Overcoming the fear: an autoethnographic narrative of running with epilepsy

Through a phenomenological approach, this article explores the identity conflict that arose within a female runner after diagnosis with epilepsy. Utilising a three month autoethnography to track her experiences of returning to running, the first author narrates the effect of epilepsy on her identity formation. Providing a voice that is absent from a research area dominated by statistics, the reader is asked to involve him/herself in the world of this athlete and in turn embrace the use of narratives as a valuable coping mechanism for those with chronic disorders

Improving teaching: Enhancing ways of being university teachers

My aim in this paper is to theorize my teaching in a course for experienced university teachers, in a context of increased attention to such courses. My focus in the course is transforming and enhancing ways of being university teachers, through integrating knowing, acting and being. In other words, epistemology is not seen as an end in itself, but rather it is in the service of ontology. In the paper, I explore and illustrate how this focus on ontology is enacted in the course

'Sexercise': Working out heterosexuality in Jane Fonda’s fitness books

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Leisure Studies, 30(2), 237 - 255, 2011, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02614367.2010.523837.This paper explores the connection between the promotion of heterosexual norms in women’s fitness books written by or in the name of Jane Fonda during the 1980s and the commodification of women’s fitness space in both the public and private spheres. The paper is set in the absence of overt discussions of normative heterosexuality in leisure studies and draws on critical heterosexual scholarship as well as the growing body of work theorising geographies of corporeality and heterosexuality. Using the principles of media discourse analysis, the paper identifies three overlapping characteristics of heterosexuality represented in Jane Fonda’s fitness books, and embodied through the exercise regimes: respectable heterosexual desire, monogamous procreation and domesticity. The paper concludes that the promotion and prescription of exercise for women in the Jane Fonda workout books centred on the reproduction and embodiment of heterosexual corporeality. Set within an emerging commercial landscape of women’s fitness in the 1980s, such exercise practices were significant in the legitimation and institutionalisation of heteronormativity

‘Wellness’ lifts us above the Food Chaos’: a narrative exploration of the experiences and conceptualisations of Orthorexia Nervosa through online social media forums

The increasing prevalence of eating disorders has motivated a burgeoning of research from narrative methods to illuminate the cultural and social aspects of disordered eating habits. A seemingly new eating disorder, Orthorexia Nervosa, has gained visibility through the internet sphere and popular media, though scholarly attention has been scarce. This study develops qualitative understandings of the fixation with ‘clean eating’ through narrative inquiry by employing an internet ethnographic approach. Data were analysed using a thematic narrative analysis, focusing on parallels and divergences across narratives presented online. This article presents 30 male and female voices, illustrating how these individuals understand their eating habits through narratives of pursuit, resistance and recovery, which are largely motivated by the desire for physical, emotional and social change. Crucially, this study illuminates a range of cultural elements enabling eating disorders in response to the transmission of cultural values online set within the broader context and processes of reflexive-modernisation

Generating female freedom among women's relationships in rugby union : narratives of sexual difference

Women's rugby relationships are generally analysed from the point of view of men's rugby, otherwise they are overlooked, or treated as incidental. By contrast, the overall aim of this study is to make sense of women's rugby experiences and relations to rugby as a sport in terms of the feminine friendship relationships they forge and develop through on-field play and the informal culture surrounding the game. This research was conducted and written from the perspective of an active participant as both observer and "research subject". Within the framework of Italian sexual difference thought, it is a dialogue between the main concepts which ground this thought and data concerning women's rugby experiences as gathered from my recollection of personal experiences; participant observation in one team in Barcelona and two in London; twelve conversational interviews with my best rugby friends from Barcelona and London; as well as innumerable informal conversations with friends and other rugby women. I have chosen sexual difference theory to make sense of women's rugby relationships because it allows me to approach women's experiences in rugby from the premise that women are not required to imitate or reverse men's rugby meanings in order to make sense of their experiences. This theory derives from Irigaray's premise that women and men are two irreducible subjects. Thus, this study challenges the existence of a neutral or abstract human being. In short, one of the central aims of this research is to challenge the belief that men's rugby experiences are neutral and abstract and, therefore, can be unproblematically applied to women's rugby. The premise that underpins this investigation is a belief in women's rugby experiences as both illustrative and creative extensions, through on-field play and off-field friendships, of the biological, historical and socially interwoven specificity of women's relationships. Thus, another purpose of this study is to engage the reader with the world of women's rugby and at the same time to delve into the analysis of the significant consequences engendered by women's intense relationships in rugby. The ultimate goal of this project is to show how meaningful relationships in women's rugby can strengthen women's beliefs in themselves and dissolve the doubts that women have about their specific ways of perceiving, organizing and "wording" the world (Richardson, 1996). This research is devoted to strengthening and supporting the concept of female existence as original in itself and capable of taking symbolic form. This research also explores the possibilities that alternative ways of writing about women's rugby experiences and relationships offer to sport feminists' sociology. For this reason, throughout the data chapters I have combined sexual difference theoretical concepts with creative non-fiction narratives of women's rugby relationships and experiences. This means that, inspired by my own experiences, recollections and conversational interviews with other rugby women about their experiences, I have created stories that interweave my subjectivity as a rugby player and as a listener with the experiences of others as narrated to me.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Grasping the phenomenology of sporting bodies

