Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.
To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser.
2014, Martial Arts and Society: Developing Co-Constituting Perspectives (special issue)
This paper addresses sex integration in martial arts and combat sports, discussing the implications of mixed-sex training for challenging orthodox Western constructions of gender. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 37 long-term martial arts practitioners from around the English East Midlands between 2007–2011, the paper argues that restrictive, essentialist and hierarchal conceptions of sex difference can be challenged through integrated training practices. The paper advocates the “undoing” of gender in this regard as helping to build a more progressive, inclusive and liberal form of physical culture, seen as a key potential of sex-integrated training. To that end, the paper makes a number of proposals for instructors and practitioners interested in developing such inclusive environments in their own clubs and training settings.
2014 •
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Sport and Leisure (special issue)
Enter the discourse: Exploring the discursive roots of inclusivity in mixed-sex martial arts2013 •
In this paper I explore the discursive roots of inclusivity in mixed-sex martial arts training in the UK. Based on data from two qualitative studies conducted in the English East Midlands, I briefly account for the level of integration among several martial arts schools, before focusing on the unique meanings of martial arts which appeared to facilitate the normalization of this integration among participants. Drawing on insights from queer feminist theory, I argue that the discursive framing of martial arts in contemporary Western culture is significant in the generation and normalization of mixed-sex inclusivity in these settings. As such, I suggest that scholars interested in the potential of sex-integrated sports for challenging dominant sexual hierarchies should be attentive to the unique discursive meanings of specific sports cultures, which may be generative of possibilities for radical forms of embodiment and practice.
2012 •
On the 5th of February 2016, the Martial Arts Studies Research Network held its first one-day seminar, on the theme of gender issues in theory and practice. Hosted by the University of Brighton, the day drew around 30 delegates, including academics from various fields of study and martial arts practitioners from a range of styles. The day featured discussion on a number of themes on the topic of gender; this report focuses on the key points raised by delegates during the first of two plenary sessions, addressing the ways in which clubs and gyms might best improve women's and girls' involvement in martial arts and combat sports (MACS).
2013 •
Within the sociology of sport and its related disciplines, martial arts have become increasingly popular sites for research on embodiment, gender and society. While much previous work in this area has focused upon the embodied experiences of either male or female practitioners, relatively few studies have directly addressed the social significance of mixed-sex practice. In this empirically-focused paper, we draw on qualitative, semistructured interviews with both male and female long-term exponents of various different martial arts disciplines in England, exploring experiences of intersex touch within training. Within a social-constructionist, feminist framework, we suggest that heteronormative, patriarchal and paternalistic gender structures can potentially be challenged through sustained mixed-sex practice. As such, this article contributes to work on transformative sporting bodies, martial arts and gender subversion.""
Fighting Scholars: Habitus and Ethnographies of Martial Arts and Combat Sports
'Do you hit girls?' Some striking moments in the career of a male martial artist2013 •
This paper considers the phenomenon of sex-integrated martial arts training, adopting an auto-ethnographic perspective to outline the transformative potential of physical cultural practices. By foregrounding the concept of habitus, the paper discusses how gendered dispositions are formed, reinforced, and at times challenged, throughout one’s life course. Through a discussion of the author’s own experiences of mixed-sex martial arts training, along with data drawn from observations and interviews with other martial artists, the suggestion is made that (men’s) deeply-held, embodied dispositions and values might be challenged and transformed following experiences at the level of the body, such as ‘being hit by girls’, and indeed ‘hitting girls’, in the context of mixed-sex martial arts practice. The paper suggests that for scholars interested in the potential of sport and related physical activities for ‘subverting’ inequitable formations of gender, such phenomena as the transformative potential of sex integration are worth closer examination.
2016 •
A topic that has quickly become a central point of discussion within martial arts studies is that concerned with defining or clarifying what 'martial arts' actually are, and thereby what it is (and perhaps, is not) that we are studying when we claim to be doing 'martial arts studies'. This essay, originally written for the blog Kung Fu Tea, suggests that defining and classifying martial arts should be done in ways that are openly and reflexively connected to the analytical objectives that we have for doing so.
Manchester Beethoven Studies
Transcending Slowness in Beethoven's Late Style2023 •
Adequação do Procedimento pelo Juiz - 2ª Edição
Adequação do Procedimento pelo Juiz: Flexibilização Procedimental e Judicial Case Management no Direito Processual Brasileiro - 2ª Edição2023 •
Human Resource Management
Orientation Training and Job Satisfaction: A Sector and Gender Analysis2015 •
Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture
Different dry hopping and fermentation methods: influence on beer nutritional quality2020 •
Pneumonologia i Alergologia Polska
Dziesięć lat doświadczeń pracowni zaburzeń oddychania w czasie snu w Instytucie Gruźlicy i Chorób Płuc2024 •
2023 •
Revista de la Asociación Argentina de Ortopedia y Traumatología
Tratamiento de la escoliosis neuromuscular en niños pequeños con parálisis cerebral espástica grave: revisión sistemática de la bibliografía2014 23rd Wireless and Optical Communication Conference (WOCC)
An integrated optical interference cancellation system2014 •
SSRN Electronic Journal
Building Uncertainty into the Adaptation Cost Estimation in Integrated Assessment Models2016 •