week 10— reflections

[Last modified: December, 14 2024 12:15 AM]

Initial project

  • Was an exploration of the phenomenology of retired athletes of aesthetic sports – stemmed from a deeply personal experience that I found was difficult to separate my own lived experiences from
  • It became quite sensitive for me, which was a helpful realization to have in this module at this point in the school year.

Current project

  • Moving forwards, I began to consider another better-suited topic, which focuses on the experience of energy work as a form of therapeutic practice – engaging the senses as healing, which I believe inherently challenges Western programming that traditionally values vision/sight as the dominant sense.

Methods

  • The main method of my previous topic was photo-elicitation, which would have involved extracting an understanding thru an explicitly visual form… given the way I jumped ship on this topic early on, I didn’t give much thought to the structure of the interviews—
  • From my preliminary research and brief experiences with this spiritual practice, energy work involves reflection that often takes the form of journaling — whether before, during, or after a session.
    • Worlds are created that engage a visual sense in the screen behind your eyelids, or through sensations that are felt in various parts of the body
      • These sensations and visualizations are supplemented through the a variety of methods:
        • Conception of elements (fire, water, earth, air) that compose an interactive space to ‘move about within’.
        • Another method includes ‘reprogramming’ through ‘encounters’ with entities/spirits like mermaids, Mary Magdalene, or the moon to let go of preconceived notions of these figures and then the encouragement of your intuition to bring forth a cleansed or more authentic sense of these entities and how you can use them in your everyday life to reimagine your world view.
      • IMAGINATION, MEMORY, THE BODY!
  • A quick overview of the methods that I propose for this new project that I hope to carry through into my dissertation, so any suggestions, comments, critiques are welcome 🙂 There is one particular online community (Patreon) that I am a part of, and have been making connections within the group so far, discussing our experiences with one healer’s offerings, which has been lovely
    • Textual-analysis — symbolic analysis of individual containers and worlds; significance of certain parts of the body (when focused on, what comes up?); individual memories (past) or dreams (future) that inform the participant’s present
    • Semi-structured interviews — flexible form of interview that brings more up for interpretation, which allows the participant to go as in-depth as they please
    • Multimodal techniques — crucial to this research topic; how to capture smells? Idk; soundscapes for sure, Definitely would like to include poetry or vignettes of worlds that people have built, perhaps a documentation or observation of people who do energy work and their other creative practices, how those might go hand in hand.

Further considerations

  • There is much to be said about the dichotomy regarding how, through the bodily sensations and how people make sense of them, we can make connections to cognition/psychology/science (micro levels) and institutions/governments (macro level)
    • It has allowed me to conceptualize what has been diagnosed on a psychological level versus what it could be conceptualized as in religion and connect all of these things.

• • Continuing to think about ethical considerations and field sites/people to interview, but I think these themes are quite sensitive, which require extra care and conversations with the Ethics Committee.

week 9– ethics

[Last modified: December, 5 2024 03:11 PM]

The social lives and technology use of elderly people in a London Community centre— A student wants to investigate how improving computer literacy and learning to use online tools affects the social lives of elderly people (those over 65 years old) in London. The research will involve volunteering at computer literacy courses in a community centre. Methods will include participant-observation, structured interviews, social diagrams and asking participants to keep a diary.

  • What ethical issues (if any) arise from this project? How should they be addressed?
    • Ethical issues that might arise from this project might include a misunderstanding of digital literacy as the research group includes the elderly lives of older people. What defines “improving computer literacy” and which online tools does the research intend to explore? I would begin with these preliminary questions before going further.
  • What data protection issues (if any) arise from this project?
    • All aspects of the proposed methods contain personal, sensitive information of participants (particularly the social diagrams and participant diaries). Data should be, at minimum, pseudonymized – I find that full anonymization of these data points could further the protection of participants without obscuring the questions/findings. In any case, proper care should be taken with regards to sensitive information – secure data storage practices and thorough anonymi/pseudonymization should be employed.
  • Are there any problems around power / coercion?
    • The student working as a volunteer as well as a researcher could lead to a power imbalance, as participants might feel more inclined to engage with the research due to the student’s status at the community center.
  • Are ‘vulnerable’ individuals involved? Could the topic be considered sensitive?
    • Participants above the age of 65 may or may not be considered vulnerable individuals. Consider physical or cognitive limitations/decline, the generational difference re: comfort using online tools/literacy — this is not an inherently sensitive topic, but be considered as such if not careful of these vulnerabilities regarding participants of an older age range, and more that I’ve not thought of.
  • Should this be approved by the Anthropology Ethics Committee? Or should it go to UCL REC? Would it be considered low or high risk?
    • This project is low risk. Still, the proposal must be reviewed and approved by the AEC due to lingering uncertainty regarding the vulnerability of an underrepresented population. A risk assessment form should be submitted alongside the proposal in order to prepare for potential risks and ethical issues that should be considered before collecting data.

week 8— multimodal

[Last modified: December, 5 2024 02:34 PM]

I wasn’t present this week, however, I conducted a dedicated 15-minute observation of a church I walked into one quiet Saturday morning in Camden.

