Bodies, bombs and belief systems: sport, lifestyle construction and education in dangerous times1

The material for this paper has been assembled from many different sources. Some of the ideas and examples used are associated with a long term project named ‘Masculinity, sport and education’ that I have been involved in with Dr Christopher Hickey from Deakin University.

Abstract

Dominant academic narratives about ‘the body’ occur within two major camps. The first is derived from ‘classical social theory’, and takes a macroscopic focus. The contrasting perspective is what Sharp (Extended forms of the social, Arena Journal, 1, pp. 221–237, 1993) refers to as ‘post‐classical theory’. This orientation, originating in theories with a phenomenological focus, attempts to understand individuals as identity forming social actors. This paper offers an alternative perspective to both orientations and is described as a theory of society as ‘layered’. This perspective identifies three major themes that shape current understandings about ‘the body’: autonomy/independence as a primary social value of the ‘self’ in which the body can be understood as ‘an action system’, science and technology as potent social forces and inherent risks for individuals in the process of choosing and maintaining a desired lifestyle. These themes are explored via a case study of an Australian Rules footballer. The final part of the paper offers a number of suggestions about the implications of the analysis for education.

Notes

The material for this paper has been assembled from many different sources. Some of the ideas and examples used are associated with a long term project named ‘Masculinity, sport and education’ that I have been involved in with Dr Christopher Hickey from Deakin University.

According to Sharp (1985), ‘autonomy’ has become a primary and dominant social value as the practices of intellectually trained workers have come to reshape and dominate post traditional economies. It is well beyond the scope of this paper to fully document the origins and trajectory of this development. Suffice is to say that intellectuals, whether those tied directly to material production, or the forms of creative/artistic workers, engage in the process of imagining alternative futures in ways that are fundamentally different to that which is experienced by manually trained workers. The formalised work of the intellect is transcendent in the sense that involves the development of a form of consciousness that is transportable to other places/times and therefore ‘liberated’ from the material restrictions of the ‘here’ and ‘now’. From this perspective it is logically possible to trace the way that the material limitations and fixities of the ‘traditional’ body can be surpassed. Thus, for example, as medical scientists discover ways to change the processes of human reproduction, ‘infertile’ couples and individuals can begin to imagine alternative possibilities about achieving conception. On a general, cultural, level this suggests that the process of imagining oneself as ‘otherwise’ becomes a genuine possibility. Thus, for example, ‘scientifically’ devised diets convert, at the public level, into weight loss programs whereby a different appearance is possible as an outcome.

This quote is taken from an earlier version of the paper cited in this text. The earlier version was by D. Harraway (1983), entitled ‘The ironic dream of a common language for women in the integrated circuit: science, technology, and socialist feminism in the 1980s or a socialist feminist manifesto for cyborgs’.

This is an anecdote shared with the author at the conclusion of conference presentation in September 2003.