenery to intervene materially in the narrative action and assimilate affective and political meanings. As these two examples also indicate, however, the body of scholarship in literary studies, art history, and theatre and performance studies that attends to the mechanical strategies and symbolic purchase of volcanic representations has tended to focus mainly on Europe; more research remains to be undertaken into how volcanic spectacles have engaged with non-European topographies and sociopolitical dynamics and how this wider view might illuminate our understanding of theatre's social roles.


Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 183
Author(s):  
Diksha Vijapur ◽  
Christhina Candido ◽  
Özgür Göçer ◽  
Shirley Wyver

Flexible Learning Environments (FLEs) arose as enablers for implementation of student-centric pedagogical approaches. Interior design is the key to the success of FLEs, providing the physical infrastructure needed for students to engage on several learning activities, from individual to group work, which take place in a variety of zones ranging from low to high energy. Therefore, a harmonious synergy between the interior design and subsequent Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) performance of FLEs’ physical configuration and learning activities is needed. The objective of this paper is to systematically review (in accordance with the PRISMA method) existing literature related to FLEs within primary school settings, typically catering to children aged 5–12 years old, to understand the body of work investigating the design and performance of FLEs over the last decade (2010–2020). Key findings suggest that the proximity and acoustic and visual permeability of zones found in FLEs may give rise to inadequate IEQ conditions delivered to students. In addition, it could be inferred from the results of the literature review that interior design and IEQ have not been sufficiently investigated in an integrated manner.


Author(s):  
Eli Natvik ◽  
Målfrid Råheim ◽  
Randi Sviland

AbstractBased in narrative phenomenology, this article describes an example of how lived time, self and bodily engagement with the social world intertwine, and how our sense of self develops. We explore this through the life story of a woman who lost weight through surgery in the 1970 s and has fought against her own body, food and eating ever since. Our narrative analysis of interviews, reflective notes and email correspondence disentangled two storylines illuminating paradoxes within this long-term weight loss process. Thea’s Medical Weight Narrative: From Severely Obese Child to Healthy Adult is her story in context of medicine and obesity treatment and expresses success and control. Thea’s Story: The Narrative of Fighting Weight is the experiential story, including concrete examples and quotes, highlighting bodily struggles and the inescapable ambiguity of being and having one’s body. The two storylines coexist and illuminate paradoxes within the weight loss surgery narrative, connected to meaningful life events and experiences, eating practices and relationships with important others. Surgery was experienced as lifesaving, yet the surgical transformation did not suffice, because it did not influence appetite or, desire for food in the long run. In the medical narrative of transforming the body by repair, a problematic relationship with food did not fit into the plot.


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