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This paper explores the mechanisms of white supremacy within digital spaces in relation to the body/embodiment, social justice movements, and the nature and expression of contemporary feminism. New digital political economies work through social media such as Instagram to colonise, disempower and obscure the work of Black feminists in the sphere of fat liberation (re‐framed as 'body positivity'), and in terms of imperatives for self‐care, which have been co‐opted by an emerging online wellness industry. I call to account the pervasiveness of neoliberal logics which are re‐shaping (post)feminism and re‐inscribing white supremacy onto bodies online and offline through 'disciplined whiteness'. This paper explores the mechanisms of white supremacy within digital spaces in relation to the body/embodiment, social justice movements, and the nature and expression of contemporary feminism. New digital political economies work through social media such as Instagram to colonise, disempower, and obscure the work of Black feminists in the sphere of fat liberation (re‐framed as 'body positivity'), and in terms of imperatives for self‐care, which have been co‐opted by an emerging online wellness industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although gesturing onscreen instructors are widely included in video lectures, it is still unclear whether, when, and how they are conducive to learning. To clarify this issue, we conducted a set of three-level meta-analyses of 662 effect sizes from 83 articles, spanning Web of Science, PsycINFO, ERIC, Education Research Complete, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, and Google Scholar up to March 2024. We included randomized controlled trials of gesturing instructors in multimedia learning, measuring retention test score, transfer test score, fixation time, fixation count, cognitive load, and/or social perception across all languages of publication. Funnel plot and Egger sandwich test were used to assess risk of bias. Results showed that adding gesturing instructors improved retention (g = 0.28, 95% CI:[0.19,0.37]) and transfer test scores (g = 0.31, 95% CI:[0.21,0.41]), yielding an embodiment effect. This effect was stronger when the instructor displayed deictic, metaphorical, or a mixture of multiple gestures; when the instructor in the control condition was not visible; when the lecture was learner-paced and longer. Moreover, it increased learners’ social connection ratings and eye fixation time and count on core learning material (but only when deictic gestures were used). Thus, gesturing onscreen instructors may promote learning by social and cognitive paths, deepening our understanding of the role of gesturing onscreen instructors in multimedia learning and providing guidance for designing effective video lectures. More studies with clear experimental descriptions and eye-tracking studies are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Andropause, the notion that men's aging is affected by a declining testosterone production, has until recently been a somewhat unknown phenomenon in the Danish context. However, as a growing number of Danish websites are disseminating information about 'the male climacteric', a new hormone centered health discourse about the male body is emerging. In this article, we analyze a corpus of 50 Danish websites consisting of both online media articles and websites marketing products for 'andropausal' men. We show how men's health and performances of masculinity in mid- and later life is entangled in biomedical discourses of risk and self-surveillance, as well as (biopolitical) affects centering aging men's sexual capacities. We base our analysis in new materialist thinking which outlines affect, biopolitics and complexity as entry points to embodied dimensions of masculinity. We argue that the growing attention to andropause promote new norms for aging in which the aging body is designated as unhealthy and the individual is required to remain vital and capable throughout life. Finally, drawing on Steve Garlick, we show how online available testosterone home-testing kits can be read as illustrative of the theory of masculinity as a technology of embodiment which rests upon the control over nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aesthetic experiences, emerging saliently in the arts, play a pivotal role in transformative learning and creative processes that elicit physiological, affective, and cognitive responses associated with mental health indices. Interactions between subjects and aesthetic objects (e.g., visual artwork, music, and moving bodies) often entail elements of surprise and uncertainty that drive the inference of the hidden causes in the subject's internal and external environment. These generate dynamics that align with the action-oriented Predictive Processing framework of brain function. Creative Arts Therapies (CATs) harness these dynamics by cultivating relational engagement using the arts modalities, prompting affective and cognitive processing. In this manuscript, we offer a review and conceptual analysis of recent empirical findings and theoretical premises that underpin aesthetic experiences and their relation to the psychotherapeutic use of the arts with a broad spectrum of populations and mental health conditions. We present a neuroscience-based approach to aesthetic intra- and inter-personal experiences, integrating therapeutic change factors of externalization-concretization, embodiment, and symbolization with functional network configurations, and interpersonal brain-to-brain coupling, to support predictive processing, learning, and creativity. Present and future interdisciplinary collaborations are underlined to elucidate the neurodynamic mechanisms driving psychological transformations, bridging neuroaesthetics and CATs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in nurturing individuals' creative potential is rising. Yet, the potential benefits of incorporating creative embodied activities have been neglected in both applied and research settings. To address this gap, this study examined the effects of a Creative Dance program on university students' creative self‐efficacy, emotional creativity, tolerance to ambiguity, and ideation behaviors. A total of 143 undergraduate students participated, either in the Creative Dance intervention or a sport‐based control group for 15 weeks. A mixed‐method approach using questionnaires and focus groups was adopted. Linear mixed effects models showed that engaging in Creative Dance had a significant effect on ideational behaviors and tolerance to ambiguity. Specifically, students in the intervention condition improved their ideational behaviors and remained stable in their tolerance to ambiguity compared to student in the control condition who remained stable and regressed on those variables respectively. Focus group results highlighted the social effects of the intervention, which help to contextualize the quantitative findings. This study underscores the importance of integrating creative embodied activities to foster individuals' creative potential while highlighting the need to develop comprehensive assessment tools to capture the dynamic interplay between individuals and their environment throughout this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In virtual reality (VR), users can embody a wide variety of avatars, fromdigital replicas of themselves through diverse human body styles and appearances to non-humanoid representations. Although choosing a body to inhabit is part of what makes VR such an engaging experience, various studies have shown how embodiment may change the way we perceive ourselves and others both inside and outside VR. In our study, we explored whether first-person versus third-person avatar customization would lead to changes in embodiment. Furthermore, participants were embodied in larger-sized avatars based on the hypothesis that embodiment would lead to a change in implicit bias toward larger-sized people. Our results show that third-person avatar customization led to a decrease in the