"Martial Arts as Health Practice"
Practitioners of mainstream medicine have encouraged the usage of integrative and complementary medicinal practices, such as massage and acupuncture, as a means of mitigating the effects of health challenges and treatment side-effects. Similarly, they encourage physical activity for its varied benefits towards muscular strength, bone density, and cardiovascular strength, to name a few. Such activities present the opportunity to experience health care in an environment that offers extended time commitment from purveyors of care, as well as the chance to engage health practices in a recurrent setting that fosters strong social bonds. Researchers in nursing, epidemiology, and geographies of health are keen to recognize the importance of peer networks in the development of healthful practices.
This project aims to extend the discussion of social network development by integrating space and local environments as conduits for health discourse. The theoretical point of origin begins with therapeutic landscapes, which can be described as any environment that is understood to foster healing, curative, or fortifying activities (Gesler 1992, Gesler 2005). Much of the literature focuses on the activities taking place within the therapeutic landscape (Straughan 2010), how locales develop reputations for being curative (Gesler 1993), and how therapeutic landscapes contain distinguishing physical attributes that enable healing activities (Gesler et al. 2004). While all these discussions are integral for understanding therapeutic landscapes, few researchers have dedicated time to theorizing the social dynamics, especially hierarchical social relationships, that craft these spaces into therapeutic places. The project will take martial arts as its primary focus. Such activities easily meld to the pending discussion in a variety of ways: (1) martial arts practice often takes place is spaces intentionally separated from the broader world; (2) practice is often prolonged and repetitive, sometimes extending over decades, allowing opportunities for strong social bonds to flourish; and (3) a focus on body work provides distinctive opportunities for participants to navigate the health benefits and rigors of training. Taken together, sites of martial arts practice (schools, dojos, studios, etc.) foster a distinct environment that rely on the modification of space and the fostering of social relationships that generate potentially therapeutic places. This research will address the following questions:
- How do practitioners in leadership positions create physical and social environments that prioritize healthful martial arts practice and wellbeing?
- How do leaders and students create a therapeutic physical environment that is separate from the broader world?
- In what ways do the distinguished (separated) spatiality of the dojo (studio, kwoon, etc.) and the social practices within function as a mutually reinforcing dialectic that fosters a potentially therapeutic environment?
- How do martial arts practice environments support health-seeking behaviors where the mainstream medical establishment cannot?
- How does the opportunity for participation multiple times per week empower practitioners to manage their health?
- How can martial arts practice, sometimes spanning decades, reinforce peer social networks that serve to facilitate the exchange of health knowledge?
These questions will be answered using participant observation and ethnographic methods involving practitioners in leadership positions, such as instructors, and students. Several stages of data acquisition will be deployed: (1) direct participation in martial arts practice; (2) participant and researcher-led film, photography, and diary-keeping (3) semi-structured, spatialized interviews. As martial arts practice entails intensive movement and body work, film and photography will enable practitioners to view themselves and each other utilizing the spaces where they develop their skills. Such moments are fleeting and unfold through precision muscle memory, and can thus be difficult for the practitioner to self-analyze in real-time.