Settling into the seat (there were no pews), I first observed the familiar sight of church architecture. My attendance at a Catholic elementary school made masses a compulsory aspect of every Friday morning of my life for several years. Arches, columns, stained glass, ornamental details; the crucifix highlighted by the preceding arch that allows your gaze to fixate, focus on the sculpture, or the pulpit in front of the altar, right before the arch. I believe a hand-drawn sketch of the church would be a great method for documenting and expressing the space compared to a digital photograph taken on a smartphone. If a digital photograph or film were to be taken, I would feel it would distract from the essence of the space, considering its nature and what actions are ‘appropriate’.

It’s a rainy day, and the pitter-patter of the raindrops on the roof are almost muted by the silence within the space, though the damp squeaking of shoes as a couple people file into the seats reminds us of what is happening without the roof over our heads. The whisper of other churchgoers in the entryway brewing tea, the shuffle of their footsteps, sniffles. The silence is not exactly a pure silence, and I find that to capture the essence of this space well, an audio recording could do well to communicate the peace (or restriction) of how bodies move within a religious space. I found myself moving more carefully so as to not make any sudden noises or movements. In other spaces, these might not be picked up on, but in the church, even a slight alteration in your posture is heard – chairs creaking, your clothing rustling, your stomach grumbling… I find that this atmosphere allowed me to bring awareness to my bodily sensations, and zoom inwards to my internal state. This makes sense for a place of worship and prayer.

I closed my eyes to focus in on the smell of the church – resin, candle wax, leather, dust – my own interest in fragrances led me to do a bit of online research on perfumes that are formulated with similar notes. It would be nice to sample a few of these as a way to add another layer of sensoriality, as each church certainly doesn’t smell exactly the same, there is an essence of ‘spirituality’ that is imbued within churches, no doubt.

 

week 6— embodied storytelling

[Last modified: November, 15 2024 12:53 PM]

The first destination from the moment my body stands on its two feet is The Underground. Liverpool Street. I’m on my way to class.

I start walking with a cigarette already drooping out of my mouth – my lighter is in hand, and I have timed my walk to the station to end so I can bin the filter before making my way to the entrance.

A moment of meditation, a warm-up… I am now immersed in cold, brisk air, walking on streets scattered with strangers – weaving my body between, through, and beside other bodies – gaze locked slightly forwards. I walk quickly enough to pass at least 25 people by, look both ways before crossing the street, consider the dystopian sense of the Broadgate Center and connect it to other places that allow similar feelings to arise: Dumbo (Brooklyn), Seaport (Boston), Taipei 101 (Taipei; somehow it feels less disjointed here…)

Smells of freshly baked bread and warm espresso become intense – Costa Coffee, Pret a Manger, M&S food – and follow me to the steps leading to the gate. The chatter of people is neutralised by my thoughts – Platform 2, tap to pay, up the stairs and down the stairs, one or two more minutes until I can sit down, lean my head on the glass nearest the doors. I’m used to being mindful of the direction people are heading – it reminds me of the unspoken rules of practice sessions on the ice, learning the patterns and form of training mates’ programs to better watch out and manoeuvre around them.

I’m focused on my internal sensations, bring my heart rate down through counting an 8-second exhale, filling my lungs from the front, side, and back – repeating until I reach Euston Square.

My commute is almost over – after tapping to log out of the Tube, I am practically on campus. A short 5-10 minute walk, and I have arrived.

week 5— politicality

[Last modified: November, 14 2024 11:22 PM]

My proposed dissertation topic is rooted in cognitive, largely theoretical concepts. I aim to shift my focus from the pilot project to my forthcoming dissertation. Some preliminary, relevant notes as 14 Nov:

