Essa tese apresenta a reflexão resultante de dois anos de pesquisa em campo junto a duas escolas da cidade de Uberlândia, em que estive focada na observação das experiências corporais de crianças, adolescentes e professores em interação em aulas de Teatro e em diferentes situações no contexto escolar. Uma perspectiva que entrelaça etnografia e fenomenologia conduziu os processos de observação e de escritura das descrições dos processos pedagógicos sobre os quais reflito. O enraizamento da investigação na noção de experiência corporal e de embodiment partiu especialmente da fenomenologia de Merleau-Ponty e das formulações do pesquisador Thomas Csordas, respectivamente. Tais noções foram férteis para dimensionar a compreensão das práticas teatrais na escola como experiências corporais frutos da intersubjetividade e intercorporalidade em que estamos imersos, como seres-no-mundo e num mundo cultural. As descrições dos processos acompanhados nas escolas partem dessas experiências intercorpóreas apontando para eixos estruturantes emergentes delas: corpo e espaço / corpo e matéria-materialidade; jogo e performatividade; derivas. Ao formulá-los, percebo outras emergências desde as experiências observadas: o embodiment como condição de existência e manifestação da complexidade da constituição dos corpos-pessoas de professores e estudantes; a abertura para as emergências como microconduta que pode orientar práticas do professor em ação na escola; a subversão dos vetores da interação como projeto político e pedagógico no campo das experiências estéticas de e desde os corpos. / This thesis presents the resulting reflection from two years of field research, which took place in two schools in the city of Uberlândia, and in which I\'ve been focused on observing the body experiences of children, teenagers and teachers while interacting in theater classes and in different situations of the school context. A perspective that entwines ethnography and phenomenology led the observation process as well as the writing of descriptions from the pedagogical processes which I reflect upon. The rooting of the investigation on the notion of corporeal experience and embodiment were inspired especially from Merleau-Ponty´s phenomenology and the formulations from the researcher Thomas Csordas, respectively. Such notions were fertile to scale the understanding of theatrical practices in school as body experiences born from the intersubjectivity and intercorporeality in which we are all immersed, as beingsin- world and a cultural world. The descriptions from the processes observed in the schools come from these intercorporeal experiences pointing to emerging structural axes: body and space / body and raw materiality; play and performativity; drifts. As I formulate them, I perceive other emergencies from the observed experiences: the embodiment as a condition of existence and manifestation of the complexity found in the bodies-people\'s constitution from teachers and students; opening for emergencies as microconduct - which can guide teacher´s practices in action at school; subversion of the interactional vectors as a political and pedagogical project in the field of aesthetic experiences of/and from the bodies.

Cette thèse de Sciences du langage, s’inscrit dans le contexte de la communication interculturelle et se fonde sur l’analyse d’un corpus de 184112 mots (56 locuteurs, 13 nationalités), 9155 tours de paroles dialogiques. Il s’agit de rechercher un ou plusieurs indices mimogestuels de rupture de compréhension, en l’absence de verbalisation, chez le locuteur silencieux, durant l’interaction. La PARTIE I, propose un état des lieux concernant le repérage des ruptures de compréhension, en situation d’exolinguisme. La PARTIE II, expérimentation préliminaire (méthodologie et analyse de contenu), délimite 177 « blocs-textes », où s’encapsulent des ruptures de compréhension. Un item mimo-gestuel, lié à une excentration brève et rapide du regard (ERBR), souvent répliqué, est prélevé. La PARTIE III est une expérimentation princeps qui découle de l’expérimentation préliminaire. La variable indépendante (le langage verbal) et la variable dépendante (la mimogestualité), sont inversées, pour vérifier si les ruptures de compréhension, une fois rapportées aux critères verbaux corollaires, sont directement identifiables, à partir d’attitudes mimo-gestuelles précises. L’indice (ERBR) est donc systématiquement recherché dans le corpus : sa présence, largement répliquée, en situation de rupture de compréhension, suggère donc qu’il s’agit d’un signal de non-compréhension langagière. Ainsi, une corrélation forte entre le langage verbal et la gestualité non-consciente est bien objectivée, en situation dialogique, multiculturelle : ce repérage de moments de non-compréhension, dès leur incidence, pourrait être un réel apport à la didactique des langues, dans les sociétés cosmopolites d’aujourd’hui. / This PhD thesis is part of the context of intercultural communication and is based on the analysis of a corpus of 184112 words (56 speakers, 13 nationalities), 9155 turns of dialogic words. It is a question of looking for one or more mimogestual indices of rupture of comprehension, in the absence of verbalization, in the silent speaker, during the interaction. The PART I, proposes a state of the places concerning the locating of the breaks of comprehension, in situation of exolinguism. PART II, Preliminary Experimentation (Methodology and Content Analysis), delineates 177 "text-blocks", in which breaks in comprehension occur. A mimo-gestual item, linked to a short and fast eccentric look (ERBR), often replicated, is taken. PART III is a first experiment that arises from preliminary experimentation. The independent variable (the verbal language) and the dependent variable (the mimogestuality), are reversed, to check if the breaks of comprehension, once reported to the corollary verbal criteria, are directly identifiable, starting from precise mimo-gestures attitudes. The index (ERBR) is therefore systematically searched for in the corpus: its presence, which is largely replicated, in a situation of rupture of understanding, therefore suggests that it is a signal of linguistic non-comprehension. Thus, a strong correlation between verbal language and non-conscious gestuality is well objectified, in a dialogical, multicultural situation: this identification of moments of non-understanding, as soon as they have an impact, could be a real contribution to the didactics of languages, in the cosmopolitan societies of today.