perceived embodiment of the larger-sized avatar and that, on the contrary, higher embodiment was associated with a reduction in implicit biases toward larger-sized people in the first-person avatar customization mode. These findings suggest that third-person avatar customization leads to reduced feelings of embodiment, while first-person avatar customization may support more radical body changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Critical Literary Studies is the property of University of Kurdistan and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Embodied cognition theories propose that language comprehension triggers a sensorimotor system in the brain. However, most previous research has paid much attention to concrete and factual sentences, and little emphasis has been put on the research of abstract and counterfactual sentences. The primary challenges for embodied theories lie in elucidating the meanings of abstract and counterfactual sentences. The most prevalent explanation is that abstract and counterfactual sentences are grounded in the activation of a sensorimotor system, in exactly the same way as concrete and factual ones. The present research employed a dual-task experimental paradigm to investigate whether the embodied meaning is activated in comprehending action-related abstract Chinese counterfactual sentences through the presence or absence of action-sentence compatibility effect (ACE). Participants were instructed to read and listen to the action-related abstract Chinese factual or counterfactual sentences describing an abstract transfer word towards or away from them, and then move their fingers towards or away from them to press the buttons in the same direction as the motion cue of the transfer verb. The action-sentence compatibility effect was observed in both abstract factual and counterfactual sentences, in line with the embodied cognition theories, which indicated that the embodied meanings were activated in both action-related abstract factuals and counterfactuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial introduces a collection of articles exploring themes of care, ethics and public engagement in theatre and performance. Drawing on Rebecca Tadman's positioning of care as a practical and strategic response to systemic inequalities, the editorial frames the featured articles as examinations of how care and ethics operate across diverse academic, national and cultural settings. The pieces discuss topics such as witnessing in refugee theatre, gender performance in Nigerian theatre, bodily resistance in theatrical activism, emotional labour strategies for actors and the cultural genesis of children's musicals in Ukraine. The editorial highlights how these works consider the relationship between private experience and public discourse, and the implications for how we think about the ethics of theatre and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although not always apparent, generating theories about organizational phenomena inevitably involves philosophical questions. The latter are concerned with the meaning of the concepts researchers use to describe, interpret, explain, and, in general, understand organizational phenomena. A philosophical approach to organization studies aims to scrutinize, critique, and clarify key concepts, modes of thinking, research practices, as well as assumptions about reality and ways of justifying knowledge claims. Similar to other institutionalized practices, organizational research legitimates and takes for granted certain ways of engaging with, and talking about, the world, leading inevitably to some closure of meaning. Philosophical inquiry can counteract such closure by questioning commonly accepted meanings and fostering an inquisitive mindset that allows us to perceive the world anew. The aim of this Special Issue is to further develop and critically enhance the existing endeavours that explicitly incorporate philosophical approaches in organization studies. Specifically, the objective is to promote a more philosophically oriented approach in the field, focusing on both critical analysis and the development of innovative conceptual advancements. In this Introduction, we not only introduce the featured papers but, also, reflect on the broader purpose of philosophy, its relationship to organization studies, and how it can inform and enrich the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ethos (00912131) is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This qualitative study investigated the relationship between beauty standards and identity in the United States from the perspective of 20 self-identified millennial Black women. During semi-structured virtual interviews, participants defined Black, American, and millennial beauty standards distinctly. American beauty was associated with Eurocentrism and mainstream media representation. Interpretations of a millennial beauty standard were aligned with perceptions of the generation as tolerant and politically conscious. Black American beauty standards embraced the range of hair textures and skin tones present in the African diaspora. While participants were cognizant of the different beauty ideals present, their interaction with beauty standards was ambivalent. Interviewees found beauty knowledge accessible through social media. However, they remain confined to a restrictive beauty standard due to workplace expectations around professionalism. Participants negotiated where and when to express their intracultural beauty ideals but participated in the beauty industry through processes of learning how to care for their hair in its natural state. Even though they have autonomy and flexibility in expressing their cultural styles, personal and professional repercussions are still plausible. Future studies can expand on these findings by exploring perceptions of American beauty standards from a different generation, region, or identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The racialized gendered body in consumer culture invokes the construction of identities and representation of beauty through embodiment practices. As companies hone in on consumer racial marker distinctions to enhance uniqueness as otherness for profit, an analysis of hair products marketed for Black hair textures provides an opportunity to analyze how products use these at the intersection of race, gender, and beauty. This study uses constructivist grounded theory to analyze the product names and long descriptions for 124 shampoos marketed for Black hair textures on the websites of two major retailers to answer the following questions: What message does the discourse of shampoo product descriptions marketed to Black hair textures communicate about beauty? What message does the discourse of shampoo product descriptions marketed to Black hair textures communicate about Blackness? How does this discourse define the embodiment of Black beauty through hair? The results reveal that the racialized gendered body in consumer culture invokes the construction of identities and representations of beauty through embodiment practices. Through advertisements and product descriptions, beauty companies create ideal images of the lived experiences achieved through consuming beauty products. By constructing visual interpretations of racial signifiers through text, marketing strategies encourage the consumption of otherness, creating a racialized space for Blackness consumption. Combining the five senses with the descriptions of shampoo products marketed for Black hair textures helps us see how beauty embodiment practices reinforce racialized and gendered practices to subjugate the Black body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do participants navigate the sexual politics of multiracial dating and how does this relate to belonging? The results of this study illustrate that the 21 participants interviewed faced internal and external struggles and triumphs due to their mixed-race identity. For participants, trying to situate themselves into just one racial identity when they straddled both became a point of contention with romantic partners