“You Have to Accept the Pain”: Body Callusing and Body Capital in Circus Aerialism

Kevin Walby; Shawn Stuart

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.17.4.01

Authors

Kevin Walby University of Winnipeg, Canada https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5107-2309
Shawn Stuart University of Winnipeg, Canada https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0390-9928

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.17.4.01

Keywords:

Circus Aerialism, Body Capital, Risk, Injury, Pain, Training, Aging

Abstract

Little sociological research has examined the work of circus aerialists. Drawing from interviews with 31 circus aerialists in Canada, we explore what aerialists say about their bodies. Circus aerialism is an intense form of physical work, and aerialists endure intense pain during training and performance. Engaging with sociologies of the body and injury, we examine how body capital is generated, maintained, and lost in the career of the aerialist, as well as how injury accelerates this process. Injury and “aging out” of the circus are prominent themes in what aerialists say about their bodies. Arguing that circus aerialism is an undervalued form of work in which risk accumulates in aerialist bodies, we explore how aerialist bodies provide tacit cues about how to avoid injury and when to consider retirement. In the conclusion, we explain how this work contributes to sociologies of the body and circus.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Kevin Walby, University of Winnipeg, Canada

Kevin Walby is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Winnipeg. He is the co-author of Municipal Corporate Security in International Context, as well as A Criminology of Policing and Security Frontiers. He is the co-editor of Access to Information and Social Justice: Critical Research Strategies for Journalists, Scholars and Activists; Brokering Access: Power, Politics and Freedom of Information Process in Canada; The Handbook of Prison Tourism; Corporatizing Canada: Making Business Out of Public Service; National Security, Surveillance, and Terror: Canada and Australia in Comparative Perspective; Policing Cities: Urban Securitization and Regulation in a 21st Century World; Corporate Security in the 21st Century: Theory and Practice in International Perspective; and Emotions Matter: A Relational Approach to Emotions. He is the co-editor of the Journal of Prisoners on Prisons.

Shawn Stuart, University of Winnipeg, Canada

Shawn Stuart holds a Master of Science in Criminal Justice from the University of Oklahoma. She has broad research interests in social identity and social control. Her primary research interest is in understanding belonging and how it is impacted by social exclusion, as well as how belonging shapes our relationships, social groups, and cognitive processes.

References

Albrecht, Ernest. 1995. The New American Circus. Gainesville, FL: University of Press of Florida.
Google Scholar

Allen-Collinson, Jacquelyn. 2005. “Emotions, Interaction and the Injured Sporting Body.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 40(2):221-240.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690205057203

Allen-Collinson, Jacquelyn. 2017. “Injured, Pained and Disrupted Bodies.” Pp. 267-276 in Routledge Handbook of Physical Cultural Studies, edited by M. Silk, D. Andrews, and H. Thorpe. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315745664-28

Allen-Collinson, Jacquelyn and John Hockey. 2011. “Feeling the Way: Notes toward a Haptic Phenomenology of Distance Running and Scuba Diving.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 46(3):330-345.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690210380577

Allen-Collinson, Jacquelyn, Lee Crust, and Christian Swann. 2018. “‘Endurance Work’: Embodiment and the Mind-Body Nexus in the Physical Culture of High-Altitude Mountaineering.” Sociology 52(6):1324-1341.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038517746050

Allen-Collinson, Jacquelyn, Lee Crust, and Christian Swann. 2019. “Embodiment in High-Altitude Mountaineering: Sensing and Working with the Weather.” Body & Society 25(1):90-115.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X18812947

Austin, D. Mark. 2009. “Ritual and Boundary Distinction in a Recreational Community: A Case Study of Motorcycle Rallies and Riders.” Qualitative Sociology Review 5(2):70-93.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.5.2.04

Beadle, Ron and David Könyöt. 2006. “The Man in the Red Coat—Management in the Circus.” Culture and Organization 12(2):127-137.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14759550600682924

Bendelow, Gillian and Simon Williams. 1995. “Transcending the Dualisms: Towards a Sociology of Pain.” Sociology of Health and Illness 17(2):139-165.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.ep10933376

Berzon, Alexandra and Mark Maremont. 2015. “Injuries Put Safety in Spotlight at Cirque du Soleil.” The Wall Street Journal, April 22. Retrieved July 23, 2021 https://www.wsj.com/articles/injuries-put-safety-in-spotlight-at-cirque-dusoleil-1429723558
Google Scholar

Bieńko, Mariola. 2018. “The Body as a Private and Social Space. The Margins of Research Regarding Old Age and Gender.” Qualitative Sociology Review 14(2):52-77.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.14.2.04

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1978. “Sport and Social Class.” Social Science Information 17(6):819-840.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/053901847801700603

Byczkowska-Owczarek, Dominika. 2020. “Body and Social Interaction: The Case of Dance. Symbolic Interactionist Perspective.” Qualitative Sociology Review 16(4):164-179.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.16.4.10