Women and men face differences in how they experience the work environment concerning health and safety and their needs within the workspace. Depending on age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, women and men face different stigmas, thus impacting their difficulties within their work environments. Owing to this knowledge, the purpose of this research was to explore this difference in the workplace and understand how women experience the workplace differently. Specifically, from a perspective of embodiment and the needs, women are often inclined to have as a result of biology in the workplace. This insightful study explored the personalisation of embodiment by examining the diversified understanding of embodied needs of women that existed within different levels of an organisational hierarchy and had varied roles that required different levels of skills, manual labour, and knowledge. Using qualitative interviews and a phenomenological approach, the realities of these women with different embodied needs, and embodied stages were explored. The central insight being that while women may suffer the same injustices in the workplace and share the same biology, their embodied needs and experience still vary and cannot be painted with the same brush. Through this qualitative insight, key themes such as pregnancy and maternal needs, workplace accommodations, women clinic services and women workplace accommodations were identified as components of the female embodied needs. This exploratory study brought light to this understanding by exploring the varied experience of 12 participants.

The Kinetic quest of Ashtanga yoga through the lens of pilgrimage : making sense of postmodern questing.

Thesis (MTh)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study investigates whether the counter-cultural spiritual formation theology of Henri Nouwen could make a significant contribution to the discourse on an inclusive, gender-equitable, spirituality-based approach to holistic health. An analysis of Nouwen’s literary output reveals that three main relationships feature in the majority of his works: the relationship to self, the relationship to others and the relationship to God. This foundational framework of Nouwen is then used to structure the rest of the study to get an indication of the possible enduring value of certain core concepts that Nouwen developed within his triad of “movements” toward wholeness. In his thinking about the movement of Reaching out to our Fellow Human Beings, the concept of Vulnerability emerged as a key component of his theology. This forms the focus of investigation in Chapter 3 of this study. The movement of Reaching out to our Innermost Self led to an evaluation of the current usefulness of Nouwen’s seminal thinking on Embodiment, in chapter 4. In Chapter 5 the possible value of Nouwen’s lifelong engagement with Mystery as basis for his movement of Reaching Out to our God, is considered. In each of these chapters Nouwen’s possible contribution is brought into conversation with the current discourse in this field. This study then suggests that following the “downwardly mobile” way of Henri Nouwen’s spirituality of vulnerable embodiment could add a valuable contemplative dimension to the current conversation on global health and wellness. This approach may open up a range of important questions in the areas of vulnerability, embodiment and mysticism. