Implicit influence on body image: methodological innovation for research into embodied experience

Abstract

With growing social science interest in the potential for images to facilitate access to embodied experience, this study re-examines the relative value of visual and verbal methods in body-oriented research. Taking one lead from Kyrölä’s (2016) idea of body image as the relationship between representation and corporeality, and another from Gendlin’s (1993, 1995, 1997) methods for attending to and articulating from pre-reflective experience, we develop a method that juxtaposes words and images to explore the role of pre-reflective understanding on body image among teenage girls. The study highlights both an influencing role for pre-reflective understanding in body image and the availability of pre-reflective understanding to participants. While recognising persistent challenges in communicating embodied experience, we propose a method for engaging and working with embodied or pre-reflective experience in social science research by integrating the verbal and the visual in a specific way.

Linguistic embodiment in typical and atypical anorexia nervosa: Evidence from an image‐word matching task

“…Applying a different approach—cognitive science—embodiment has been evaluated as the interaction between the physical body, the local environment, the neural system's complex interplay, and the outside world (Clark, 1999). According to this perspective, embodiment could overcome the dualism between thoughts and bodily experiences of individuals with AN (Morasso & Mohan, 2021), possibly paving a pathway for improved treatments (Kolnes, 2012; Moccia et al., 2022; Musolino et al., 2020; Zatti & Zarbo, 2015), and shedding light on the multidimensional concept of body image (Garcia et al., 2019; Lovell & Banfield, 2022). However, existing data are insufficient and disconnected from cognitive‐behavioral treatment options.…”

Disability and fieldwork: A personal reflection

“…I think about my disability as an aspect of embodiment that facilitates my ability to connect with other bodies. Bodies themselves, thus, become an active part of doing research and of communicating, thereby highlighting ‘inter-corporeal, continuing processes of relating to others’ (Lovell and Banfield, 2020: 5).…”

Pursuing perfection through relationality: Studying the intersubjective dynamics of embodied agency in ballet

“…The phenomenological approach leads us to intersubjectivity – a fundamental term in phenomenology (Diprose, 1994) – that further problematizes the dichotomy between subject and object. Intersubjectivity is the ‘space created between two people who are fully engaged with one another’ (Duncan and Elias, 2021: 663) in which the bodily sensation (Lovell and Banfield, 2022) of the relational situation matters. Intersubjectivity is thus the encounter with other humans and non-humans cooperating or conflicting with one another (Jensen and Dermot, 2013).…”

“…In professional dance, different levels of relationality exist among the dancers as well as between the dancers and their audiences. In our analysis, we seek to demonstrate how these nuanced dynamics potentiate and constrain the dancers, emphasising audience dynamics in processual and co-creative ways (Livingstone, 1998; see also Lovell and Banfield, 2022). Central to the idea of the audience is the significance of its gaze, which has already been discussed in relation to the disciplining and gendered ballet culture in previous literature (Aalten, 2007; Adair, 1992; Daly and Desmond, 1997; Novack, 1993).…”

“…Here, speaking of touching the audience ‘mentally’ hints at the usual privileging of the mind ‘over’ the body, while ‘moving at heart’ reflects a more holistic view of ballet as a multisensory experience. Hence, fundamentally, the relationship between a ballet dancer and an audience builds on the embodied experiences stored in the dancer’s body and is, therefore, in perpetual interaction with its surrounding environment, agents and materialities (see Lovell and Banfield, 2022: 45). Each moment involving stepping onstage is filled with the unique possibility of moving the audience and of having the power to practice embodied agency in relation to the same (Figure 1).…”