Phenomenology of Sensuous Sporting Bodies

Dr Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson Reader in Sociology of Sport

Director of Health Advancement Research Team

(HART)

E: jallencollinson@lincoln.ac.uk

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HARTresearch.org.uk

Twitter: @HARTResearch

Today

• Introduction to existential phenomenology & Merleau-Ponty’s work

• Sociological phenomenology / phenomenological sociology

• The sensory dimension of sporting embodiment

• The olfactory

• The auditory

• The haptic

• Representational issues

• Why sociological phenomenology in sport?

JA

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Embodiment: sport & physical cultures

• Last 2 decades in particular considerable growth of research in sociology of body & embodiment – ‘carnal sociology’ incl. within sports studies

• Despite considerable corpus of theoretically-based work, still relative paucity of research truly grounded in corporeal realities of the body (Wainwright &Turner, 2003; Allen-Collinson, 2011)

Particularly re the sensory dimension incl. among

sportspeople & those highly physically active

Current focus of Health Advancement Research

Team (HART) key research theme, including in

relation to illness experience in sportspeople

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Phenomenology

• Modern-day phenomenology originally developed by Husserl (1859-1938) • To remedy what he perceived as inadequacies of “scientific” approaches

to studying human experience; science as leaving unquestioned assumptions and preconceptions

• Husserlian focus on the experiential – but the structures of experience, i.e. not individual subjective experience – not the phenomenal but the study of phenomena in general – seeking essences/commonalities

• Subsequent phenomenologists also have sought to overcome limitations of weltanschauung that privileges object-body of science (Körper )

• Pheno as both theoretical and methodological framework • Key element: Intentionality – consciousness always directed toward

something (incl. mental representations) • Focus upon direct lived experience, rather than more abstract, theoretical

analysis – the ‘lived body’ (Leib) – the body as experienced in everyday life, particularly by existential theorists

• Phenomenology very under-utilised in sports studies (Allen-Collinson, 2009) – but work within in philosophy of sport

Merleau-Pontian existential phenomenology – key

tenets

Diverged from Husserl – to focus on the body

The body-self-world nexus, consciousness as enmeshed (& enfleshed) with the world

The lived-body is this relation – intertwining of body/mind/world – chiasm; lived body is embodied consciousness

M-P’s focus on sensory experience – ‘sens’ connoting ‘sensory experience’ & ‘meaning’ (also direction!)

Interesting terminological shift - Merleau-Ponty replaces ‘being-in-the-world’ (Dasein) with ‘chair’ (‘flesh’) in later work, to capture more primordial nature –

‘Etre/Being’ as somewhat abstract, ‘Chair/Flesh’ more grounded, corporeal

‘Flesh’ understood in ancient sense as ‘element’: a mode of being; the fundamental unity permeating all inter-related things

Reversibility thesis also of interest : flesh as ‘reversible’: both sentient and sensible, perceiving and perceptible, touching and touched, etc

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2 Key elements in phenomenology

• Bracketing and reduction • 1) Bracketing or ‘Epochē’ – meaning? • From Greek ‘to abstain, stop’ or ‘to keep a distance from’ • Denotes suspension of taken-for-granted assumptions

about a phenomenon, including ‘scientific’ assumptions • Why might this be a good idea for any researcher??

• 2) Reduction Once presuppositions have been

suspended, reduction is used to make sense of what remains, the ‘eidos’ or essence –the heart of the phenomenon, without which it would no longer be that thing...

• Caveat: what are the (big!) problems with the concept of ‘full’ bracketing?

