Experience of Vulnerable Women Narrated through the Body-Mapping Technique

Vulnerable women are considered a priority in public policies and research agendas. It is necessary to understand better the specificities of their daily lives and the meanings they attribute to their experiences, as this undoubtedly contributes to more grounded and culturally appropriate practices. Additionally, innovative techniques in qualitative research are demanded in academia. This narrative research study was carried out with fourteen women from a Brazilian socioeconomically vulnerable neighborhood. We used the body-mapping technique to investigate the experiences of women with mental health disorders or psychosocial distress. The aim was to analyze the self-perception about daily stressors and discuss the feasibility of this technique to facilitate this group’s storytelling. Data collection was performed through focus groups, guided by the body-mapping technique steps, and supplemented with individual interviews. Interpersonal conflicts and violence were the main stressors. These strongly impacted the well-being of these women and their children. Some important personal qualities and resilience were identified. Body-mapping played a fundamental role in facilitating storytelling. It amplified the linguistic possibilities for participants to express their feelings and promoted reflections about the present, past, and glimpses into the future.

MEGANE investigations of Phobos and the Small Body Mapping Tool

The MEGANE instrument onboard the MMX mission will acquire gamma-ray and neutron spectroscopy data of Phobos to determine the elemental composition of the martian moon and provide key constraints on its origin. To produce accurate compositional results, the irregular shape of Phobos and its proximity to Mars must be taken into account during the analysis of MEGANE data. The MEGANE team is adapting the Small Body Mapping Tool (SBMT) to handle gamma-ray and neutron spectroscopy investigations, building on the demonstrated record of success of the SBMT being applied to scientific investigations on other spacecraft missions of irregularly shaped bodies. This is the first application of the SBMT to a gamma-ray and neutron spectroscopy dataset, and the native, three-dimensional foundation of the SBMT is well suited to MEGANE’s needs. In addition, the SBMT will enable comparisons between the MEGANE datasets and other datasets of the martian moons, including data from previous spacecraft missions and MMX’s multi-instrument suite.

Managing the premenstrual body: a body mapping study of women’s negotiation of premenstrual food cravings and exercise

Background Women’s eating behaviours and exercise patterns have been found to fluctuate across the menstrual cycle, manifested by premenstrual food cravings and reduced exercise. However, the meaning and consequences of premenstrual changes in eating and exercise behaviours remains underexplored. The aim of this qualitative study was to explore how women who feel negatively about their premenstrual bodies construct and experience premenstrual changes to eating and exercise practices, which disrupt their usual patterns of body management. Methods Four hundred and sixty women aged 18–45 completed an online survey in response to a Facebook advertisement targeted at women who feel negatively about their bodies during the premenstrual phase of the cycle. Participants reported moderate premenstrual distress, high body shame and high risk of disordered eating attitudes using standardised measures. Sixteen women reporting rich accounts of premenstrual body dissatisfaction were invited to participate in body-mapping, involving visually illustrating experiences on a life-sized outline of the body, followed by a telephone interview. Thematic analysis was used to explore qualitative survey, interview, and body-mapping data. Results and discussion Results found that outside of the premenstrual phase these women engaged in restrictive eating and intensive exercise behaviours, which were disrupted by premenstrual cravings, hunger, fatigue, pain and feeling physically uncomfortable. For a minority of the women, this facilitated self-care in reducing the strict management of their bodies during the premenstrual phase. Others experienced feelings of guilt, shame, self-disgust and pushed their bodies physically through increased exercise. Conclusions These findings emphasise the need to acknowledge changes in body management across the menstrual cycle, with implications for women’s mental health and feelings about the self. Internalisation of pressures placed on women to manage their bodies through restrictive eating behaviours and rigorous exercise plays a role in women’s premenstrual body dissatisfaction and distress. Plain English summary The current study aimed to explore how women who feel negatively about their premenstrual bodies construct and experience premenstrual changes to eating and exercise practices. Outside of the premenstrual phase these women engaged in restrictive eating and intensive exercise behaviours which were disrupted by premenstrual cravings, hunger, fatigue, pain and feeling physically uncomfortable. Some women allowed themselves to take a premenstrual break from their usual strict eating and exercise behaviours, whereas others felt guilt, shame, self-disgust and physically pushed their bodies through increased exercise. These findings emphasise that changes to eating and exercise behaviours across the menstrual cycle and pressures placed on women to manage their eating and exercise behaviours have implications for women’s premenstrual distress and body dissatisfaction.