  • Potential titles and areas of interest are to be specified in the coming weeks, but currently include: Memories of water; Sensoriality, healing, and peace: distinguishing the self within the body; Energy Containers Made Tangible: Digital/Generative art as a medium conjoin basic elements of Earth to support the recollection, remembrance, and reframing of the present moment; Playing with the simulacrum of time through imagination (themes Addiction, Trauma, Rebellion-Denial-Pride-Grief- Love, Healing)
  • Imagination is best understood in non-holistic and non-instrumental terms
    • Stories, images, legends
    • Tension between globalization/modernity and the social imaginary (rising speed of sharing and acquiring info)
    • Fixed totality of culture (otherness, fixity, homogeneity) is substituted by fluid totality, implicit –imagination is not ‘a whole’ as culture aims to express, it is just as holistic if not more
  • Focus on social and material means to define technologies of the imagination
    • Tim Ingold: social role of technology + Castoriadis’ philosophy on ‘indeterminate’ character of imagination
    • Consider: prophecy, migration, internet use, open source software design
  • Kant: imagination is pervasive in all human apprehension, a basic faculty of consciousness, the ability to bring to mind that which is not entirely present to the senses
    • Allows synthetic formation of knowledge thru conjoining diverse forms/appearances and the ability to relate to them
    • Just as we construct meanings, we imagine realities
  • Imagination anticipates and pre-views, serves action, draws before us the configuration of the realizable before it can be realized (Starobinski, 1970:173-4)
  • Consider how online chatrooms operate, from the binary logics of machine code comes the elaborate virtual personae (avatars) that people ‘wear’ – chatrooms participants seem to be more conscious of the moral character of their online activity as a result of this face
  • Alfred Gell: “art is not institutional, nor is it aesthetic or semiotic, the definition is theoretical. The art object is whatever is inserted into the ‘slot’ provided for art objects in theory (1998:7),

These themes overlap practically completely with phenomenological perspectives. Thus, the intersectionality of my approach takes precedence. Each human perceives their experience and awareness as individually as they do collectively – even the lack of experience/awareness is indicative of how it is they move in our collective reality, our social imagination. This project’s aims are to understand exactly how one’s internal world reflects their specific beliefs and ideas – whether they are political or not is also political.

  • The distinction between actors in the private v. public spheres, the backstage v. onstage – is almost impossible to capture due to its temporality and singularity. In the consideration of stories, images, legends, spirituality, and nature in the context of the social imaginary, what is internalized is inevitably externalized.  Modalities of healing with respect to the internal worlds of humans are often contested with a scientific rebuttal in which pharmaceutical, neurological, psychological methods have become supposedly more widely trusted…

I believe that energy work has connections to contemporary conceptions of mental health practices – CBT, DBT, IFS, EMDR – all of these are valid forms of healing modalities, as is dancing/writing/painting/singing/et cetera. My current positionality supports the validity of alternative healing methods, the fluidity of expression in all realms of life (and thusly, the fluidity of the body as a material itself in relation to its present imagined “safe space”, ideally made tangible through digital/generative/web art). The potential outcomes of my research would simply be an exploration of time, existentialist imaginations of our bodies as materials and the expression of the senses. I hope it inspires people to consider their existence in a hopeful way. Kwong’s (2022) essay argues the phenomenology of hope as a term with positive connotations as well as the ontological question of whether hope is an emotion. In order to adapt my methods for these political elements, it would require a more specific research question.

week 4— fieldnotes

[Last modified: October, 31 2024 05:31 PM]

I interacted and observed a street on campus: Byng Place. I went with a course mate to the stand Purely Falafel, where we both ordered a small falafel wrap. The man who made my order kindly obliged when I asked for extra tomato. After tapping my phone to pay 6.50£, my lunch was ready. A brief glance at the glass protecting the ingredients brought my awareness to the hygiene rating sticker — a 5/5 — then, the man wearing sanitary gloves.

I walked a few steps towards one of three benches facing the food stalls. From left to right, a café/bakery, falafel, chicken and steak, and chicken and halloumi. Furthest right was another stall with activists bringing awareness to the Palestine genocide.

It was relatively peaceful to me, given the number of people passing by, lining up for food; a small one-way road behind the benches added a sonic layer of cars driving slowly to the chatter of humans all around me.

week 3— reflexivity & positionality

[Last modified: October, 25 2024 11:18 AM]