• See also Allen-Collinson (2011)

Sociological phenomenology

• Form of empirical sociological phenomenology currently being developed

• Derives principally from Merleau-Pontian existential perspectives re latter’s central concern with embodied consciousness

• Also draws on Alfred Schütz’s social phenomenology & also feminist phenomenology – Simone de Beauvoir

• NB feminist concerns re androcentric conceptualisations of body – connotations not of ‘neutral’ or ‘universal’ human subject-body (gender, class, ‘race’, ability, etc) fails to consider specificities of bodies (see also Allen-Collinson, 2011b)

• Thus sociologised form complements/extends traditional phenomenology, in acknowledging structural forces/constraints upon our lived experience

• Highlights how we live within and through culture & social structure…

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Socio-structural impact upon deeply corporeal

• Nearly 3 weeks’ solid of marking. Legs and arms heavy from it, neck and shoulders rigid, strained, taut to breaking. Eyes red and gritty. It’s going to be a hard run tonight, I guess. But just a few minutes into my stride and the navy-dusk wind is cutting away the work smog, sloughing off the grey skin of the working day. I am being cleansed. I am back. I am back in-body after yet another day of attempted body denial, and enforced focus on the headwork. Quads surge forwards, muscles strong and bulking, pushing against tracksters, abs tighten and flatten against the chill wind as I begin to up the pace…

• Allen-Collinson (2010: 290) 8

• The general lack of phenomenologically-inspired sociological analyses of sporting embodiment is surprising

• Esp. given the sensory dimension features so strongly in many of our lived sporting experiences

• The senses (usually) work in concert to give our subjective, lived body experience of actually doing sport/physical activity

• Need to stress active nature of sensory work (e.g. Allen-Collinson & Owton, 2014, on auditory work & asthma in sports) -

• social actors undertake active interpretation of products of the senses, are not merely passive recipients

• Important role of the senses in our construction of self/identity

• Q – what are the key senses experienced in your own sport/physical culture?

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Complementary perspectives

• To complement phenomenological analyses of senses in sport - helpful resources within sociological & anthropology of the senses (eg. Constance Classen esp. on touch)

• Also to some extent within ‘sensuous’ geography (eg. Rodaway, 1994; Paterson, 2007).

• & interdisciplinary journal The Senses & Society (launched 2006)

• Within sociology of sport – very new specialism (JA-C, John Hockey: distance running, diving, boxing (with Helen Owton); also Andy Sparkes)

• Although sensuous dimensions of sport & physical cultures portrayed in wider studies, e.g. Wacquant (2004) on boxing Downey (2005) capoeira, Spencer on Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).

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As aside: interesting – and contentious! - analysis of

gendered and sensory hierarchies, see French feminist

theorist, Luce Irigaray, quoted in Constance Classen,

1997

Q - Do you agree?

Given the ‘hegemony of sight’ in much ‘Western’ literature,

today we consider the olfactory, auditory and haptic (touch)

1) The olfactory

• Often taken to be one of the most ‘base’ senses,

bestial – c.f. sight & hearing placed higher in the

hierarchy

• Rationale?

• Posited that the senses that act at a distance are

valorised over those which require closer contact

• ‘Animalization’ of sense of smell

• Western cultures seek to deodorize social life

• But in some areas of life, smell as valorised - ?

12 Perfumers, sommeliers, aromatherapists …

inter alia

• Very rarely analysed within sports studies

• Yet, sporting body often smells pungent - produces

sweat

• This may be important intersubjectively &

symbolically also – why?

• Indication that the body is working hard in training or

competition

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•So corporeally and symbolically

correlated with right degree of effort

•Moral dimension

•Notions of virtue, hard work, discipline

‘…odour is a natural sign of the self as

both a physical and a moral being. The

odour is a symbol of the self’ (Synnott

1993: 190)

• Tuan (1993: 57) notes capacity of smells vividly to invoke memories:

• ‘Odour has the power to restore the past because, unlike the visual image, it is an encapsulated experience that has been left largely uninterpreted and underdeveloped.’