The last two decades have witnessed a vast expansion in research and writing on the sociology of the body and on issues of embodiment. Indeed, both sociology in general and the sociology of sport specifically have well heeded the long-standing and vociferous calls ‘to bring the body back in’ to social theory. It seems particularly curious therefore that the sociology of sport has to-date addressed this primarily at a certain abstract, theoretical level, with relatively few accounts to be found that are truly grounded in the corporeal realities of the lived sporting body; a ‘carnal sociology’ of sport, to borrow Crossley’s (1995) expression. To portray and understand more fully this kind of embodied perspective, it is argued, demands engaging with the phenomenology of the body, and this article seeks to contribute to a small but growing literature providing this particular form of ‘embodied’ analysis of the body in sport. Here we identify some useful intellectual resources for developing a phenomenology of sporting experience, specifically its sensory elements, and also subsequently examine the potential for its evocative portrayal and effective analysis via different kinds of textual forms. Key words: phenomenology; sociology of the sporting body; embodiment; the sense

Western men and Eastern arts: The significance of Eastern martial arts disciplines in British men's narratives of masculinity

Previous Western sociological research on Eastern martial arts has identified a tension between ‘traditional’ Eastern forms of practice and ‘modernized’ Western methods of training and competition. In particular, the ‘sportization’ of Eastern styles, where combat-centred arts based upon moral philosophies have transformed more or less into competitive activities following Western models of rationalized sport, has been an important theme. However, it is also suggested that Eastern martial arts hold special significance in the West for their seemingly esoteric nature. In this regard, such martial arts are considered significant because they are not ‘sports’, but rather disciplines, with fairly different connotations for practitioners. Drawing on interview data, this paper explores how Western practitioners of Eastern martial arts articulate this difference, principally by examining the place of martial artistry in British men's narratives of masculinity. Comparing themselves favourably to assumed, typical visions of Western sporting masculinity, such men draw upon the imagined uniqueness of their martial arts to construct a sense of moral superiority over other men. In so doing, they contribute to a rejection of what they believe to be ‘mainstream’ sporting Western masculinity, thus indicating the role that ‘alternative’ visions of physical culture can play in men's active constructions of gender

Ensuring quality in qualitative inquiry: using key concepts as guidelines

The field of qualitative scientific inquiry employs a fast-growing variety of approaches, whose traditions, procedures, and structures vary, depending on the type of study design and methodology (i.e., phenomenological, ethnographic, grounded theory, case study, action research, etc.). With the interpretive approach, researchers do not utilize the same measures of validity used in positivist approaches to scientific inquiry, since there is ... no one standard or accepted structure as one typically finds in quantitative research (Creswell, 2007). With the absence of a single standard, how, then, is it possible for qualitative researchers to know whether or not their study was done with rigor, that it has validity, that it is ready to submit to their peers? The research literature is sprinkled with references to quality in qualitative inquiry, which helps to construe a study's validity. Markula (2008) suggests that we validate our study's findings by assuring readers that it was done in the best possible way. While each research tradition has its own set of criteria for judging quality, we present here general concepts drawn from the literature. We hope this article will provide a framework from which qualitative researchers can judge their work before submitting it to their peers, one which will help ensure that their study was done in the best possible way.“Garantindo qualidade na investigação qualitativa: Usando conceitos-chave como diretrizes.” O campo da investigação científica qualitativa emprega uma variedade de abordagens em rápido crescimento, cujas tradições, procedimentos e estruturas variam, dependendo do tipo de projeto e metodologia de estudo (i.e., fenomenológica, etnográfica, teoria fundamentada, estudo de caso, pesquisa-ação, etc .). Com a abordagem interpretativa, os pesquisadores não utilizam as mesmas medidas de validade utilizadas nas abordagens positivistas para a investigação científica, uma vez que é “... não algo padrão ou estrutura aceita como tipicamente se encontra em pesquisa quantitativa” (Creswell, 2007). Com a ausência de um padrão único, como, então, é possível para os pesquisadores qualitativos saber se seu estudo foi ou não feito com rigor, que tem validade, que está pronto para ser apresentado aos seus pares? A literatura de pesquisa é cheia de referências sobre qualidade em investigação qualitativa, o que ajuda a interpretar a validade do estudo. Markula (2008) sugere que devemos validar os resultados do nosso estudo assegurando aos leitores que foi feito “da melhor maneira possível.” Embora cada tradição de pesquisa tenha seu próprio conjunto de critérios para avaliar a qualidade, apresentaremos aqui os conceitos gerais resgatados da literatura. Esperamos que este artigo proporcione uma base na qual os pesquisadores qualitativos possam julgar o seu trabalho antes de divulgá-lo a seus pares¸ uma base que possa ajudar a garantir que seu estudo foi feito “da melhor maneira possível.”Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Sao Paulo State Univ Rio Claro, BR-13506900 Rio Claro, SP, BrazilSao Paulo State Univ Rio Claro, BR-13506900 Rio Claro, SP, Brazi