‘It stays with you’: multiple evocative representations of dance and future possibilities for studies in sport and physical cultures

This article considers the integration of arts-based representations via poetic narratives together with artistic representation on dancing embodiment so as to continue an engagement with debates regarding multiple forms/representations. Like poetry, visual images are unique and can evoke particular kinds of emotional and visceral responses, meaning that alternative representational forms can resonate in different and powerful ways. In the article, we draw on grandparent-grandchild interactions, narrative poetry, and artistic representations of dance in order to illustrate how arts-based methods might synergise to offer new ways of ‘knowing’ and ‘seeing’. The expansion of the visual arts into interdisciplinary methodological innovations is a relatively new, and sometimes contentious approach, in studies of sport and exercise. We raise concerns regarding the future for more arts-based research in the light of an ever-changing landscape of a neoliberal university culture that demands high productivity in reductionist terms of what counts as ‘output’, often within very restricted time-frames. Heeding feminist calls for ‘slow academies’ that attempt to ‘change’ time collectively, and challenge the demands of a fast-paced audit culture, we consider why it is worth enabling creative and arts-based methods to continue to develop and flourish in studies of sport, exercise and health, despite the mounting pressures to ‘perform’

New technologies of representation, collaborative autoethnographies and ‘taking it public’: An example from ‘Facilitating Communication on Sexual Topics in Education’

New technologies for representing and communicating autoethnographies make it possible to be publically visible in new and interesting ways that weren’t possible prior to the digital revolution. An important ingredient in this process is the internet platforms that can make the digitisation of performances accessible across the world, even for short, modest creations from less experienced digital storytellers and film makers. As an illustration of the potential applications of digital technologies for ‘taking’ autoethnographic research to the ‘public,’ and making our research accessible to a wider audience we share ‘Reverberations,’ a collaborative autoethnography exploring bullying, homophobia, and other types of sexual harassment and associated feelings of shame, embarrassment and fear which often surround these topics

Remembering, Reflecting, Returning: A Return to Professional Practice Journey Through Poetry, Music and Images:A Return to Professional Practice Journey Through Poetry, Music and Images

<p>Our composition brings together poetry, music, images and personal narratives based around the experiences of an occupational therapist, Karen, who following a family career break, returned to her profession. Our work demonstrates collaborative research practices and illuminates our experiences and journeying as practitioner-artists/researchers/teachers.</p> <p>This autoethnographic inquiry employs bricolage, drawing on theory and hybridized methods, inspired by the notion of ‘returning to practice’. The conversations of Karen and Katherine (mentee and mentor) as qualitative data, analyzed, interpreted and made accessible through poetry and images – along with Peter’s musical and autobiographical compositions – explore possibilities to re-examine and share alternative avenues of scholarship and theoretical understanding, not least in redefining what contribution to knowledge that artistic processes and ‘artwork’ makes methodologically, pedagogically, aesthetically, and therapeutically. Our intention is to engage the reader-viewer-listener to (re)think, take notice, disrupt, re-examine and extend personal meanings about return to practice journeys, enabling each of us to benefit and be (re)inspired.</p> <p>We recast aspects of ‘knowing and experience’ metaphorically, to consider and express our sense of being and becoming in the world. Importantly, we seek to explore how arts informed ways of knowing and learning about the self and other can serve to enhance our students/researchers/practitioners learning experiences.</p

Climbing walls, making bridges: children of immigrants’ identity negotiations through capoeira and parkour in Turin.