Body Mapping and Story Circles in Sexual Health Research With Youth of Color: Methodological Insights and Study Findings From Adolescent X, an Art-Based Research Project

We describe the implementation and select findings from Adolescent X, an arts-based research project that used story circles and body mapping to elucidate how young people understand the relationship between their social contexts and their sexual and reproductive health, with a particular focus on youth’s understandings of gender, sexuality, and the body as sites of possibility and power. A community-based sample of N = 24 youth of color was recruited from the South and West Sides of Chicago to participate in 3-day workshops. In addition to story circles and body mapping, data were collected via brief surveys with N = 24 youth, debriefing groups (n = 10 youth), and focus groups (n = 14 youth). Study data consisted of (1) body map visuals, that is, legends, mini-, and full-body maps; (2) written body map narratives; and (3) audio recordings of the story circles, body mapping activities, debriefing groups, and focus groups. All audio recordings were transcribed, deidentified, and uploaded in Dedoose for qualitative thematic analysis. Data analysis was conducted by a team of independent coders. Across all sources of data, three major themes were identified: (1) strong feelings of unsafety related to how young people’s bodies are gendered, sexualized, and racialized in different social settings; (2) the extent to which adults and institutions foster youth safety; and (3) sources of young people’s coping and resilience. Implications for public health research, practice, and policy are discussed.

Body mapping of sweating patterns of pre-pubertal children during intermittent exercise in a warm environment

Purpose To determine sweating responses of pre-pubertal children during intermittent exercise in a warm environment and create whole-body maps of regional sweat rate (RSRs) distribution across the body. Methods Thirteen pre-pubertal children; six girls and seven boys (8.1 ± 0.8 years) took part. Sweat was collected using the technical absorbent method in the last 5 min of a 30-min intermittent exercise protocol performed at 30 ℃, 40% relative humidity and 2 m·s−1 frontal wind. Results Mean gross sweat loss (GSL) was 126 ± 47 g·m−2·h−1 and metabolic heat production was 278 ± 50 W·m2. The lower anterior torso area had the lowest RSR with a median (IQR) sweat rate (SR) of 40 (32) g·m−2·h−1. The highest was the forehead with a median SR of 255 (163) g·m−2·h−1. Normalised sweat maps (the ratio of each region’s SR to the mean SR for all measured pad regions) showed girls displayed lower ratio values at the anterior and posterior torso, and higher ratios at the hands, feet and forehead compared to boys. Absolute SRs were similar at hands and feet, but girls sweated less in most other areas, even after correction for metabolic rate. Conclusion Pre-pubertal children have different RSRs across the body, also showing sex differences in sweat distribution. Distributions differ from adults. Hands and feet RSR remain stable, but SR across other body areas increase with maturation. These data can increase specificity of models of human thermoregulation, improve the measurement accuracy of child-sized thermal manikins, and aid companies during product design and communication.

Embodied Movement as Method: Attuning to Affect as Feminist Experimentation

This article explores qualitative research methods that employ materiality and movement, images and body mapping to access research participant knowledges. We examine a methodologies workshop that we co-facilitated for academics and postgraduates. We position the workshop as a research assemblage, through which we facilitated four different methodological ‘moves’, to borrow from Barad's (2007) notion of ‘cuts’, to invite learning-knowing through the movement of affect. These embodied methodologies included: moving-writing sport, digital photovoice, movement improvisation, and body mapping somatic movement. Workshop participants were invited to experiment with each method as a means of engaging with tacit, or difficult to articulate knowledges. By exploring what these embodied ‘moves’ do to our ways of knowing, we traced the affective relations that entangle human and nonhuman worlds, self and others, researcher and researched through the workshop intra-actions. Our accounts of each method are diffracted through affective relations as we attune to bodies, vulnerabilities, openings, objects, texts, thoughts, surfaces, and senses, as means of (un)learning together. We articulate the kinds of productive (un)learning that moved us in different ways, and how embodied, feminist new materialist approaches might contribute to defamiliarised approaches to research.

Embodied Engagements: Body Mapping in a Sociology of Sexuality Classroom

Using a collaborative autoethnographic approach, we discuss body mapping as an embodied pedagogical practice for teaching sexuality. Body mapping centers stigmatized bodies through guided visual, oral, and textual self-representation. We begin by discussing embodied pedagogies and the bind of representation (ideas grounded in the work of feminists of color) in teaching and learning about sexuality. We then consider three body mapping experiences: in a sexuality education graduate seminar ( seminar mapping), as a remote synchronous practice ( remote mapping), and as a solo practice ( solo mapping). We explore challenges in representation, embodied difference, and the im/possibility of mapping the sexual. Finally, we consider the implications and applications of body-mapping exercises for sexualities classrooms.