and themselves. Moreover, participants struggled with feeling like they were "enough" and if they belonged. Furthermore, mixed-race women and non-binary people were forced to navigate the racial expectations of others as well as the fetishization of their mixed-race identity. In turn, this impacted confidence levels, self-esteem, and sense of belonging and authenticity. The findings contribute to research on desirability and critical mixed-race studies by examining how mixed-race women and non-binary people perceive their own desirability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ballet industry has long been criticized for using excessively thin and exclusively Anglo-looking ballerinas. The statement that they fit the "look" or comments such as this in the 2015 New York Daily Post: "A lot of people feel ballerinas should all be the same color" (Keivom, 2015) have been used to exclude Black and Brown ballerinas. This chapter describes the relationship between race, gender, and beauty within the ballet industry. It describes the challenges that Black women experience and the anti-Blackness that takes place within ballet due to Eurocentric beauty standards. Through a focus on the emphasis on hair texture, flesh-tone tights, and pointe shoes, and on the racist history of America and ballet, this chapter demonstrates how ballet continues to discriminate against and marginalize Black women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research has shown there is a relationship between body image, sexual behavior, and pleasure. However, the majority of this research has centered on heterosexual participants. In this analysis, the author considers how this relationship between body image, sexual behavior, and pleasure may look within women and genderqueer individuals who are all AFAB (assigned female at birth) with 26 out of 30 participants identifying as LGBTQIA+. The author examines perceptions of body size, body hair, and genitals to consider how intersections of social structures - specifically internalized sexism, racism, and misogyny - influence the participants' experience of sexual interactions. Both resistance and embodiment of traditional gender norms, even as queer women and genderqueer individuals, were examined in these narratives. The majority of the moments where traditional gender norms are examined describe situations when the participants were sexually interacting with cis-gendered men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter advances understandings of emotion work by examining how "doing gender" and "doing health" are implicated in the pursuit of emotional tranquility. The study examines the role of hair loss in women's illness narratives of cancer using in-depth interviews with 16 white women in the US Northwest who vary in age, marital status, diagnoses, and treatments. The absence of women's hair presents an appearance of illness that prevents them from doing femininity, which calls into question their health status because of Western beauty standards. To overcome this barrier, the women use emotion work to manage the effects of their appearance through necessarily co-occurring bodily, cognitive, and expressive strategies (Hochschild, 1979). The required emotion work during women's hair loss makes explicit the symbolic linking of the healthy body with the feminine body through women's head hair. Pursuing treatment for cancer is often seen as a "fight" or a "battle" against the disease and the bodily assaults of such treatments, including unwanted visible bodily changes. A substantial body of empirical work has established the complex web of social psychological problems associated with breasts and breast cancer, but less attention has been given to the side effect of hair loss that is common across cancer types and treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Body weight has a long history of functioning as a symbol of one's beauty, social status, morality, discipline, and health. It has also been a standard inflicted much more intensely on women than men. While US culture has long idealized thinness for women, even at risky extremes, there is growing evidence that weight standards are broadening. Larger bodies are becoming more visible and accepted, while desire for and approval of a thin ideal has diminished. However, the continued widespread prevalence of anti-fat attitudes and stigma leaves uncertainty about just how much weight standards are changing. This study used an online survey (n = 320) to directly compare evaluations of thin, fat, and average size women through measures of negative stereotypes, prejudicial attitudes, and perceptions about quality of life. Results indicated that, as hypothesized, thin women were perceived less favorably than average weight women. However, fat women were perceived less favorably than both average and thin women. Men were harsher than women in their evaluations of only fat women. Additionally, participants being underweight or overweight did not produce an ingroup bias in their evaluations of underweight and overweight targets, respectively. That is, participants did not rate their own group more favorably, with the exception of overweight participants having lower prejudice toward overweight targets. These findings add to the emerging evidence that women's weight standards are in transition, marked by an increasingly negative perception of thin women, though not necessarily growing positivity toward fat women. This evidence further points toward the need for more extensive research on attitudes of people across the entire weight spectrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of social justice movements, increased attention has been directed to levels of intergroup tension worldwide. Racial prejudice is one such tension that permeates societies and creates distinct inequalities at all levels of our social ecosystem. Whether these prejudices are present explicitly (directly or consciously) or implicitly (unconsciously or automatically), manipulating body ownership by embodying an avatar of another race using immersive virtual reality (IVR) presents a promising approach to reducing racial bias. Nevertheless, research findings are contradictory, which is possibly attributed to variances in methodological factors across studies. This systematic review, therefore, aimed to identify variables and methodological variations that may underlie the observed discrepancies in study outcomes. Adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, this systematic review encompassed 12 studies that employed IVR and embodiment techniques to investigate racial attitudes. Subsequently, two mini meta-analyses were performed on four and five of these studies, respectively — both of which utilised the Implicit Association Test (IAT) as a metric to gauge these biases. This review demonstrated that IVR allows not only the manipulation of a sense of body ownership but also the investigation of wider social identities. Despite the novelty of IVR as a tool to help understand and possibly reduce racial bias, our review has identified key limitations in the existing literature. Specifically, we found inconsistencies in the measures and IVR equipment and software employed, as well as diversity limitations in demographic characteristics within both the sampled population and the embodiment of avatars. Future studies are needed to address these critical shortcomings. Specific recommendations are suggested, these include: (1) enhancing participant diversity in terms of the sample representation and by integrating ethnically diverse avatars; (2) employing multi-modal methods in assessing embodiment; (3) increasing consistency in the use and administration of implicit and explicit measures of racial prejudice; and (4) implementing consistent approaches in using IVR hardware and software to enhance the realism of the IVR experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I look at the relationship between human olfaction, digital platforms, and everyday media practices in contemporary capitalist contexts. In the first section, I map what I describe as interfaced anosmia, or