Capoeira and parkour are two different body practices which have gained worldwide attention in urban settings in the last few decades. The following paper will explore how capoeira and parkour relate to the construction of identity paths amongst children of immigrants between 12 and 20 in Turin, Italy. It will do so by looking at how such practices are used by young men of migrant origin to negotiate and perform narratives of self-worth, belonging and recognition within marginalising and excluding urban environments. This study acknowledges that social identifications are created, negotiated and (re)produced through bodily and spatial means and within networks of power relations. Following this premise, the insights proposed in this paper suggest that the ambivalent and fluid use of bodies and spaces implied by capoeira and parkour can represent a meaningful lens to understand the embodied and spatial identity negotiations enacted by participants in their daily lives. This theoretical perspective will illuminate the place that active bodies, spaces and leisure practices take in the negotiation of social identities, and dynamics of inclusion/exclusion, enacted by youth of migrant origin within early twenty-first century Turin cityscape

Living with the h-index? Metric assemblages in the contemporary academy

This paper examines the relationship between metrics, markets and affect in the contemporary UK academy. It argues that the emergence of a particular structure of feeling amongst academics in the last few years has been closely associated with the growth and development of ‘quantified control’. It examines the functioning of a range of metrics: citations; workload models; transparent costing data; research assessments; teaching quality assessments; and commercial university league tables. It argues that these metrics, and others, although still embedded within an audit culture, increasingly function autonomously as a data assemblage able not just to mimic markets but, increasingly, to enact them. It concludes by posing some questions about the possible implications of this for the future of academic practice

Engaging with arts-based research: A story in three parts

Qualitative psychology researchers of today face numerous practical, ethical, political and theoretical challenges. We have often asked ourselves how we might respond to these multiple and complex challenges. On our evolving research journeys, we have found that arts-based methodologies offer one effective response. We explore here our experiences of doing arts-based research in psychological contexts, by sharing and reflecting on three short stories. The stories illustrate how each arts-based project has required of us three distinct waves of engagement: interdependent engagement with people and place, aesthetic engagement with sense making processes, and emotional engagement with – and of – audiences. We use the story form to evoke each wave of engagement because it allows us to communicate the qualities of that engagement without finalising, foreclosing or restricting the variety of ways arts-based research might be conducted

Legal approaches regarding health-care decisions involving minors: implications for next-generation sequencing

The development of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies are revolutionizing medical practice, facilitating more accurate, sophisticated and cost-effective genetic testing. NGS is already being implemented in the clinic assisting diagnosis and management of disorders with a strong heritable component. Although considerable attention has been paid to issues regarding return of incidental or secondary findings, matters of consent are less well explored. This is particularly important for the use of NGS in minors. Recent guidelines addressing genomic testing and screening of children and adolescents have suggested that as ‘young children' lack decision-making capacity, decisions about testing must be conducted by a surrogate, namely their parents. This prompts consideration of the age at which minors can provide lawful consent to health-care interventions, and consequently NGS performed for diagnostic purposes. Here, we describe the existing legal approaches regarding the rights of minors to consent to health-care interventions, including how laws in the 28 Member States of the European Union and in Canada consider competent minors, and then apply this to the context of NGS. There is considerable variation in the rights afforded to minors across countries. Many legal systems determine that minors would be allowed, or may even be required, to make decisions about interventions such as NGS. However, minors are often considered as one single homogeneous population who always require parental consent, rather than recognizing there are different categories of ‘minors' and that capacity to consent or to be involved in discussions and decision-making process is a spectrum rather than a hurdle

Recontacting patients in clinical genetics services: recommendations of the European Society of Human Genetics

Technological advances have increased the availability of genomic data in research and the clinic. If, over time, interpretation of the significance of the data changes, or new information becomes available, the question arises as to whether recontacting the patient and/or family is indicated. The Public and Professional Policy Committee of the European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG), together with research groups from the UK and the Netherlands, developed recommendations on recontacting which, after public consultation, have been endorsed by ESHG Board. In clinical genetics, recontacting for updating patients with new, clinically significant information related to their diagnosis or previous genetic testing may be justifiable and, where possible, desirable. Consensus about the type of information that should trigger recontacting converges around its clinical and personal utility. The organization of recontacting procedures and policies in current health care systems is challenging. It should be sustainable, commensurate with previously obtained consent, and a shared responsibility between healthcare providers, laboratories, patients, and other stakeholders. Optimal use of the limited clinical resources currently available is needed. Allocation of dedicated resources for recontacting should be considered. Finally, there is a need for more evidence, including economic and utility of information for people, to inform which strategies provide the most cost-effective use of healthcare resources for recontacting