The Moving Bodies Lab were delighted to take part in the 9th International Conference on Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise (QRSE2024), hosted by the University of Bath. The QRSE conference is the main event of the International Society for Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise (QRSEsoc).
The MBL contribution to the conference took the form of a symposium. It explored how creativity and care weave through their work as a lab, and was developed with collaborators Professor Claire Warden (Loughborough University)and Dr Véronique Chance (ARU).
The symposium offered the opportunity to reflect on the different ways in which research in the MBL contributes and develops qualitative research in sport and exercise. Working with Claire and Véronique in developing the symposium involved learning about creative and practice-led research methodologies in the arts. These methodologies have brought to the surface the ways in which care is “performed” across the sports and arts, and challenges the ways in which “sport” and “art” are often distinguished from one another.
In the symposium, Claire discussed the sport-art practice of professional wrestling, and how her work managing a professional wrestling company (Wrestling Resurgence) has taught her about some of the unlikely ways in which care can emerge through performing antagonism and working togethering to create a spectacle.
Véronique’s work as an artist and a researcher has allowed her to use her own long-distance running practice as a way to generate questions about embodiment and subjectivity. She shared her work with the Running Artfully Network and invited us to think about how the activity of running could be used as a tool for (re)considering elements of risk and practices of care, both to the self and to others.
Emily discussed how working with the concept of aesthetics has enabled her to delve into the entanglements of sport-art, and moving bodies more generally, and has opened up new ways of approaching qualitative research. Emily discussed this work in the context of developing a workshop on the theme of care aesthetics with the Visual and Material Lab, and what she learned from working with researchers in the arts and humanities.
For Cassie, creativity and care as lab lead means attention to the process of “labbing;” tuning in to how our ideas form and grow. She shared how the lab are using ethnomethodology to trace this process, and some of the learning that has emerged from this.
The QRSE conference was a productive one for sharing the varied and sometimes unlikely ways in which creativity and care become part of research and the Moving Bodies lab look forward to further developments on these themes.
