Pirkko Markula - Deleuze and the Physically Active Body

This volume examines Gilles Deleuzes philosophy as it relates to the study of the physically active body. It explores theoretical and practical examples of how the physically active body can be examined as a material, social, political, and cultural entity using a Deleuzian perspective.

Examining topics such as, the formation of thought within a capitalist system; sport, exercise, and dance as cultural arrangements; researching the physically active body from a Deleuzian perspective; and Deleuze on Foucault, this book shows ways of investigating the moving body as an agent for initiating social change.

This is fascinating reading for students and researchers working in the fields of the Sociology of Sport, Sport and Politics, and Sport and Social Theory.

Pirkko Markula is Professor of Socio-cultural Studies of Physical Activity at the University of Alberta, Canada. Her research interests include social analyses of dance, exercise, and sport in which she has employed several theoretical lenses ranging from critical, cultural studies research to Foucault and Deleuze. She is also a contemporary dancer and choreographer.

Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society

Gender Diversity in European Sport Governance

Edited by Agnes Elling, Jorid Hovden and Annelies Knoppers

Figurational Research in Sport, Leisure and Health

Edited by Dominic Malcolm and Philippa Velija

The Historical Sociology of Japanese Martial Arts

Ral Snchez Garca

Sport in Scandinavia and the Nordic Countries

Edited by Ken Green, Thorsteinn Sigurjnsson and Eivind srum Skille

Critical Research in Sport, Health and Physical Education

How to Make a Difference

Edited by Richard Pringle, Hkan Larsson and Gran Gerdin

Soccer and the American Dream

Ian Lawrence

Social Justice in Fitness and Health

Bodies Out of Sight

Laura Azzarito

The World Anti-Doping Code

Fit for Purpose?

Lovely Dasgupta

Deleuze and the Physically Active Body

Pirkko Markula

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/sport/series/RRSCS

Pirkko Markula

First published 2019

by Routledge

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ISBN: 978-1-138-67673-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-54378-9 (ebk)

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To Jim

I came to know Deleuzes work through Foucault. As a Foucauldian scholar of the physically active body, I was intrigued by Foucaults (1980) famous prediction that [p]erhaps one day this century will be known as Deleuzian (p. 165). Who was this thinker whom Foucault credited so very highly? I wondered. My initial fascination grew into a line of work that has evolved from a feminist critique of the narrow definitions of feminine and masculine bodies in physical activity to ethnographic works to change fitness industry practices. To recount how I decided to write an entire book on Deleuze, in what follows I briefly draw my trajectory in becoming a Deleuzian scholar of the physically activity body.

As a feminist researcher, I was introduced more closely to Deleuze by feminist scholars Rosi Braidotti, Claire Colebrook, Elizabeth Grosz, Dianne Currier, and Dorothea Olkowski. Their readings inspired my examination of feminine and masculine identity construction in sport. In my early work, for example, I (Markula, 2004) employed Deleuzes concept of becoming-woman to examine the devalued otherness of Victoria Beckham, the wife of famous English footballer David Beckham. I asserted that Deleuzes theory offered a positive site for the redefinition of female subjectivity within/through football (p. 160). Through a media reading, I attempted to identify how Victoria Beckham diverted from traditional femininity to conclude that she became woman, not through who she was, but through what her performing body did: dancing and singing. Victoria further magnified her performative effect, I argued, by creating an assemblage with Davids performing body. With her rather camp performance style, I concluded, Victoria broke down the limitations of femininity.

With Zoe Avner, I continued my feminist inspired work on identity formation with a reading of Finnish ski-jumper Matti Nyknen, a fallen superhero (Markula & Avner, 2013). Inspired particularly by Tamsin Lorraines (2008) work, we used Deleuzes concept of faciality trait to examine how Nyknens career was presented in the media. Our analysis demonstrated that Nyknen remained a media celebrity by oscillating between a masculine face (a dare-devil competitive athlete with multiple marriages, heavy drinking, and jail sentences) and a feminine face (careers as a singer and striptease artist). Although not a normal masculine face, Nyknen continued to appear in the media aligned with the majoritarian line of masculinity. While illustrating my continued development as a Deleuzian scholar, both of these works were based on media readings. As an ethnographer, Deleuzes belief that seeds for thinking differently can be found by examining the micro contexts of everyday life inspired me to experiment with how his rich, but complex, thought system might be used to inform research in such locations.

As a socio-cultural scholar of the active body, Deleuzes concept, the Body without Organs (BwO), attracted my attention since my earliest acquaintance with his work. Involving the body more closely into the research process seemed to hold great potential for thinking differently about how physical activity can be practiced more ethically. I (Markula, 2004) introduced the BwO that I, at the time, understood to denote the body before it becomes defined by science into an organism, already in my study of Victoria Beckham. The BwO, for me, represented the dismantling of a feminine identity, yet I argued, this did not mean a rejection of femininity, but a sensitivity to its micro-destratifications in society.

Thus, my conclusion that Victoria, through her performance of a stylized appearancea type of microstratification of femininitybroadened the definition of femininity in her cultural context. A deeper engagement with