the absence of smell from mundane media devices. This absence is especially glaring given how olfaction uniquely lends itself to certain mediated forms of affective modulation. In the second section, I look at the platformization of the luxury fragrance industry, across three sites of analysis to reveal how, despite the conditions of interfaced anosmia, smell has already been shaped on and by platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the distinct lack of bodies and embodiment throughout Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. While it seems to be a war-time erotic romance in which the plot hinges on the physical threats and pleasures available to its characters, through its many contradictions and deceptions, the poem makes the bodies of Troilus, Criseyde, and Pandarus unknowable, even at their most crucial moments. It is through the frustration of bodily hermeneutics in Troilus and Criseyde that Chaucer signals his rejection of the romance genre and the beginning of an anti-Boethian turn that becomes the governing theme of the first fragment of the Canterbury Tales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) has recently seen explosive growth and remarkable successes in several application areas. However, it is becoming clear that the methods that have made this possible are subject to several limitations that might inhibit progress towards replicating the more general intelligence seen in humans and other animals. In contrast to current AI methods that focus on specific tasks and rely on large amounts of offline data and extensive, slow, and mostly supervised learning, this natural intelligence is quick, versatile, agile, and open-ended. This position paper brings together ideas from neuroscience, evolutionary and developmental biology, and complex systems to analyze why such natural intelligence is possible in animals and suggests that AI should exploit the same strategies to move in a different direction. In particular, it argues that integrated embodiment, modularity, synergy, developmental learning, and evolution are key enablers of natural intelligence and should be at the core of AI systems as well. The analysis in the paper leads to the description of a biologically grounded deep intelligence (DI) framework for understanding natural intelligence and developing a new approach to building more versatile, autonomous, and integrated AI. The paper concludes that the dominant paradigm of AI today is unlikely to lead to truly natural general intelligence and that something like the biologically inspired DI framework is needed for that. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to discuss how young Latinx men living in Australia negotiate, embody, and complicate existing dominant and racialized masculinities. Queer and feminist theories are used to explore how Latinx men negotiate and embody masculinities, sexualities, and being 'other' in a White dominant cultural context. These tensions were explored through semi-structured in-depth interviews and a creative visual method known as sandboxing with twenty-one Latinx men. Sandboxing aims to elicit conversation and allows for the reflection and sharing of a visual and symbolic representation of participants' lives. The findings suggest masculinities are lived and embodied alongside negotiating racialization and sexualities. The fluidity of masculinities surfaces in participants' reflexive engagement with masculinities and the nuances in negotiating and simultaneously reproducing gender binary norms. Participants' careful negotiation in engaging with feminine culture led to developing the concept 'feminine threshold', a theoretical contribution offered in this article, in understanding how Latinx men negotiate masculinities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital 'flythroughs' are increasingly being used by museums to promote themselves to their publics and to extend their spatial and experiential boundaries. These complex, multimodal artefacts use 3D animation, AI imagery, drone footage, sound, music and other modes to construct a parallel museum experience. Such an experience is markedly dissimilar from an 'ordinary' embodied relationship to architectural space, and instead constructs an experience of elevated velocity, height and glissade. These movement style choices construct a 'non-naturalistic' experience of moving through space that differs considerably from the embodied experience constructed by digital walkthroughs, augmented and virtual reality and ordinary corporeal movement through a museum. Instead, they offer a potential imaginary, a supernatural or 'extracorporeal' embodiment of a kind typically associated with fantasy films, video games, amusement rides and dreams. This paper analyses 10 flythroughs from a variety of museums and locations through the lens of multimodal social semiotics. The systems of movement styles and visual validity are used to explore how meanings are made in the flythroughs and how they may be understood in terms of the 'fantasy' coding orientation. The implications for how museums construct their respective identities and relate to their publics are also unpacked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent ethnographies have investigated self‐care as a socially driven configuration of care. This analysis engages theorizing on the imagination to expose new social dimensions of self‐care in cases of mental health as embodied and communal. Based on fieldwork across Canadian universities and in conversation with students, campus wellness providers, and a group of psychiatric epidemiologists seeking to understand the mental health treatment choices of students, this article examines how these different subjects activate what I call an imaginarium of self‐care. Among young adults in Canada, mounting social ills that go therapeutically unaccounted for have relocated forms of self‐care into the imagination through play and world‐building in ways that challenge the distinction between material and speculative healing. Attending to the imaginative dimensions of self‐care makes coherent the ways that young people are grasping for hope in a world that—when embodied—resists recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evoking our environments as collaborators and interlocutors in performance training through the attentive modes that somatic approaches foster moves towards an open, responsive readiness as a foundational skill for performance training in times of climate crisis. Paying attention to the continuous collective cycles of sensory-motor looping, breathing, learning, and unlearning re-centres the focus of training towards a speculative practice that looks for ways and spaces for all bodies to access creative modes of being and to hone these skills together over time. The theories and practices entwined in this article emerge from the bodying forth of training in a university setting, including teaching in undergraduate and postgraduate settings and also from practice-based research projects. Developing this work forms a somatic-poesis approach, that is, a making with and through the body moving, the body in its doing, undoing, and redoing; its being, becoming and unbecoming. It is a training practice based in movement embedded with all other sensory registers; its score always starts in the middle. This is not neat, linear, or always explicit; there are interruptions and distractions that offer their own ways of knowing through image and text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie ( KZfSS) is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