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie stel ondersoek in na die vraag of die kontra-kulturele spiritualiteitsvorming-teologie van Henri Nouwen ’n betekenisvolle bydrae kan lewer tot die huidige diskoers rondom ’n geslagsgelyke, spiritualiteit-gebaseerde benadering tot holistiese gesondheid. ’n Analise van Nouwen se literere bydraes dui aan dat drie basiese verhoudinge ’n prominente rol speel in die meeste van sy werke: die verhouding tot self, die verhouding tot ander mense en die verhouding tot God. Hierdie grondliggende raamwerk van Nouwen word dan gebruik om die struktuur van die res van die studie te bepaal om daardeur ’n aanduiding te probeer kry oor die moontlike blywende waarde van sekere kernkonsepte wat Nouwen ontwikkel het binne sy drieledige stel “bewegings” na heelheid. Uit sy denke rondom die beweging wat hy Uitreik na ons Medemense noem, het die konsep kwesbaarheid na vore gekom as ’n sleutelbegrip in sy teologie. Dit is die navorsingsfokus van Hoofstuk 3 van hierdie studie. In Hoofstuk 4 word die moontlike bydrae van Nouwen se ontwikkelende denke rondom beliggaming ondersoek, na aanleiding van sy beskrywing van die beweging Uitreik na ons Diepste Self. In Hoofstuk 5 word ondersoek ingestel na die moontlike waarde wat Nouwen se lewenslange betrokkenheid by die mistiek mag inhou, na aanleiding van wat hy skryf oor die beweging van Uitreik na ons God. In elkeen van hierdie hoofstukke word Nouwen se moontlike waardetoevoeging in verband gebring met die huidige diskoers in hierdie area. Hierdie studie suggereer dan dat die “afwaartse beweging” van Henri Nouwen se spiritualiteit van kwesbare beliggaming ’n waardevolle kontemplatiewe dimensie mag toevoeg tot die huidige diskoers oor globale gesondheid en welwese. Hierdie benadering mag ’n verskeidenheid belangrike vrae na vore bring op die terreine van kwesbaarheid, beliggaming en mistiek.

This thesis comprises a narrative exploration of the lived experience of being someone who has self-injured. Self-injury, like pain, emotions, sensation and social life, is understood and examined as inherently embodied. The thesis is intended to contribute to sociological approaches to the study of embodiment and to sociological understandings of self-injury. Twelve participants were recruited in non-clinical sites. The sample was heterogeneous in terms of their experience of self-injury, contact with medical and psychiatric services, socio-economic background, household type, age and sexuality. Both men and women were interviewed in an attempt to counter the relative neglect of men in previous research. Two interviews were carried out with each participant: the first was a life-story interview, while the second explored self-injury more directly. The approach to data collection and analysis was intended to be collaborative, and comprised both narrative and thematic techniques. The thesis demonstrates the importance of studying self-injury as an embodied, socially situated and socially mediated behaviour. An embodied approach underlines the importance of the visibility of self-injury. The existence of visible marks and scars created by self-injury were important aspects of the lived experience of participants. The ways in which these marks were negotiated in social life represented a key focus of analysis. My analysis reveals the importance and utility of attending to the practical and material aspects of self-injury in attempting to understand the behaviour. I highlight the diverse ways in which self-injury is practised, and the equally various meanings and understandings it holds for practitioners A variety of complex and contradictory justifications for self-injury are critically examined. These justifications share a concern with pain, incarnate, suggesting that self-injury is: a method of transforming emotional pain into physical pain; a way of relieving emotional pain; painful; painless; attention-seeking; private. A sociological, narrative analysis illuminates the ways in which these understandings and justifications can be located within biographical, interpersonal and socio-cultural contexts. By locating these justifications within socio-cultural contexts, the complexities and contradictions of the accounts become understandable. My analysis confirms the importance of attending to socio-cultural understandings of bodies, emotions, authenticity and morality in exploring narratives about self-injury.

