Body culture studies

Body culture studies describe and compare bodily practice in the larger context of culture and society, i.e. in the tradition of anthropology, history and sociology. As body culture studies analyse culture and society in terms of human bodily practices, they are sometimes viewed as a form of materialist phenomenology. The significance of the body and of body culture (in German Körperkultur, in Danish kropskultur) was discovered since the early twentieth century by several historians and sociologists. During the 1980s, a particular school of Body Culture Studies spread, in connection with – and critically related to – sports studies. Body Culture Studies were especially established at Danish universities and academies and cooperated with Nordic, European and East Asian research networks.

Body culture studies include studies of dance, play (play (activity)) and game, outdoor activities, festivities and other forms of movement culture. The field of body culture studies is floating towards studies of medical cultures, of working habits, of gender and sexual cultures, of fashion and body decoration, of popular festivity and more generally towards popular culture studies.

Body Culture Studies have shown useful by making the study of sport enter into broader historical and sociological discussion – from the level of subjectivity to civil society, state and market.

Since early 20th century, sociologists and philosophers had discovered the significance of the body, especially Norbert Elias, the Frankfurt School, and some phenomenologists. Later, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu and the Stuttgart Historical Behaviour Studies delivered important inspirations for the new body culture studies.

...
Wikipedia