AbstractThe authors in this paper present several storied vignettes to argue for a feminist, posthumanist orientation to Leisure as a potentially transformative assemblage for healing of trauma. They draw on Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing alongside quantum understandings of the body and ancient wisdom and practices that inform Levine’s work such as breath work, movement, presence, gratitude, energy healing, nonduality, and the interconnectedness of all beings and forces to present the idea that posthuman “assemblages” produce healing and healing practices. They argue that Leisure is uniquely positioned as a space and a field where this transformative work can come to life, advocating for more just, ethical, and healing relational ways of being with the human and more-than-human world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The body carries culture, with cultural concepts emerging from the dynamic interplay between the body and its environment. By integrating social representation theory and embodied cognition, we explored the use of embodied spatial metaphors in representing cultural tightness–looseness across three studies. In Study 1, 84 participants were randomly assigned to either a tight or loose culture group and tasked with placing cultural words within a spatial context. Participants positioned culturally compatible words closer to themselves and incompatible words farther away, illustrating the use of spatial distance metaphors to represent cultural tightness–looseness. Study 2 used an implicit task, demonstrating that people from both tight and loose cultures exhibited greater accuracy in judging culturally compatible concepts (vs. incompatible concepts) when these words were close to themselves. Study 3 unveiled distinct patterns of embodied spatial metaphors between tight and loose cultures when comparing cultural and irrelevant words. Notably, metaphors depicting nearness for culturally compatible words and farness for irrelevant words emerged exclusively in tight cultures, while such patterns were absent in loose cultures. Overall, our findings empirically support the notion that social representations are embodied, and provide embodied evidence for understanding and representing concepts related to cultural tightness–looseness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedagogies developed from systemic functional linguistics are seen as valuable in supporting diverse students in both mainstream and language classrooms. Over the past decade, SFL also became a crucial component in teacher education programs particularly in the North American context, as it advances teachers’ knowledge of language and curriculum design focusing on the development of disciplinary literacy of minoritized multilingual learners. Drawing from data collected in a year-long classroom ethnographic study in the Southeastern U.S., this paper explores (1) how a range of embodied inquiry activities were designed as an integral part of a teacher education curriculum and (2) how these activities created entry points for diverse pre-service teachers and the teacher educator to grapple with functional linguistics and critically engage with their language use in everyday lives. Data analysis includes theory-informed thematic analysis and a mediated approach towards participants’ material-discursive trajectories across spatial and historical contexts. Findings show the affordances of using embodied activities to support teachers in making sense of key constructs from SFL in relation to their own lived experiences and cultural epistemologies. Implications point to the significance of innovative, culturally sustaining approaches toward both the teaching and use of SFL as well as the need for continued critical reflections and actions in changing classroom contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Dissociative experiences are considered undesirable ketamine’s adverse events. However, they might be crucial for ketamine’s antidepressant effects, at least in some depression subtypes. Current understandings of ketamine’s therapeutic potentials converge on the so-called “relaxed prior hypothesis,” suggesting that glutamatergic blockage up-weights bottom-up surprising somatosensory/affective states. As a result, ketamine improves short-term plasticity in depression by enhancing sensitivity to interoceptive signals. Methods: We selected 2 case studies for their paradigmatic description of “depersonalized depression” (Entfremdungsdepression) symptoms. Patients were included in a 6-month-long esketamine program for treatment resistant depression, during which we collected their spontaneous experience with esketamine. According to a neurophenomenological approach, we combined subjective reports from unstructured clinical interviews and the review of previous objective neuroimaging results and neurocomputational models to unveil the relation between esketamine antidepressant effects and interoceptive sensitivity. Results: According to our clinical observations, esketamine-induced dissociation might be particularly effective in the depersonalized depression subtype, in which interoceptive awareness and interaffectivity are particularly compromised. Ketamine and esketamine’s dissociative effects and particularly disembodiment might suspend previously acquired patterns of feeling, sensing, and behaving. Conclusions: Coherently with previous research, we suggest that esketamine-induced disembodiment allows for a transient window of psychological plasticity and enhanced sensitivity, where the body recovers its permeability to affective affordances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aesthetics, generally understood as an intensified emphasis on the sensorial look and feel of urban environments, has become an important perspective through which urban scholarship is examining the economic, social, political and cultural processes of urban regeneration projects across the globe. Much of this aestheticising work is now mediated by many kinds of digital technologies. The entanglement of digital technologies with the sensorial feel of urban redevelopments manifests in many different ways in different urban locations; it is deeply reshaping the embodied experiencing of urban life; and it enacts specific power relations. It is the focus of this paper. Drawing on the work of Lefebvre and Jansson, this article develops the notion of 'textured' space in order to offer an analytic vocabulary that can describe distinctive configurations of urban experience at the intersection of specific urban environments, bodily sensations, and digital devices. Analysing embodied sensory politics is important because various aspects of bodily sensoria are central to human experiences of, and relations between, both self and other. Hence bodies are enrolled differentially into different expressions of these new urban aesthetics: while some are seduced, others are made invisible or repelled, or are ambivalently entangled in digitally mediated aesthetic atmospheres. The article offers some examples of the power relations inherent in the textured aesthetics of three of the most significant, and interrelated, processes of contemporary, digitally mediated urban change: efforts to be seen as a 'world-class city' and to facilitate gentrification and tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the effects of the Nirvana Fitness (NF) program on state body appreciation (BA) and its correlates, as well as the mechanisms that could explain these changes. The study participants were allocated to NF (n = 21) and functional training (control, n = 22) groups and participated in an 8-week exercise intervention. The mean age was 24.4 ± 6.7. The participants filled out online questionnaires on state measures of BA, body surveillance (BS), functionality appreciation, body–mind connection, mindfulness in physical activity (SMS-PA), intrinsic exercise motivation (IM), satisfaction of basic psychological needs, and perceived physical fitness (PPF) immediately after the first and last sessions. The results revealed a significant improvement in state BA and its correlates in both groups, with no changes in PPF in the NF group or IM in either group. An interaction between group and time effects was revealed in a change of relatedness, indicating a stronger effect in the NF group. Positive changes in SMS-PA, BS, and satisfaction of the need for relatedness significantly predicted improvement in state BA. These findings highlight the importance of targeting mindfulness, body surveillance, and relatedness during physical activity in interventions aimed at promoting positive body image in