  1. what is your research topic?
    1. Phenomenology and body as material in transition out of competitive aesthetic sports; definitions and redefinitions of success, of freedom, of repression, of habitus.
  2. why is this of particular interest to you?
      1. I’m exploring a theme that I have experienced/am experiencing currently as the first two decades of my life were essentially consumed by the pursuit of success. Considering how I have engaged in self-surveillance and how I present in the material world, I am interested in exploring this awareness in others who have experienced a similar lifestyle in their formative years, and their subsequent explorations/interactions beyond athletics.
  3. what preconceived ideas are you bringing to this research?
      1. My own experiences have allowed me to untangle certain issues that I found affected me (see: The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf)
  4. might your lived experience inform the way you interact with participants?
      1. Absolutely! I have my own strong opinions and considerations through my own lived experience. I have had extensive therapy of a variety of modalities, considered how i present, my being, generational/familial impact, class relations, cultural dynamics (Taiwanese-american, raised with largely traditional Taiwanese values), and have explored in-depth the way i act, interact with various groups of people similar/dissimilar to me (collegiate skaters, non-athletes, recreational athletes… etc)
  5. do class, race, gender, sexuality, other identities inform your approaches? might it offer particular insights?
    1. I believe these differences are inherent to anthropological study. In any case, I take an intersectional approach to understanding how people might be aware or not aware of certain aspects of their own existence — everything is connected.
  6. how might this inform the interpretation of data?
    1. I must be careful about the way data is interpreted as it has been a visceral experience for myself — however, I am most interested by the impact that other identities and experiences will illuminate differences/similarities between these two stages of life— it is thus imperative for me to remain aware of my biases re: my own experience, to not let it impact the stories of others and be mindful of questions that I ask.

week 2— participant observation

[Last modified: October, 18 2024 02:10 PM]

My methodology was multifaceted in its approach; through reading autobiography, one-on-one conversations, and autoethnographic field notes, I was able to form a preliminary understanding of the body as material in the realm of explicitly competitive realms, particularly from the point of transition colloquially described as “rock bottom” — the point at which my participants decided to detach themselves from figure skating competitively.

Similarities emerged between four participants that I engaged with, including the visceral sense of attempts to detach from the corporeal challenges (disordered eating, objectification, ostracization from/integration into various outgroups, family enmeshment) related to the competitive figure skating world.

“I was described as a world-beater one day and a fat cow the next. The truth is, I didn’t lose my shape; my family was what was coming apart. I was just so fucking sad about it. It was a totally normal reaction to what was going on, but in figure skating there’s no room for anything but those happy, happy faces” (Participant A).

My awareness was drawn to privilege regarding class and bodily ability, among my small selection of participants, each detailed their ability to gain skills that placed them as viable competitors because of their parental investment via means of finances and time.

Similarly, the inability to keep up with redefinitions of success and the skills necessary to stand on podiums led to the denigration of the body of each of the participants.

“I must give the Russians respect for one thing: they don’t pretend their athletes are anything but cogs in a machine. They may be brutally obvious about it, but at least everyone is clear what the priorities are: medals over the health and well-being of their athletes. U.S. Figure Skating officials wanted us to believe that we’re one big caring family when their actions with me over the years suggested the relationship was much more transactional. I make them look good, they’ll make me look good” (Participant A).

“Sport has become a leading edge of the permeation of new technologies into the human body, with associated social and ethical dilemmas. The question is whether we are heading toward “transhuman athletes” who have exceeded the bounds of normal human capabilities” (Besnier and Brownell 2012:72)

I would continue conversations past this point, but my observations only lasted so long due to the nature of available time. I question whether there is a “post-transition” point that any participants would be able to speak on, as all of my constituents are still involved in the sport in some way, whether as a choreographer, coach, or recreational participant.

week 1— pilot project

[Last modified: October, 16 2024 03:59 PM]

Topic__ My interests stem from the perspective of body as material, my desire to encourage fluid expression of self, as well as definitions of success, morality/moral imagination and addiction. As the human body continues to be a prevailing medium through which visual culture is built on, we can approach these broader concepts through a variety of phenomena. My area of focus is athletes in aesthetic sports (eg. figure skating, diving, gymnastics, figure swimming, freestyle skiing. and martial arts routines), more specifically, the bodies of those who have transitioned out of professional or competitive landscapes to more traditional lifestyles. Considering embodied representations of structural compliance and freedom.

Questions__

  1. What age did you begin your sport? What age did you stop? For what reasons?
  2. Was your family involved in your participation of sport?
  3. How would you describe your involvement in the sport?
  4. Were there processes you underwent to untangle standards re: perfection aesthetics/judging systems?
  5. How has your body changed physically? Internally? Habitually?

Methods__ 

  • Photo elicitation
    • Ask participants for photos of themselves that demarcate specific, foundational periods
    • Images where they find themselves visually beautiful v. not beautiful
  • Digital ethnography
    • Consider social media profiles & online personas of participants — archived images on IG, etc.
  • Multimodal Multi-site participant observation/Interviews/storytelling
    • Participant observation/interviews/storytelling in various settings
      • eg. the stage vs. practice vs. personal life
        • interactions with peers, instructors, authority figures, family, friends

Potential Findings__ 

  • The body as capital
  • Emotions and reactions participants have had throughout different stages of their transition out of competitive aesthetic athletics
  • Competition v. collaboration
  • Perception of the body in relation to life
  • The passing of time represented through athletes’ efforts
  • Visual denigration of the body, dichotomized by the stage
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