• Late afternoon, late July, out on the edge of the moors - scudding clouds and the pervasive scent of sun-warmed bracken, always for me a gentle harbinger of early autumn, sad thought though that is. A lurch of vertigo grips my stomach as I round the corner and the plunging depths of the thickly forested gorge swing before me. Can I detect the faint sweetness of blackberries on the rippling air? They always remind me of the end of the long school holidays and the awfulness of returning to the imprisonment of school. No, it’s just my imagination, tinged with sadness for the end of summer to come. The blackberry flowers are still fresh pink and white in the bright sunshine… relief eases my breath.

• (Autoethnographic project)

2) The auditory • As with all senses, sound is not just sensation, it

is information

• We do not just ‘passively’ hear, we listen actively

• As sportspeople we listen to a whole range of

elements

• Perhaps most fundamental way in which

sportspeople listen is to our own embodied

selves – in what ways??

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Eg, performance in sport

usually intimately linked to

respiratory patterns

• Tense or erratic breathing often enemy of effective bodily coordination and thus sporting performance

• Even in arguably less ‘dynamic’ sports or games such as snooker, effective action demands hand-eye and respiratory coordination

• Sportspeople thus often highly attuned to their breathing

• Respiratory patterns provide constant, almost instantaneous feedback on bodily state during sports participation

• We often gauge (ours & others’) performance by breathing patterns

• Furthermore, respiratory patterns often co-related with emotion or feeling states

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Listening to the breathing body

• As experience in a sporting activity increases, we develop a kinaesthetic memory of how it feels when playing in certain ways

• When playing well – there is usually ‘flow’ or particular rhythm of respiration; conversely when playing indifferently breathing becomes disjointed, ‘ragged’

• Listening to the performing self is then important monitoring device for sportspeople

• Also important to monitor competitors via their breathing patterns

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Similarly, the social functions of respiratory patterns have also been noted in relation to the social integration and harmonisation of performers, eg in a team context

And when breathing itself is problematic…?

Asthma & sporting embodiment

• Allen-Collinson, J. and Owton, H. (2014) Take a deep breath: asthma, sporting embodiment, the senses, and ‘auditory work’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 49 (5): 592-608. http://irs.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/11/04/1012690212463918

• Drawn from:

• a) 3-year autophenomenographic study of female distance running;

• b) 3-year in-depth study of 14 non-elite sportspeople clinically diagnosed with asthma (aged: 22 – 83) – ranging from ‘mild’ to ‘severe’

• 10 very active: 6 female/4 male; 4 ‘retired’/less active diagnosed with late onset: 2 female/2 male

• Data collection for a) via digital recorders, fieldnotes, training/analytic log

• For b) via semi-structured in-depth interviews

• Data analysis informed by phenomenological principles: openness, epochē, eidetic reduction

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Dys-ease (Drew Leder)

• The heavy, pollen-thick air sticks to my throat, it feels as though only a

third of my lungs can fill with air, even taking the air down my throat is

difficult. Rib cage expands heavily with the effort of sucking in the

humid air. Brief respite with the light, clean-cut pungency of pine tree

and evergreen hedge, before I am accosted by the drowsy richness of

dark, rain-sodden roses as I run passed neatly trimmed gardens on the

edge of the park. Chest heavy and labouring with the effort to breathe

in, and even more with the effort to breathe out… even my sports bra

feels heavy, digging into my heaving ribs as I ascend the slight slope,

and mind wanders fleetingly to embrace in empathy my corset-

constricted Victorian foremothers. (Autophenomenography, June

2009)

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Sudden corporeal dys-appearance emerged

strongly in asthma accounts - contra

conceptualisations of breathing as one of most

‘natural’, pre-reflective bodily functions:

• Along with dys-ease, with more severe asthma attacks,

unpredictability & onslaught of asthma upon the body generated

feelings of panic, Heidegger’s concept of ‘thrownness’, being ‘caught

out’ by one’s own body, reliant upon inhaler:

