Body Ecology and Emersive Leisure

The emerging field of body ecology offers fresh insights into how the body engages with its surrounding environment through consciousness, perception, knowledge and emotion. In this groundbreaking collection, leading scholars of sport, leisure and philosophy draw on research on topics as diverse as surfing, freediving, slacklining, parkour, bodybuilding, dance and circus arts to flesh out the concept of body ecology and its potential for helping us understand our connection with the world around us. Touching on theories of subjectivity, embodiment, pleasure and play, this book explores different approaches to studying body ecology as a way of conceptualising the experience of being immersed in nature, in the elements and in one's own body through the power of awareness. An experience becomes emersive when it involves the production of new emotions in the body: emersion is the activation of what is living within the body itself. Shedding new light on the possibilities of physical cultural studies, Body Ecology and Emersive Leisure is fascinating reading for all students and scholars with an interest in sport, leisure, philosophy and the body.

Bernard Andrieu is Professor of Philosophy and Epistemology of the Body at the University Paris-Descartes, France. He is Director of Body Technics; Coordinator of Body Ecology in Adapted, Physical Sport Activities; and Co-Editor of Corps, a review published by CNRS. His main interests are in body ecology, emersiology, self health, sport ethics, somatechny, and the history of somaticians Jim Parry is former Head of Philosophy and of the School of Humanities, University of Leeds, UK. He is now Visiting Professor at the Faculty of PE and Sport, Charles University, Prague. His main interests are in applied ethics (especially sports ethics) and social and political philosophy. He is co-editor of the Routledge series Ethics and Sport Alessandro Porrovecchio is Assistant Lecturer in Sociology of Sport at the University of Lille II, France. His main interests are in interdisciplinary sociology-based research on sports and health. He is Vice-Coordinator of the European Sociological Association Olivier Sirost is a Professor at the Université de Rouen Normandie, France, and Head of the CETAPS Laboratory. His main interests are in the study of the senses and outdoor leisure. He is the author of La vie au grand air; and with Bernard Andrieu the Editor of L'écologie corporelle

General Introduction Part I: Body Ecology: The Basic Concepts Introduction to Part I 1. Central Themes in Body Ecology 2. Georges Hébert (1875-1957): A Naturalist's Invention of Body Ecology 3. The Concept of 'Body Schema' in Merleau-Ponty's Account of Embodied Subjectivity 4. Body, Flow and Learning: From Feldenkrais to Csikszentmihalyi 5. Sport, Health and Academia: A Reflexive Approach to the Disenchantment and the Re-Enchantment of the Body 6. The Naturalising Process of Technique: The Antimony of Nature and Culture through the Lens of Chinese Practices 7. Health, Well-Being and Sport: Some Personal Reflections Part II: Emersion in the Leisure Environment and the Recosmologisation of Sport Introduction to Part II 8. Ecological Transition and Recreative Leisure in Nature 9. Naked Surfing in Tambaba, Brazil: An Example of Body Ecology 10. Body Ecology and Urban Sports: Parkour as an Interdisciplinary Immersion in the City Environment 11. Heidegger, Sport and Body Ecology 12. The Recosmologisation of the World: From Monte Verita to Naturism 13. Body Ecology and Academic Well-Being: What Sustainable Health Can Be Offered to Adolescents through the Practice of Body Art Activities? PART III: Emersive Leisure and Aesthesiology Introduction to Part III 14. Bodies in the Wind: Dance and Nature on Redinha Beach, Natal, Brazil 15. 'No pain no gain': The Puritan Ethic in Bodybuilding 16. The Emersion of Blackout in Freediving: Moderation and Immoderation 17. The Emersion of Sensation in Slacklining 18. The Emersion of Involuntary Gesture in the Vertiginous Circus Arts