Carmeli, Yoram. 1996. “Marginal Body and Bourgeois Cosmology: the British Acrobat in Reference to Sport.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 37(3-4):252-274.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/002071529603700304

Carmeli, Yoram. 2003. “Lion on Display: Culture, Nature, and Totality in a Circus Performance.” Poetics Today 24(1):65-90.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-24-1-65

Carmeli, Yoram. 2007. “Traveling and Family in the 1970s British Circus.” Semiotica 167(1/4):369-385.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/SEM.2007.083

Chapman, Gwen. 1997. “Making Weight: Lightweight Rowing, Technologies of Power, and Technologies of the Self.” Sociology of Sport Journal 14(3):205-223.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.14.3.205

Coetzee, Jan. 2020. “Narrating Emotions: Towards Deeper Understanding.” Qualitative Sociology Review 16(1):12-27.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.16.1.02

Corbin, Juliet and Janice Morse. 2003. “Reciprocity and Risks when Dealing with Sensitive Topics.” Qualitative Inquiry 9(3):335-354.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800403009003001

Corteen, Karen. 2019. “Regulating the Harmful, Injurious and Risky Business of Professional Wrestling.” Pp. 167-178 in The Suffering Body in Sport (Research in the Sociology of Sport, Volume 12), edited by K. Young. London: Emerald.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1476-285420190000012012

Crossley, Nick. 2005. “Mapping Reflexive Body Techniques: On Body Modification and Maintenance.” Body & Society 11(1):1-35.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X05049848

Davis, Janet. 2002. The Circus Age: Culture & Society under the American Big Top. Durham, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Google Scholar

Dickson, Tracey. 2018. “Snowsport Experience, Expertise, Lower Limb Injury and Somatosensory Ability.” Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport 22:S17-S21.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2018.08.005

Easto, Patrick and Marcello Truzzi. 1973. “Towards an Ethnography of the Carnival Social System.” Journal of Popular Culture 6(3):550-566.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1973.0603_550.x

Encandela, John A. 1997. “Social Construction of Pain and Aging: Individual Artfulness within Interpretive Structures.” Symbolic Interaction 20(3):251-273.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/si.1997.20.3.251

Frew, Matt and David McGillivray. 2005. “Health Clubs and Body Politics: Aesthetics and the Quest for Physical Capital.” Leisure Studies 24(2):161-175.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0261436042000300432

Giardina, Michael and Michele Donnelly. 2017. “Introduction: Physical Culture, Ethnography, and the Body.” Pp. 1-22 in Physical Culture, Ethnography and the Body, edited by M. D. Giardina and M. Donnelly. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315266602-1

Hockey, John and Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson. 2017. “Running a Temperature: Sociological-Phenomenological Perspectives on Distance Running, Thermoception and ‘Temperature Work.’” Pp. 42-62 in Seeking the Senses in Physical Cultures: Sensual Scholarship in Action, edited by A. Sparkes. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315657585-3

Hutson, David. 2013. “‘Your Body Is Your Business Card’: Bodily Capital and Health Authority in the Fitness Industry.” Social Science & Medicine 90:63-71.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.05.003

Ingold, Tim. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar

Jones, Bruce et al. 2017. “Impact of Physical Fitness and Body Composition on Injury Risk among Active Young Adults: A Study of Army Trainees.” Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport 20:S17-S22.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2017.09.015

Kusenbach, Margarethe and Donileen Loseke. 2013. “Bringing the Social Back In: Some Suggestions for the Qualitative Study of Emotions.” Qualitative Sociology Review 9(2):20-38.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.09.2.03

Laurendeau, Jason. 2006. “‘He Didn’t Go in Doing a Skydive’: Sustaining the Illusion of Control in an Edgework Activity.” Sociological Perspectives 49(4):583-605.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/sop.2006.49.4.583

Little, Kenneth. 1995. “Talking Circus, Not Culture: The Politics of Identity in European Circus Discourse.” Qualitative Inquiry 1(3):346-359.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/107780049500100305

Lyng, Stephen. 2004. “Crime, Edgework and Corporeal Transaction.” Theoretical Criminology 8(3):359-375.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480604044614

Nespor, Jan. 2000. “Anonymity and Place in Qualitative Inquiry.” Qualitative Inquiry 6(4):546-569.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/107780040000600408

O’Connor, Erin. 2007. “The Centripetal Force of Expression: Drawing Embodied Histories into Glassblowing.” Qualitative Sociology Review 3(3):113-134.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.3.3.08

Oleschuk, Merin and Helen Vallianatos. 2019. “Body Talk and Boundary Work among Arab Canadian Immigrant Women.” Qualitative Sociology 42(4):587-614.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-019-09428-w

Parker, Martin. 2011. “Organizing the Circus: The Engineering of Miracles.” Organization Studies 32(4):555-569.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840611403668

Rafalovich, Adam. 2016. “Pain is the Club: Identity and Membership in the Natural Childbirth Community.” Qualitative Sociology Review 12(3):100-116.
Google Scholar

