Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T09:33:05.392Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Older women, embodiment and yoga practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2014

BARBARA HUMBERSTONE  and
CAROL CUTLER-RIDDICK
BARBARA HUMBERSTONE*
Affiliation:
Sport Management Department, Buckinghamshire New University, High Wycombe, UK.
CAROL CUTLER-RIDDICK
Affiliation:
Physical Education and Recreation, Gallaudet University, Washington, DC, USA.
*
Address for correspondence: Barbara Humberstone, Buckinghamshire New University, Queen Alexandra Road, High Wycombe HP11 2JZ, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the ageing body and the ‘body techniques’ practised by older women within their yoga classes. The paper emphasises the importance of exploring alternative definitions of the human condition, how these are shaped and assembled through particular embodied practices which are realised personally and socially. Taking a contextualised phenomenological approach, older women's experiences are made visible through interview and participant observation. Unlike much sporting practice, the body techniques managed by the women did not emphasise sporting prowess but provided for an integration of body and mind. In the process, biological ageing was accepted yet the women maintained control over the process, troubling prevailing narratives of ageing, declining control and increasing weakness that are taken for granted in much of Western society. The paper highlights the significance of socially rooted ontological embodiment in understanding the ageing body and particular bodily practices.

Keywords

physical activity and ageingembodiment and ageingwomenmask of ageing
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 35 , Issue 6 , July 2015 , pp. 1221 - 1241
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen-Collinson, J. 2011. Feminist phenomenology and the woman in the running body. Sport, Ethics Philosophy, 5, 3, 2897–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, M. 2010. Entering scapeland: yoga, fell and post-sport physical cultures. Sport in Society, 13, 7, 1249–67.Google Scholar
Avis, M. 2005. Is there an epistemology for qualitative research? In Holloway, I. (ed.), Qualtiative Research in Health Care. Open University Press, Milton Keynes, UK, 3–15.Google Scholar
Betts Adams, K., Leibbrandt, S. and Moon, H. 2011. A critical review of the literature on social and leisure activity and wellbeing in later life. Ageing & Society, 31, 4, 683–712.Google Scholar
Broad, W. J. 2012. The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards. Simon and Schuster, London.Google Scholar
Chaudhury, M. and Shelton, C. 2010. Physical activity among 60–69-year-olds in England: knowledge, perception, behaviour and risk factors. Ageing & Society, 30, 8, 1343–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, K., Tseng, W., Ting, L. and Gwo-Feng, H. 2007. Development and evaluation of a yoga exercise programme for older adults. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 57, 4, 432–40.Google Scholar
Clayton, B. and Humberstone, B. 2006. Men's talk: a (pro)feminist analysis of university football players’ discourse. International Review of the Sociology of Sport, 41, 3/4, 295–316.Google Scholar
Coates, E. 1996. Living Yoga. The School for Living Yoga, Essex, UK.Google Scholar
Cutler-Riddick, C. 2010. Gerontology–leisure research: the past and the future. In Humberstone, B. (ed.), Third Age and Leisure Research: Principles and Practice. LSA Publication No. 108, Leisure Studies Association, Eastbourne, UK, 1–20.Google Scholar
Dionigi, R. A. 2002. Resistance and empowerment through leisure: the meaning of competitive sport participation to older adults. Society and Leisure, 25, 2, 303–28.Google Scholar
Dionigi, R. A. 2006. Competitive sport and aging: the need for qualitative sociological research. Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, 14, 4, 365–79.Google Scholar
Dionigi, R. A. 2008. Competing for Life: Older People, Sport and Ageing. Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrüecken, Germany.Google Scholar