university-aged women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is a growing awareness of the need to adequately integrate sex and gender into health-related research. Although it is widely known that the entangled dimensions sex/gender are not comprehensively considered in most studies to date, current publications of conceptual considerations and guidelines often only give recommendations for certain stages of the research process and - to the best of our knowledge - there is a lack of a detailed guidance that accompanies each step of the entire research process. The interdisciplinary project "Integrating gender into environmental health research" (INGER) aimed to fill this gap by developing a comprehensive checklist that encourages sex/gender transformative research at all stages of the research process of quantitative health research. In the long term this contributes to a more sex/gender-equitable research. Methods: The checklist builds on current guidelines on sex/gender in health-related research. Starting from important key documents, publications from disciplines involved in INGER were collected. Furthermore, we used a snowball method to include further relevant titles. The identification of relevant publications was continued until saturation was reached. 55 relevant publications published between 2000 and 2021 were identified, assessed, summarised and included in the developed checklist. After noticing that most publications did not cover every step of the research process and often considered sex/gender in a binary way, the recommendations were modified and enriched based on the authors' expertise to cover every research step and to add further categories to the binary sex/gender categories. Results: The checklist comprises 67 items in 15 sections for integrating sex/gender in quantitative health-related research and addresses aspects of the whole research process of planning, implementing and analysing quantitative health studies as well as aspects of appropriate language, communication of results to the scientific community and the public, and research team composition. Conclusion: The developed comprehensive checklist goes beyond a binary consideration of sex/gender and thus enables sex/gender-transformative research. Although the project INGER focused on environmental health research, no aspects that were specific to this research area were identified in the checklist. The resulting comprehensive checklist can therefore be used in different quantitative health-related research fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the dynamic interplay between human and non-human entities, focusing on how embodied data representation is distributed. It examines how predictive coding, which utilizes preconceived knowledge, interacts with tangible experiences to shape our understanding of the world. Emphasizing this, I propose the concept of co-Ability as a deep underlying explanatory framework for understanding adaptive behaviors within a networked world. A nonverbal dialog between humans and a data-saturated environment is analyzed through an action-oriented perspective and the predictive coding framework in cognition, utilizing digital craft and rapid prototyping. This transformative approach augments human interaction with digital landscapes through tangible prototypes, bridging physical experience with abstract information, and identifying potential ways to conceptualize data materially. The article discusses the various aspects of connectivity among network agents and the evolving nature of these connections as they adapt to real-world conditions and dynamic shifts in data, highlighting that information exchange in an interconnected network is more than bilateral; it generates ripple effects that extend beyond immediate connections. These reciprocal exchanges simultaneously alter both the digital and analog domains, with data constantly bifurcating into multiple pathways and outcomes. A significant challenge addressed in this article is the question of how to frame information materially, inviting further exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The neuroscience-based concept of "embodied cognition" or "embodiment" highlights that body and psyche are closely intertwined, i.e., effects of body and psyche are bidirectional and reciprocal. This represents the view that cognitive processes are not possible without the direct participation of the body. Traditional Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) addresses emotional processes on a conceptual level (dysfunctional thoughts, beliefs, attributions, etc.). However recent findings suggest that these processes already start at the level of bodily sensations. This opens up a way of working in therapy that includes the level of bodily sensations, where the development of emotional meaning is supported by bottom-up processes. Bidirectionality of embodiment can be effectively exploited by using body postures and movements associated with certain emotions, which we refer to as embodiment techniques, to deepen the physical experience of poorly felt emotions and support the valid construction of emotional meaning. This embodied approach offers several advantages: Prelinguistic or hard-to-grasp aspects can be identified more easily before being processed verbally. It is also easier to work with clients who have limited access to their emotions. Thus, in this paper we describe a new embodied CBT approach to working on the dysfunctional schema, which is based on three modules: body focus, emotional field, and interaction focus. In addition, using specific zones in the space of the therapy-room allows the embodiment of problematic interactions, as well as of power and powerlessness, closeness and distance, etc. Directly experiencing these processes on one's own body in the protected space of therapy allows faster and deeper insights than would be possible with conversations alone. Finally, the vitalizing power of emotions is used to create coherent action plans and successful interactions. This working method is illustrated by means of a case from practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition to motherhood often involves navigating multiple, often conflicting, identities, which calls for negotiations across various aspects of the self and identity. Apart from collective body management practices in Ghana, different ideals of maternal dress and appearance coexist in the context of globalization. Drawing insight from Goffman's dramaturgical theory, this study explores the role of dress in navigating pregnancy and motherhood and the significance of social interaction and the audience in the negotiations. Through interviews with 42 mothers in Ghana, we identify three primary forms of embodied performances: that of a traditional mother; a fashionable and modern mother; and a productive and professional worker. By focusing on the dynamics of power relations, as well as the strategies that underlie these performances, such as idealization, role distancing, covering, and passing, we obtain a nuanced understanding of maternal performance in the Global South, specifically Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-tracking enables people to quantify and measure lifestyle and fitness activities and experiences. Our study focuses on the role of self-tracking in young people's relationship with their body and their lived, 'fleshy' experiences in the social world. We draw on 23 in-depth interviews with young people using a life story approach. Our findings show that self-tracking affords young people to engage in different types of 'body work', to care for and transform their body that is in constant flux by treating it as either a 'private' or 'shared' project. We contribute to ongoing debates about the role of self-tracking in young people's lives by offering a holistic approach that considers the individual and social circumstances that render self-tracking an ongoing, iterative, cumulative and embodied process of discovery, learning and lived and 'fleshy' experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I attempt to trace the semiotic path