Rantisi, Norma and Deborah Leslie. 2015. “Circus in Action: Exploring the Role of a Translation Zone in the Cirque du Soleil’s Creative Practices.” Economic Geography 91(2):147-164.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecge.12082

Rau, Asta. 2020. “Dealing with Feeling: Emotion, Affect, and the Qualitative Research Encounter.” Qualitative Sociology Review 16(1):94-108.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.16.1.07

Roderick, Martin, Andy Smith, and Paul Potrac. 2017. “The Sociology of Sports Work, Emotions and Mental Health: Scoping the Field and Future Directions.” Sociology of Sport Journal 34(2):99-107.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.2017-0082

Shilling, Chris. 1991. “Educating the Body: Physical Capital and the Production of Social Inequalities.” Sociology 25(4):653-672.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038591025004006

Shilling, Chris. 2004. “Physical Capital and Situated Action: A New Direction for Corporeal Sociology.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 25(4):473-487.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0142569042000236961

Shilling, Chris. 2005. The Body in Culture, Technology and Society. London: Sage.
Google Scholar

Shilling, Chris. 2017. “Physical Capital and Situated Action: A New Direction for Corporeal Sociology.” Pp. 62-85 in Physical Culture, Ethnography and the Body, edited by M. D. Giardina and M. Donnelly. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315266602-3

Sparkes, Andrew and Brett Smith. 2002. “Sport, Spinal Cord Injury, Embodied Masculinities, and the Dilemmas of Narrative Identity.” Men and Masculinities 4(3):258-285.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X02004003003

Spencer, Dale. 2009. “Habit(us), Body Techniques and Body Callusing: An Ethnography of Mixed Martial Arts.” Body & Society 15(4):119-143.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X09347224

Stephens, Lindsay. 2015. “The Economic Lives of Circus ‘Artists’: Canadian Circus Performers and the New Economy.” Canadian Journal of Communication 40(2):243-260.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2015v40n2a2817

Stephens, Lindsay. 2019. “Becoming Acrobat, Becoming Academic: An Affective, Autoethnographic Inquiry into Collective Practices of Knowing and Becoming.” Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 19(4):264-274.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708618784332

Stoddart, Helen. 2000. Rings of Desire: Circus History and Representation. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Google Scholar

Tait, Peta. 2005. Circus Bodies: Cultural Identity in Aerial Performance. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203391303

Tracy, Sarah. 2010. “Qualitative Quality: Eight ‘Big Tent’ Criteria for Excellent Qualitative Research.” Qualitative Inquiry 16(10):837-851.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800410383121

Truzzi, Marcello. 1968. “The Decline of the American Circus: The Shrinkage of an Institution.” Pp. 314-322 in Sociology and Everyday Life, edited by M. Truzzi. New Jersey, NY: Prentice-Hall.
Google Scholar

Tulle, Emmanuelle. 2007. “Running to Run: Embodiment, Structure and Agency amongst Veteran Elite Runners.” Sociology 41(2):329-346.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038507074978

Tulle, Emmanuelle. 2008. “The Ageing Body and the Ontology of Ageing: Athletic Competence in Later Life.” Body & Society 14(3):1-19.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X08093570

Turner, Bryan S. 1982. “The Government of the Body: Medical Regimens and the Rationalization of Diet.” British Journal of Sociology 33(2):254-269.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/589935

Turner, Bryan S. and Steven P. Wainwright. 2003. “Corps de Ballet: The Case of Injured Ballet Dancer.” Sociology of Health and Illness 25(4):269-288.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.00347

Tynan, Ruby and Nollaig McEvilly. 2017. “‘No Pain, No Gain’: Former Elite Female Gymnasts’ Engagements with Pain and Injury Discourses.” Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health 9(4):469-484.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2017.1323778

Van Lenning, Alkeline. 2004. “The Body as Crowbar: Transcending or Stretching Sex?” Feminist Theory 5(1):25-47.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700104037058

Vannini, Phillip and Aaron McCright. 2004. “To Die For: The Social Semiotic Seductive Power of the Tanned Body.” Symbolic Interaction 27(3):309-332.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/si.2004.27.3.309

Wacquant, Loïc. 1995. “Pugs at Work: Bodily Capital and Bodily Labour among Professional Boxers.” Body & Society1( 1):65-93.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X95001001005

Wacquant, Loïc. 2004. Body & Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar

Wainwright, Steven P. and Bryan S. Turner. 2006. “‘Just Crumbling to Bits?’ An Exploration of the Body, Ageing, Injury and Career in Classical Ballet Dancers.” Sociology 40(2):237-255.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038506062031

Williams, Rachel et al. 2018. “‘You’re Just Chopped Off at the End’: Retired Servicemen’s Identity Work Struggles in the Military to Civilian Transition.” Sociological Research Online 23(4):812-829.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1360780418787209

Wolkowitz, Carol. 2002. “The Social Relations of Body Work.” Work, Employment and Society 16(3):497-510.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/095001702762217452

Wolkowitz, Carol. 2006. Bodies at Work. London: Sage.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446218570