Dorgo, S., Robinson, K. and Bade, J. 2009. The effectiveness of a peer mentored older adult fitness program on perceived physical, mental, and social function. Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, 21, 2, 116–22.Google Scholar
Dupuis, S. and Alzheimer, M. 2008. Leisure and ageing well. World Leisure, 50, 2, 91–107.Google Scholar
Faircloth, C. 2003. Different bodies and the paradox of ageing: locating ageing bodies in images and every day experience. In Faircloth, C. (ed.), Ageing Bodies. Altamira Press, Lanham, Maryland, 1–26.Google Scholar
Featherstone, M. and Hepworth, M. 1991. The mask of ageing and the postmodern life course. In Fethersone, M., Hepworth, M. and Turner, B. (eds), The Body: Social and Cultural Theory. Sage, London, 371–89.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1987. Of other spaces. Diacritics, 16, 1, 22–7.Google Scholar
Grant, B. and Kluge, M. 2007. Exploring ‘other body(s)’ knowledge: getting to the heart of the story about aging and physical activity. Quest, 59, 398–414.Google Scholar
Hargreaves, J. and Vertinsky, P. 2007. Introduction. In Hargreaves, J. and Vertinsky, P. (eds), Physical Culture, Power, and the Body. Routledge, Abingdon, UK, 1–24.Google Scholar
Harper, S. 1997. Contesting later life. In Cloke, P. and Little, J. (eds), Contested Countryside Cultures. Routledge, London, 180–96.Google Scholar
Hockey, J. 2006. Sensing the run: the senses of running. Senses and Society, 1, 2, 183–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hockey, J. and Allen-Collinson, C. 2007. Grasping the phenomenology of sporting bodies. International Review of Sociology for Sport, 42, 2, 113–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holstein, J. and Gubrium, J. 2004. Context: working it up, down and across. In Seale, C., Silverman, D., Gubrium, J. and Gabo, G. (eds), Qualtiative Research in Practice. Sage, London, 267–81.Google Scholar
Hughes, S., Seymour, R., Campbell, R., Pollak, N., Huber, G. and Sharma, L. 2006. Long-term impact of Fit and Strong! on older adults with osteoarthritis. The Gerontologist, 46, 6, 801–14.Google Scholar
Humberstone, B. (ed.) 2010. Third Age and Leisure Research: Principles and Practice. LSA Publication No. 108, Leisure Studies Association, Eastbourne, UK.Google Scholar
Humberstone, B. 2011 a. Engagements with nature: ageing and windsurfing. In Watson, B. and Harpin, J. (eds), Identities, Cultures and Voices in Leisure and Sport. LSA Publication No. 116, Leisure Studies Association, Eastbourne, UK, 159–70.Google Scholar
Humberstone, B. 2011 b. Embodiment and social and environmental action in nature-based sport: spiritual spaces. Journal of Leisure Studies, 30, 4, 495–512.Google Scholar
Laz, C. 2003. Age embodied. Journal of Ageing Studies, 17, 503–19.Google Scholar
Leledaki, A. 2007. Inner and outer journeys: a qualitative life history of modern yoga and meditation as body-self-transforming pedagogies. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.Google Scholar
Lincoln, Y. S. and Guba, E. G. 1985. Naturalistic Inquiry. Sage, London.Google Scholar
Magnus, G. 2008. The Age of Ageing: How Demographics Are Changing the Global Economy and Our World. John Wiley & Son, Chichester, UK.Google Scholar
Mascaro, J. 1962. The Upanishads. Penguin Books, London.Google Scholar
Mascaro, J. 1965. The Bagadvada Gita. Penguin Books, London.Google Scholar
Mauss, M. 1973. Techniques of the body. Economy and Society, 2, 1, 70–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mauther, M., Birch, M., Jessop, J. and Miller, T. 2002. Ethics in Qualitative Research. Sage, London.Google Scholar
Mellor, P. A. and Shilling, C. 2010. Body pedagogics and the religious habitus: a new direction for the sociological study of religion. Religion, 40, 1, 27–38.Google Scholar
Messner, M. and Sabo, D. 1992. Sport, Men and Gender Order: Critical Feminist Perspectives. Human Kinetics Books, Champaign, Illinois.Google Scholar
Nagla, M. 2006. Yoga, health and leisure: attitudes of women in Haryana. World Leisure, 48, 2, 25–34.Google Scholar