• It just feels like I can't, I can't get the air in... and that's the main

uncomfortableness of it. But then it's like the panic side of things as

well, is that I'm not getting the air in at the moment. I can't sort of get

enough air [laughs] to make me feel good. You know when you feel

satisfied and you have a deep breath, I can't sort of get that… and

that's what makes me feel uncomfortable and then it's obviously

like, oh god, I'm not breathing. This isn't working, that yeah that,

mainly physiological but it's also shit, panic, the panic side. (Lucy,

20s, swimmer)

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… panicky […] not very nice… your chest just

doesn’t get, bring in the air in… so… um… it’s

a bit scary… but then you take your blue

inhaler and it’s alright. (Jane, 80s, former

ballet dancer)

Sensory linkage - olfactory

• Running out toward X, the acrid-sweet smell of a flowering privet hedge

(I think, flora are not my forte!) accosts my nostrils and mouth, catching

the back of my throat so that I am seized, engulfed and racked by a

coughing fit, which starts relatively innocuously but then develops into

run-halting, rib-racking, face-reddening paroxysms.

• I gasp and splutter for breath as the noxious tiny-flower pollen catches

my throat over and over… and then, as so often, the coughing tips me

into wheezing, as my trachea quivers, tightens and thickens in protest,

struggling to expel the tickly air.

• It’s no good, I have to concede temporary defeat and stop, palms on

quads drawing in breath with ribs heaving then convulsing to expel the

pollenated air. Fervently, hoping no one approaches to ask if I’m okay

(I haven’t the energy for social interaction), I stagger on to the grassy

roundabout and hide amongst the trees until the coughing subsides…

(Autophenomenography, July 2010)

JA

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3) The haptic

• Rodaway (1994: 48) defines the haptic experience as: • ‘a combination of tactile and locomotive properties [which]

provides information about the character of objects, surfaces and whole environments as well as our own bodies’.

• In agreement with Paterson (2007) - whilst ‘haptic’ derives from the Greek haptesthai meaning ‘of, or pertaining to, touch’, for me, this touch includes internally-felt bodily sensations, such as:

• kinaesthesia - sense of movement

• vestibular system - sense of balance

• proprioception - felt muscular position and inward-facing, internally-aware perception of oneself – incl. sense of heat

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• Interestingly, from sports perspective, most research on haptic perception focuses almost exclusively on manual touch

• Recent calls for studies that examine the relationships between the environment and ‘techniques of footwork’

• In soccer and cricket, for example, evaluating the pitch and deciding how to play is not merely a visual process but also a haptic one

• Feeling the ground and the ball provides players with sensory input, which will influence how they use and play with the ball

• Sports participants (e.g. runners and horse riders) evaluate terrain carefully

• Q – is touch/the haptic a key element in your own sport / physical culture?

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Representational issues

• Considerable challenges in portraying in analytic textual discourse pre-

reflective bodily practices & experiences

• Particularly so when analysing/portraying more visceral and

proprioceptive elements

• Even full participation in a specific physical culture cannot guarantee

accurate, in-depth description – problems of epochē

• Practice/experience can be very difficult to represent textually and/or

visually.

• Sometimes fundamental tension between what can be known & told, &

what remains obscure or unspeakable, but ‘felt’

• Phenomenology readily acknowledges, some experiences are pre-

reflective - without or beyond language

• Challenges for us in the translation of sensory ‘data’ into textual / visual

representations – always partial, incomplete, approximate, just best

efforts at conveying feelings/sensations – requirements of publishers /

universities re thesis/dissertation presentations

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Why sociological phenomenology?

• Why employ sociological phenomenology/phenomenological sociology in sports

studies?

