Knowing the 'Going': the sensory evaluation of distance running

To date there has been little research into the mundane direct embodiment of sporting activity. This paper seeks to contribute to a small but developing literature by portraying how distance running training sessions are experienced in a sensory way and how that direct embodied knowledge is used to categorise and evaluate the practise of ongoing training. The paper looks at the sensory practices which are used to evaluate distance running performanc

Mundane Ritual Practices and Distance Running

Mundane ritual practices which effect transformation from work role to athletic role to domestic ones

Everyday envisionings: running pleasures and pains

The precise ways in which we go about doing the mundane, often repetitive, actions of everyday life are central concerns of ethnographers and theorists working within the traditions of the sociology of the mundane, sociological phenomenology and ethnomethodology. In this article, we utilize insights derived from Schützian phenomenology and its operationalization via ethnomethodology to provide a novel perspective on a particular, mundane and embodied social practice: training for distance running - in specific places: our favoured running routes. Despite a growing corpus of ethnographic studies of sports and physical cultures, relatively scant analytic attention has been devoted to investigating the actual, mundane, everyday practices of “doing” or “producing” physical cultural activity, particularly from a sensory auto/ethnographic perspective (Allen-Collinson & Hockey, 2009; Sparkes, 2009). Here we seek to “mark” (Brekhus, 1998) the everyday activity of training for distance running, in particular analysing how terrain is habitually seen, evaluated and experienced on the run

Distance running as joint accomplishment: an ethnomethodological perspective

Whilst there exists a substantial literature focused upon abstract theorizations of sport, at present there is little ethnographic work within the sociology of sport on the mundane practices of actually ‘doing’ sport. In sum, the phenomenological ground of ‘how’ sport is accomplished remains largely uncharted territory for researchers (Allen-Collinson 2009, Haldrup & Larsen 2006, Hockey & Allen Collinson 2007, Sparkes 2009). This lacuna applies both to the phenomenology of the lived sporting body and to the embodied interaction that occurs between participants as they do sport. In order to address this lacuna, this presentation offers an in-depth analysis of how training together for the sport of distance running constitutes a joint accomplishment by us as distance runners. Here we focus specifically upon the sensory and interactional work, which, for us, are essential components in the experience of ‘doing’ running. The theoretical foundation of the presentation lies in the social phenomenology of Alfred Schütz (1967), which focused upon how individuals sustain routine social life using a ‘stock of knowledge at hand’, in particular the mundane use of typfications, the common sense constructs that individuals use to order their social world on a moment to moment basis. In applying Schützian insights to the study of members’ methods for producing and reproducing everyday social order, Harold Garfinkel (1967) developed ethnomethodology, the study of members’ methods, their mundane practices for managing the social world. Adopting an ethnomethodological stance, our presentation portrays ‘how’ joint distance running training sessions are habitually accomplished

The Aesthetic of Being in the Field: Participant Observation with Infantry

A useful and concise definition of participant observation is that offered by Emerson et al. (2002:352): ‘Participant observation – establishing a place in some natural setting on a relatively long-term basis in order to investigate, experience and represent the social life and social processes that occur in that setting…’. The literature on using this method with infantry (e.g. Pipping, 1947/2008, Little, 1964, Ben-Ari, 1998, Segal, 2001, King, 2006, Tortorello, 2010, Irwin, 2012, MacLeish, 2012) and the similar occupation of private military contractor (e.g. Higate, 2012) is not extensive. One of the reasons for this lack of research is the still relatively closed nature of military institutions and the problem of gaining access to troops (Jenkings et al., 2011), but another reason may well be that researchers are put off from engaging with this occupational group due to their perceptions of the difficulties of engaging in fieldwork with them. This chapter will explore the reality of undertaking such research

The experience of Zulu (military) Time: an examination of the temporal practices and perceptions of UK infantry

Organizational time remains an under-examined research area. This is particularly so in terms of analysis which combines workers temporal embodiment, temporal inter-embodiment, and collective temporal perceptions. These three social processes are portrayed using the case of the military organization and focus upon the temporal world of UK infantry via ethnographic data obtained from participant observation. Initially, the narrative examines the need for Zulu (military) time at the level of organizational structure. This is followed by a portrayal of how, within that structure, temporal embodiment and inter-embodiment are learnt and habituated, via practices such as parade ground and weapon training drills. Next, those same temporal processes are focused upon in the context of operational (combat) patrolling, and their manifestation within the practices of formations and tactics are examined. The narrative then moves on to examine collective temporal perceptions troops construct, which are focused upon issues of danger, safety, and identity. The account concludes with a call for organizational time both civilian and military to be given much more attention by sociological researchers particularly at the level of embodied practices