This thesis offers a critical interrogation of the relationship between and co-production of bodies, texts and spaces. It introduces and develops the concept of the embodied imagination through the philosophy of Spinoza and recent Spinozist thinkers as a way of informing a materialist account of the production of experience. The embodied imagination, as material and affective, can supplement a Foucauldian account of subjectivation through its ability to offer an account of experience ‘after the subject’ – of experience as the surface effects of the movement of affect through and across bodies, texts and spaces that are productive of transsubjective social imaginaries. This can contribute to a fuller account of subject production and to a formulation of embodied politics based on a political analytic of feeling. These conceptual arguments are mobilised through exemplars from ethnographic fieldwork based on the geographical concerns of landscape, embodied practice and place imaginaries. In particular, I point to specific outdoor practices, techniques and regimes that, in their imbrication in certain imaginaries, contribute to a sense of place and belonging. Through a ‘thoroughly materialist’ approach to these concerns, bodies’ involvement in material relations with other bodies and with the world are shown to be central to experience-production. I argue too that this approach can expose the relations of power that produce the very materialities of bodies, and as such can shed light on the politics of the nonrepresentational and its centrality to the production of embodied subjectivities. In doing so, a postfoundational sociology of embodied experience is formulated that operates according to a politics of radical contingency. This postfoundational perspective foregrounds an ontology of the encounter over presence: an ontogenetic account of the emergence of bodies, texts and spaces from their material imbrication in a world charged with affective resonance.

In this project I argue that trauma is a major component of society. Rather than positioning trauma as an event, I contend that it should be understood as an environmental force. To form this reorientation I look to an actual environment and the ways in which it remembers and responds to systemic violence. Specifically, I track the colonization and exploitation of Mount Baldy, and how natural occurrences such as floods and fires have consistently threatened human development on the mountain. If trauma is both monumentally impactful and an environmental force, then it merits a major rethinking of many of the aspects of human existence that are assumed to be stable. In chapter 1, I move trauma outside of the psychological definitions of the DSM and into a communal and systemic framework. In chapter 2, I use a case study of Mount Baldy to understand how environmental forces react to trauma, which provides a way to imagine how a society or community might collectively operate as a traumatized being. In chapter 3, I undertake a material research process using clay harvested from Mount Baldy. Clay, which mimics characteristics of the human body and is literally a part of the natural environment, connects the embodied nature of trauma for human to the ecological manifestations of trauma. This allows a glimpse at what it might mean to acknowledge trauma as a major component of the human experience.

A considerable body of evidence links social and economic inequities to poor health. One of the means through which these inequities are translated to the body is via negative emotions, which carry known psychological and physiological responses. This thesis is a historically contextualized study of how migration from Mexico to southern Arizona is experienced at the site of the body. In this dissertation, I outline the ethno-historical background of traditional medicinal usage and concepts of health and healing in northern Mexico, the primary sending region to southern Arizona. This historical grounding enables a richer exploration of how Mexicans understand migration to effect their physical and mental health. I then examine migration-related psychosocial stressors impacting first-generation Mexican immigrants in southern Arizona, and report on the primary emotional experiences immigrants associate with these stressors. Finally, I use the illness narratives of my participants to move more deeply into the connections between these experiences of emotional suffering and physical health. Here I employ immigrants' own words to draw a link between group level epidemiological data on health declines in the immigrant community and established research in biological anthropology and neurobiology that identifies individual emotional hardship as a biological pathway to disease. Given the heavy emotional toll of migration and the direct impact that regional legislation and border security has had on well-being, this thesis argues that emotion be considered an important mechanism for health declines in the immigrant community.

Este trabalho visou compreender a experiência da queimadura e a percepção de pacientes queimados sobre sua imagem corporal em relação aos padrões que regulam o ideal de corpo em nossa sociedade. Além disso, objetivou interpretar os significados atribuídos a um corpo que apresenta marcas de queimaduras. Recorreu à abordagem antropológica, à história de vida tópica e às técnicas de observação e entrevista. A pesquisa foi realizada com 10 pacientes de uma unidade de tratamento de queimados de hospital universitário do interior do Estado de São Paulo. Os resultados demonstram que os pacientes queimados percebem que seu corpo é estigmatizado de uma forma a afetar a identidade social do grupo focalizado. / This study aimed to understand the experience and perception of burn patients about their body image compared to contemporary standards, which regulate the body ideal in our society. The research aimed also interprets the meanings assigned to a body that has burn marks. In anthropological approach and topical history of life, the techniques used by research were observation and interview. The study was developed with 10 patients in a burn treatment unit of a university hospital in the state of São Paulo. The results point to the stigmatization of burn patients\' body in ways that affect the social identity of the group focused.