Feminist New Materialist Entanglements With "Kinetic Excess" in Women's Muay Thai Boxing: Moving With Embodied Discomfort as a Post-Qualitative Coach-Researcher

No Thumbnail Available
File version
Author(s)
Nichols, Erin
Pavlidis, Adele
Fullagar, Simone
Primary Supervisor
Other Supervisors
Editor(s)
Date
2023
Size
File type(s)
Location
License
Abstract

Feminist engagement with fight sports is often ambivalent given the masculine history of combat and the achievement of “self” transformation at the “expense” of another, exist in tension with the possibilities of women’s empowerment. Acknowledging the multiplicity of embodied meanings produced through Muay Thai Boxing (Thai Boxing), this feminist post-qualitative project seeks to do “research differently” through a generative ethos of knowledge production that is co-constituted with participants and the coach-researcher (Erin). We explore how a Thai boxing program—“fight camp”—worked through-with an affective feminist coaching pedagogy that sought to transform gendered patterns of movement mobilizing moments of discomfort and pleasure. This research practice involved attuning to the embodied dynamics of learning-coaching—the intra-actions of boxing—in terms of what these movement practices “do” and how they “affect” women in the process of becoming-fighters. We write through three provocations—“the drunk uncle,” “get ugly with it,” and “show and tell”—to engage readers in the affective relations entangled within the processes of coaching-researching MTB. Our post-qualitative research approach has implications for the provision of physical cultural practices and alternative coaching pedagogy more broadly.

Journal Title

Cultural Studies - Critical Methodologies

Conference Title
Book Title
Edition
Volume

23

Issue

2

Thesis Type
Degree Program
School
Publisher link
Patent number
Funder(s)
Grant identifier(s)
Rights Statement
Rights Statement
Item Access Status
Note
Access the data
Related item(s)
Subject

Cultural studies

Social Sciences

feminist affective pedagogy

post-qualitative inquiry

Muay Thai Boxing

Persistent link to this record
Citation

Nichols, E; Pavlidis, A; Fullagar, S, Feminist New Materialist Entanglements With "Kinetic Excess" in Women's Muay Thai Boxing: Moving With Embodied Discomfort as a Post-Qualitative Coach-Researcher, Cultural Studies - Critical Methodologies, 2023, 23 (2), pp. 130-145

Collections