Everyday Routines as Transformative Processes: A Sporting Case

Currently there is scant sociological research on everyday routines within sport and also upon other routines which make sporting routines themselves possible. This paper adds to that very small literature, illustrating how movement between the contexts of paid employment, sport and home is habitually accomplished. Utilising qualitative data from a collaborative auto-ethnography on distance running, a case study of the routines of getting ready for, doing, and leaving daily training sessions is portrayed. The ensuing narrative depicts the cognitive and corporeal routines, which effect the transformations necessary to accomplish daily distance running

Identity challenges and identity work: sporting embodiment and disrupted identity, Working the Interactionist Tradition: Contributions, Legacies and Prospects

This paper addresses a topic of long-standing concern to symbolic interactionism: identity challenges and the role of ‘identity work’ in coping with identity disruptive happenings (Allen-Collinson, 2011; Hockey, 2013). In the case considered here, disruption to identity was generated by long-term injuries experienced by two recreational, non-elite but nevertheless very ‘serious’ and highly committed distance runners. Employing a symbolic interactionist framework, we analyse data from a two-year autoethnographic project examining the injury and rehabilitation process, and the identity challenges provoked by enforced withdrawal from a core element of identification. Here, we explore the role of identity work in providing a much-needed degree of continuity of identity during the liminality of long-term injury, drawing on Snow and Anderson’s (1995) and Perinbanayagam’s (2000) conceptualisations of identity work. These focus on the dimensions of materialistic, associative and vocabularic identifications. We illustrate these key forms of identification via rich data extracts from the research project. Our extended quotes cohere around the themes of: 1) the use of settings, props and appearance; 2) selective association with subcultural others; and 3) identity talk. In its varied and complex forms, identity work was found to be of great salience in sustaining a credible, if modified, running identity in the face of considerable identity challenge, and in generating much-needed momentum toward our goal of restitution to full running selves

A Natural History of an Environmentalist: Identifying Influences on Pro-sustainability Behavior Through Biography and Autoethnography

This natural history of an environmentalist uses autoethnography through biographical interview to investigate the contextual analysis of influences affecting active pro-sustainability behavior, which is interpreted as environmentalism. Education for sustainability categories of environmental, socio-cultural, political and economic factors were used to identify factors that interact to influence affective and cognitive domains, which affect environmentalist behavior. These influences in reality operated symbiotically but for purposes of analysis they have been portrayed sequentially. The portrayal of the autoethnographer's vocabulary of motives and identity theory applied to group commitment were used as analytic tools. The research methodology employed provides a strategy for investigating biography, which gives access to lived experience as a basis for understanding factors influencing environmentalism. Processes of metacognition and reflexivity, supported by critical engagement with co-researchers, provide access to deep analysis of the biography. Whilst it was not possible to make statistical generalizations from a single case study it was possible to make limited qualitative generalizations, or in other words "moderatum generalizations." Subsequent examination of the natural histories of other life-long environmentalists would certainly not reveal detailed similarities in terms of specific biographical occurrences. However, the abstract categories of influence outlined provide a useful template for further investigating the process of activist identity development which we know little about at the present time

Gravel cycling craft and the senses: scenes, sounds, vibrations, fatigue and typifications on off-road tracks

Although cycling has been researched at the interactional level, there is scant literature regarding embodiment, and the somatic experiences from rider-bike-ground interactions. Via an ethnographic approach using video obtained from participant observation as a “graveller” sensory practices are examined. Firstly, the research is positioned with the literature on craft studies. Secondly the domains of action namely space, place and the body are theorized and conceptualized. Thirdly, the sensory perceptions generated by gravel riders are depicted. Fourthly, these combined perceptions in turn foster the establishment of subcultural typifications of gravel tracks which are portrayed and form part of the craft knowledge of the above group. The paper concludes by pointing out the link between the sensory and the development of a particular consciousness, and also sport as a fertile ground for investigating craft practices