Moving bodies beyond the social/biological divide: Toward theoretical and transdisciplinary adventures

Holly Thorpe

University of Waikato

2012

Taylor & Francis (Routledge)

Holly Thorpe

email: hthorpe@waikato.ac.nz

In this paper I call for ‘new forms of thinking and new ways of theorizing’ the complex relations between the biological and social in sport and physical culture. I illustrate the inseparability of our biological and social bodies in sport and physical culture via the case of exercise and female reproductive hormones. Inspired by feminist biologists and philosophers of science such as Lynda Birke and Elizabeth Grosz, I describe my current research project in which I am seeking to create space for female exercisers’ (as distinct from female athletes) voices about their embodied experiences of exercise-associated amenorrhea. I offer reflections from my ongoing study and reveal a number of dilemmas that emerge as I consider how we might bring biology—and particularly hormones—back into conversations about women’s moving bodies in non-reductionist and non-determinist terms. I conclude by advocating the need for more transdisciplinary approaches to help us move toward more multidimensional understandings of the body in sport and physical culture.

Keywords:

Biology; Sociology; Bodies; Transdisciplinary; Women; Exercise

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Social research

Waikato

Physical activity, Sport

Women

Barriers, Participation, Performance

1352

July 19, 2013