• In agreement with Martínková (2011): phenomenology as philosophical movement

allows us to take a wider, more complex & holistic view of human movement & sporting

experience, promoting understanding of what it means to do sport in a human way

• Extends/challenges conceptualisation of the ‘object body’ (Körper) of much biomedical

and sport science – acknowledges the ‘subject body’ (Leib)

• Epochē / bracketing encourage fundamental questioning of tacit, taken-for-granted

assumptions & pre-suppositions re phenomena; caveat: epochē can only ever be

partial

• As a sociologist, other limitations of philosophical phenomenology include its

universalisation thesis/project, lived experience as that of ‘everywoman’/ ’everyman’

(see Allen-Collinson, 2011a)

• Sociologisation of phenomenology (also feminist & queer phenomenology)

acknowledges huge impact of historical, structural, socio-cultural – and sporting

subcultural - location upon our lived-body experience

• Important for healthcare professionals, coaches, et al. involved in support for

sportspeople to listen to, respect, and understand their ‘insider’ perspective -

implications for better & tailored treatment programmes & adherence

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Feel free to contact me: • Dr Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson, Reader in Sociology of Sport

• Director, Health Advancement Research Team (HART)

• University of Lincoln

• E: jallencollinson@lincoln.ac.uk

• www.hartresearch.org.uk Twitter @hartresearch

• Publications available via ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jacquelyn_Allen-Collinson/?ev=hdr_xprf

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Bibliography – all JA-C’s available on ResearchGate https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jacquelyn_Allen-Collinson?ev=hdr_xprf

• Allen-Collinson, J (2009) Sporting embodiment: sports studies and the (continuing) promise of phenomenology, Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise, 1 (3): 279-296.

• Allen-Collinson, J. (2010) Running embodiment, power and vulnerability: Notes towards a feminist phenomenology of female running, in E Kennedy and P Markula (eds), Women and Exercise: The Body, Health and Consumerism, London: Routledge, pp 280-298.

• Allen-Collinson, J. (2011a) Intention and epochē in tension: autophenomenography, bracketing and a novel approach to researching sporting embodiment, Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise & Health, 3 (1): 48-62.

• Allen-Collinson, J. (2011b) Feminist phenomenology and the woman in the running body, Sport, Ethics & Philosophy, 5 (3): 287-302.

• Allen-Collinson, J. and Leledaki, A. (2014) Sensing the outdoors: a visual and haptic phenomenology of outdoor exercise embodiment, Leisure Studies. At:http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02614367.2014.923499

• Allen-Collinson, J. and Owton, H. (2014) Intense embodiment: senses of heat in women’s running and boxing, Body & Society. Online early: http://bod.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/03/27/1357034X14538849

• Allen-Collinson, J. and Owton, H. (2014) Take a deep breath: asthma, sporting embodiment, the senses, and ‘auditory work’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 49 (5): 592-608. http://irs.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/11/04/1012690212463918

• Classen, C. (1997) Engendering perception: Gender ideologies and sensory hierarchies in Western history, Body and Society, 3 (2): 1-20

• Downey, G (2005) Learning Capoeira: Lessons in Cunning from an Afro Brazilian Art. Oxford: Oxford U.P. • Howes, D. (2003) Sensual Relations. Engaging in Cultural and Social Theory. Ann Arbour: University of Michigan

Press. • Paterson, M. (2007) The Senses of Touch: Haptics, Affects and Technologies. Oxford: Berg. • Rodaway, P. (1994) Sensuous Geographies: Body, Sense and Place. London: Routledge. • Spencer, D.C. (2013) Sensing Violence: An Ethnography of Mixed Martial Arts, Ethnography, online early: • http://eth.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/01/31/1466138112471108 • Synnott, A. (1993) The Body Social: Symbolism, Self and Society. London: Routledge. • Tuan, Y. (1993) Passing Strange and Wonderful. Washington, DC: Island Press-Shearwater. • Wacquant, L. (2004) Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer. Oxford: Oxford University Press. • Wainwright, S.P. and Turner, B. S. (2003) ‘Aging and the Dancing Body’, in C.A. Faircloth (ed.) Aging Bodies: Images

and Everyday Experience, pp. 259-292. Oxford: Altamira Press.

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