Physical Activity can be a Real Pain: The Building of a High-Performance Sporting Body
Presentation by Dr. P. David Howe, senior lecturer in the anthropology of sport at the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University, UK.
Abstract:
In this presentation I will examine how creating a high-performance body illuminates the disjuncture between physical activity and health. Drawing upon ethnographic data collected as the game of rugby union was going from an amateur pastime to a professional concern in the South Wales valleys, I will attempt to disentangle the link between the broad term physical activity and the assumption that participation in it can lead to healthy living. Highlighting participant observations collected on and around one particular sporting body, I chronicle the transformation of a rugby player’s body into high-performance machine that played the game at the highest level. This transformation of a healthy male rugby player, with a desire to enhance his ‘fitness’ in order that he could perform at the elite level, allows us to reflect upon the point at which physical activity, as manifest through sport, goes from being healthy living to a battle with pain and injury.
Date and Time
Friday, February 10, 2012
3:00 PM
-
4:30 PM
Contact Information
Leanne Baudistel, administrative assistant
Office of the Associate Dean, Research
780-492-5910; leanne.baudistel@ualberta.ca
Audience
General Public
Cost
No charge
Location
Van Vliet Physical Education and Recreation Centre
E121