Seeking the Senses in Physical Culture
Sensuous scholarship in action
Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society Series

The sensory revolution in the social sciences is transforming the ways in which the senses and the sensorium are studied and understood in relation to bodies in action. This is the first book to investigate the impact, and challenges, of this revolution for those interested in physical culture.

Providing vivid examples of sensory scholarship in action from sport, physical activity, leisure and recreation, this book brings together leading figures to discuss how we go about seeking the senses, how we engage in somatic work, and how we create meanings and come to understand ourselves and others as embodied beings in a variety of social settings over time. Featuring original reflections on athletics, running, cycling, sailing, kayaking, windsurfing, glow sports, jiu jitsu, mixed martial arts and yoga, this ground breaking collection showcases the latest sensory research in physical culture as well as paving the way both conceptually and methodologically for future work in this area.

Seeking the Senses in Physical Culture: Sensuous scholarship in action is fascinating reading for all those interested in physical cultural and body studies; the sociology, psychology and philosophy of sport; leisure and recreation studies; and physical education.

1. Researching the Senses in Physical Culture: Charting the territory and locating an emerging field

[Andrew C. Sparkes]

2. Making Sense of the Primal Scream: Sensory peak performance and the affective drama of athletic competitions

[Phillip Vannini]

3. Running a Temperature: Sociological-phenomenological perspectives on distance running, thermoception and ‘temperature work’

[John Hockey and Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson]

4. Ethnoaesthesia: Ashtanga Yoga and the sensuality of sweat

[Michael Atkinson]

5. Sensing Our Way through Ocean Sailing, Windsurfing and Kayaking: Tales of emplaced sensual kinaesthesia

[Barbara Humberstone, Karen Fox and Mike Brown]

6. Performing the Sensory Body in a Tandem Cycling Group: Social dialogues between blindness and sight

[Gili Hammer]

7. Glow Sport: Re-configuring perception of space in sport and leisure practice

[Stephanie Merchant]

8. ‘It’s only gay if you make eye contact’: The regulation of touch in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

[Jan Dutkiewicz and Dale C. Spencer]

9. Mixed Martial Arts Coaches and Sensory Pedagogies

[Anu M. Vaittinen]

10. Researching the Senses in Physical Culture and Producing Sensual Scholarship: Methodological challenges and possibilities

[Andrew C. Sparkes]

Andrew C. Sparkes is Professor of Sport, Physical Activity and Leisure at Leeds Beckett University, UK. He has published extensively in international peer reviewed journals on the topic of embodiment and identity transformation over time and in differing sets of circumstance. He has also published widely on qualitative methodologies in general, and narrative, ethnographic and autoethnographic approaches in particular. Andrew has written and edited numerous books including Qualitative Research Methods in Sport, Exercise and Health: From process to product; The Routledge Handbook of Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise; and Advances in Biographical Methods: Creative applications, all published by Routledge