of meaning experience from "nothing" into "something". Traditional communication studies are problematic in 1. focusing on the message to the effect of ignoring the communicators; 2. choosing to overlook how yet-to-be signs acquire meanings in the communicative moments; and 3. tending to assume a "natural science" attitude toward the studied phenomenon so that embodied consciousness is either sidetracked or psychologized. Taking communicology as both the theory and methodology, I first describe the semiotic network in which blank paper, a nonconventional sign, acquires its signness in a specified communicative event. Then, I look inward to the relation of consciousness and embodiment. Finally, I argue that communication is such a life-world moment wherein non-expression is collectively constituted as a form of expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to the special issue on 'Arts-based approaches, migration and violence: intersectional and creative perspectives' highlights the complexities and paradoxes in relation to existing debates in the field. Drawing on the emerging body of rich work that has recognised the importance of arts-based approaches within research on migration and violence, the introduction provides a critical assessment of the nature of the connections between the two in methodological, empirical and conceptual ways. It explores these intersections across multiple geographical scales, temporalities and imaginations through innovative creative research. In contributing to these debates, the introduction and the papers included in this special issue examine the potential for new insights, understanding and transformations to emerge through engaging with visual, performative, visceral, embodied and collaborative arts-based research. Yet, it also addresses some epistemological and ethical concerns including tensions around participation, positionality, co-production and the decolonisation of research. The introduction also aims to move beyond evaluating the benefits and drawbacks of arts-based approaches and provides a conceptual frame delineated as 'migration-violence creative pathways' that emphasise feminist and embodied perspectives. The frame does not prescribe how to engage with the creative arts, but rather encapsulates the variety of ways to do so. Finally, we set out an agenda for future creative research on migration-violence connections that highlights some practical, epistemological and conceptual suggestions for critically and productively engaging with arts-based approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applications of artificial intelligence (AI) bear great transformative potential in the economic, technological and social sectors, impacting especially future work environments. Ethical regulation of AI requires a relational understanding of the technology by relevant stakeholder groups such as researchers, developers, politicians, civil servants, affected workers or other users applying AI in their work processes. The purpose of this paper is to support relational AI discourse for an improved ethical framing and regulation of the technology. The argumentation emphasizes a widespread reembodied understanding of AI technology as critical requirement for capable ethical and regulatory frameworks. A sociotechnical perspective encourages the material interpretation of AI as reembodied adaptation of biological intelligence. Reviewing Cartesian dualism as motivating the disembodiment of human intelligence for its transfer to machines, the argumentation develops an integrated embodiment concept of AI in its mechanistic, naturalistic, combined AI and neuroethical, and relational contexts. This concept is discussed in relation to basic phenomenological and postphenomenological assumptions, and is applied to the example of AI-based neurotechnology potentially disrupting future work processes. Strengthening a human-centered approach, the presented concept for a reembodied understanding of AI technology enables better integrated ethical and regulatory debates, and improves social discourse and human agency in developing and regulating AI technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Awareness of and response to embodiment as a foundational element of teaching and learning is increasingly lost in the higher education classroom. The widespread shift to online learning prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic only brought this reality into high relief. However, in this conceptual article, we reflect on teaching and learning as inherently embodied processes and link this reality to the teaching skills of presence and observation. As yoga teachers and university professors, our physical practices of teaching yoga and our own scholarly disciplines led us to consider embodiment awareness in higher education. Our experiences teaching through the COVID-19 pandemic, years after we started to consider this question, led us to consider embodiment in new ways. Here, we draw from cross-disciplinary scholarship and our experiences as yoga teachers to illustrate the importance and potential of recognizing the embodied nature of individuals engaged in the teaching and learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborations that employ methods from arts and sciences to address research questions through multimodal study design are becoming more frequent, as it is increasingly apparent that complex challenges require transdisciplinary solutions. These different modalities rely on interdisciplinary exchange while involving unique expertise in associated delivery practices. In human subject driven scientific research specifically, guidelines for arts-based interventions deserve detailed reporting to allow for fidelity, replicability, and uptake of innovation and results. Details such as frequency, duration, delivery method, expected outcomes, historical precedence, and instructor training are crucial, along with nuanced descriptions pertaining to embodied aspects of specific dance or movement style(s) and adaptations made for the population or study design. This Perspective Paper outlines the current state and challenges of reporting on dance interventions and makes recommendations based on our experience as teaching artists who work in research settings alongside researchers who collaborate with dance professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human–horse relationships can be experienced in many ways and the horse companion can be given various roles, from a partner in action to a tool or commodity. How humans experience connection with horses and what kinds of roles are assigned to them may reflect or even depend on the real-life co-actions and environments. In this study, we assessed experiences of intersubjectivity in human–horse relationships, focusing particularly on whether and how agency and emotional and embodied intersubjectivity with the horse were discussed by horse owners. We conducted the study in two different stable environments, namely box stables and open-shed stables, that differ particularly in the horses' possibilities to execute independent decision-making in their daily lives. We conducted semi-structured interviews of 25 horse owners and analyzed them using theory-guided qualitative content analysis for notions of agency and intersubjectivity. Overall, while there were only a few explicit accounts of embodied intersubjectivity in action, it was most explicitly apparent in descriptions of hacking and doing other things than riding. Additionally, intersubjectivity was apparent in descriptions of horse emotions. There were several differences in the horse owners' accounts at the different stable environments. Respondents at the open-shed stables assigned agency more often to the horse or simultaneously themselves and the horse, discussed more often horse emotions, and emphasized hacking, playing, or just being with the horse as meaningful co-actions. At the box stables, accounts emphasizing competing, self-evidence of riding as the main activity, and human agency in co-action were more common. These results show that the management environment and