National Health Service 2011. Start Active, Stay Active: A Report on Physical Activities for Health from the Four Home Countries' Chief Medical Officers. Department of Health, London.Google Scholar
Office for National Statistics 2012. Population Ageing in the United Kingdom, its Constituent Countries and the European Union. Available online at http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/mortality-ageing/focus-on-older-people/population-ageing-in-the-united-kingdom-and-europe/rpt-age-uk-eu.html [Accessed 18 April 2012].Google Scholar
Phillips, K. 2001. The Spirit of Yoga. Cassell, London.Google Scholar
Phoenix, C. and Grant, B. 2009. Expanding the agenda for research on the physically active aging body. Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, 17, 3, 362–79.Google Scholar
Phoenix, C. and Sparkes, A. 2006 a. Young athletic bodies and narrative maps of aging. Journal of Aging Studies, 20, 2, 107–21.Google Scholar
Phoenix, C. and Sparkes, A. 2006 b. Keeping it in the family: narrative maps of ageing and young athletes’ perceptions of their future. Ageing & Society, 26, 4, 631–48.Google Scholar
Pink, S. 2009. Doing Sensory Ethnography. Sage, London.Google Scholar
Prabhavananda, S. and Isherwood, C. 2007. How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali. Vedanta Society, California.Google Scholar
Roebuck, V. 2003. The Upanishads. Penguin Books, London.Google Scholar
Shilling, C. 2005. The Body in Culture, Technology and Society. Sage, London.Google Scholar
Sparkes, A. 2003. Bodies, identies, selves: autoethnographic fragments and reflections. In Denison, J. and Markula, P. (eds), Moving Writing: Crafting Movement in Sport Research. Peter Lang Publishing, New York, 51–76.Google Scholar
Sparkes, A. 2005. Reflections on an embodied sport and exercise psychology. In Stelter, R. and Roessler, K. (eds), New Approaches to Exercise and Sport Psychology. Meyer & Meyer Sport, Oxford, 31–54.Google Scholar
Sparkes, A. 2009. Ethnography and the senses: challenges and possibilities. Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise, 1, 1, 21–35.Google Scholar
Sparkes, A. 2010. Performing the ageing body and the importance of place: some authoethnographic moments. In Humberstone, B. (ed.), Third Age and Leisure Research: Principles and Practice. LSA Publication No. 108, Leisure Studies Association, Eastbourne, UK, 21–32.Google Scholar
Taylor, J. 2010. Narratives of Identity and Place. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Tulle, E. 2008. The ageing body and the ontology of ageing: athletic competence in later life. Body and Society, 14, 3, 1–19.Google Scholar
Turner, B. S. 1994. The postmodernisation of the life course: towards a new social gerontology. Australian Journal on Ageing, 13, 3, 109–11.Google Scholar
Vertinsky, P. 2002. Sporting women in the public gaze: shattering the master narratives of ageing female bodies. Canadian Women Studies/Les cahiers de la femme, 21, 3, 58–63.Google Scholar
Victor, C. 2005. The Social Context of Ageing. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Wainwright, S. P. and Turner, B. S. 2003. Aging and the dancing body. In Faircloth, E. (ed.), Aging Bodies: Images and Everyday Experiences. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California, 259–307.Google Scholar
Wainwright, S. P. and Turner, B. S. 2006. Just crumbling to bits: an exploration of the body, ageing, injury and career in classical ballet dancers. Sociology, 40, 2, 237–55.Google Scholar
Wilcox, S., Dowda, M., Griffin, S.F., Rheaume, C., Ory, M.G., Leviton, L., King, A.C., Dunn, A., Buchner, D.M., Bazzarre, T., Estabrooks, P.A., Campbell-Voytal, K., Bartlett-Prescott, J., Dowdy, D., Castro, C.M., Carpenter, R.A., Dzewaltowski, D.A. and Mockenhaupt, R. 2006. Results of the first year of Active for Life: translation of two evidence-based physical activity programs for older adults into community settings. American Journal of Public Health, 96, 7, 1201–9.Google Scholar
Woodward 2009. Embodied Sporting Practices: Regulating and Regulatory Bodies. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK.Google Scholar