Sociology of the Body—Teaching Embodied Approach through Autoethnography

Dominika Byczkowska-Owczarek; Honorata Jakubowska

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.14.2.09

Authors

Dominika Byczkowska-Owczarek University of Lodz, Poland
Honorata Jakubowska Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.14.2.09

Keywords:

Sociology of the Body, Teaching Research Methods, Autoethnography, Embodied Approach

Abstract

The article presents and discusses the way of teaching sociology of the body whose aim is to allow students to become familiar with embodied methodology and make them methodologically sensitive. The research tasks given to the students are based on analytic autoethnography which influences the students’ methodological development. Examples of the students’ works are presented and discussed, particularly in terms of the advantages they might bring in the educational proces and difficulties that they may cause to both the student and the teacher. As the most valuable benefits deriving from this way of teaching the authors indicate: raising methodological sensitivity, the ability to link embodied experience and knowledge with theoretical concepts, self-understanding in terms of social processes, but also putting into practice the perspective of embodiment in the social sciences. The courses of the sociology of the body in Poland and their status at Polish universities are presented as the context. The authors claim that the skills learnt during this course are crucial for students of sociology and for their methodological competencies, not only in the field of sociology of the body.

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Author Biographies

Dominika Byczkowska-Owczarek, University of Lodz, Poland

Dominika Byczkowska-Owczarek, sociologist, assistant professor in Sociology of Organization and Management Department, Faculty of Economics and Sociology at the University of Lodz, Poland. Her book, Body in Dance. Sociological Analysis, presents outcomes of a study on ballroom dancing as a social activity. She has participated in research projects concerning communication on hospital wards, lobbying, revitalization of cities, and HR procedures. She is a book reviews editor in Qualitative Sociology Review and Przegląd Socjologii Jakościowej. Her main scientific interests are: symbolic interactionism, grounded theory methodology, qualitative methods, autoethnography, sociology of the body, sociology of medicine, ethnographic research.

Honorata Jakubowska, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland

Honorata Jakubowska, sociologist, professor at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. The author of the books: Skill Transmission, Sport and Tacit Knowledge. A Sociological Perspective (Routlegde 2017), The Game of the Body. The Practices and Discourses of Gender Differentiation in Sport (in Polish, 2014), and Sociology of the Body (in Polish, 2009) and about 60 articles and book chapters in Polish and English related to her main research interests: sociology of the body, sociology of sport, and gender studies. The coordinator of European Sociological Association Research Network “Society and Sports” and vice-president of Polish Sociological Association Section “Sociology of Sport.” The principal investigator of the research project focused on female football fans financed by the National Science Center (2016/21/B/HS6/00846).

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