forms of co-action are connected to the thoughts and views equestrians have on agency and experiences of intersubjectivity in horse–human relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caste in the South Asian context is a deeply felt phenomenon, practised through bodily and sensory regimentation, and the prescriptive social organization of bodies in space. These relationships between caste and embodiment have historically been closely regulated in norms around the partaking, sharing and cooking of food, and meat in particular. This paper examines how these gastronomic prescriptions endure and take on new meanings in digital food media, which disrupts physical space and food's relationships to the body and sensory experience. Drawing on two years of ethnography with creators who produce home-cooking content in the emerging Indian "creator economy," this paper considers how caste is embodied, articulated and remediated online during a time of violent Hindu nationalist food politics in India. How is caste articulated even when it is not explicitly named by creators in their posts? How are caste-based disgust and humiliation, and conversely, caste intimacy elicited by creators as they labor for the creator economy? Bringing together feminist and anti-caste theories of experience, articulation and embodiment, the paper theorizes caste as affect, and in doing so, illuminates how it comes to have a digital life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this scholarship, I present insights from a sensory ethnographic study on novice educators' embodied experiences of learning to teach sex education. I query how educators sense-make their role as knowledgeable sex educators in relation to the official and erotic discourses of sex education, and examine the experiential divisions between these discourses. Employing an arts-based approach to data generation and interpretation, my central argument proposes that increasing the permeability of the boundaries between official and erotic discourses in sex education can expand the ways learners' bodies are understood in erotic, relational, and intimate contexts within pedagogy. By presenting these arguments, I aim to contribute to addressing the enduring challenges of the discourse of erotics 'being' in K-12 sex education and suggests ways to support educators in delivering effective pedagogical practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a multi-method olfactory inquiry to document the rich ways in which children's sense of smell is embodied and embedded in an interplay of senses and socio-spatial relationships. I approach olfaction as a conceptual strategy and connect it to socio-material and socio-spatial theories to illustrate the ways in which close empirical attention to olfaction can provide new insights into children's sensory experiences. An olfactory research inquiry rests on traditional (e.g. SmellMaps and SmellLogs) and speculative (e.g. Ododata and Olfactoscapes) olfactory techniques that invite adults' and children's agentic responses to odours through relational, dynamic, and non-linguistic modes. As a critical sub-methodology of sensory inquiries, olfactory inquiry can help us re-think normative, homogenizing, mind-body relations in early childhood research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore the lived experience of physical exertion for persons living with advanced multiple sclerosis (MS) An interpretive (hermeneutic) phenomenological approach was undertaken with 8 persons living with advanced MS. Interviews were conducted with exploratory questions that explored participants' experiences of physical exertion. Data was analysed using phenomenological methods and the findings presented as hermeneutic stories. Participants conveyed physical exertion as a means of influencing their connection with the world. Interpretation identified four subthemes; Lived Body, Sense of Self, Purpose of exertion, and Attributes of the World and an overarching superordinate theme Body-World engagement. Hermeneutic stories illuminated the intertwined relationship between the themes and the idiographic nature of physical exertion. The experience of physical exertion was meaningfully related to participants' sense of self, agency, and 'being in the world'. For persons living with advanced MS: Physical exertion has the potential to enhance sense of self through regaining a lost, or creating a new identity. Physical exertion can enhance bodily consciousness and cause individuals to dwell on inability, consequently health care professionals should consider how their language and therapy focus may intensify this. Attempting to meet societally accepted standards of normal had a shaping influence on the exertional experience. The meaning of physical exertion is influenced by an individual's preconceptions and healthcare professionals should take time to understanding these, in order to optimise engagement in physical exertion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Open heart surgery is a potentially traumatic experience for patients, thus posing a real risk to both the patient's physical and mental health as well as bodily integrity. All of these can greatly affect the emotional relationship to the sternotomy scar, the physical aspect of self‐representation. Sternotomy scars mark patients for life, yet our knowledge of patients' subjective experiences is unknown. Method: In our case study, we explore the embodied experiences of a woman (42) who underwent open heart surgery with the method of interpretative phenomenological analysis combined with drawings. Results: The body and the bodily experiences play a prominent role in the formation, healing process, and symbolism of a scar. The central core of the traumatic experience of open heart surgery is the attack against the patient's sensation of bodily integrity. The interviewee experiences the surgery as abuse committed on her body, a memory that is deeply etched both in the physical memory and in the form of a scar on the skin. Conclusion: Based on our study, it seems that the corporeal dimension of posttraumatic growth may develop after the traumatic experience of heart surgery, in which bodily intimacy with oneself and Significant Others plays a major role. In this case study, the objective reality of the heart as "sick" flesh and the "broken, pierced" bone (Körper), as well as the dissociation—and then its integration—of the lived, living body experience (Leib) are outlined. Our case study was analysed in the theoretical framework of phenomenology and psychoanalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phenomenological research has focused on embodiment. This paper examines how the body is experienced in passive contemplation, understood as a finite province of meaning in Alfred Schutz's sense. The six features characteristic of any province of meaning (epoché, form of spontaneity, tension of consciousness, sense of self, temporality, and sociality) function distinctively in each province of meaning and alter one's experience of one's body. In the foundational province of pragmatic everyday life, one transforms deliberately and bodily the surrounding world, but this experience undergoes modifications in the religious/spiritual contemplative province. To clarify passive contemplation, the paper develops, as a contrast, active contemplation, the active, restless pursuit of chains of appresentational symbols and images. In passive contemplation, one separates from everyday life, orients toward unity rather than dialogue with God, refrains from following appresentative chains, and relaxes one's tension of the consciousness/body (e.g., through breathing), single-mindedly attending to God's presence. One can trace passive contemplation genetically to a primordial entwinement with one's mother's body, in which subjective/objective boundaries are blurred (as in Merleau-Ponty's "flesh"). In passive contemplation, one assumes an often-wordless social role (child, lover) toward God and abides tranquilly in the present rather than moving distractedly toward any future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]