In this study, I wanted to use creative methods and approaches to explore how academics reconciled an embodied practice with their academic practice and identity, and whether it contributed to their well-being. In other words, does their embodied practice help them make sense of their academic work, and does it make them feel better about it?
Embodiment can be thought of as the fundamental and integral connection between the mind and body, though it is a contested term (Sheets-Johnstone, 2015). Embodied awareness is a fundamental aspect of yoga, other movement forms (Bainbridge-Cohen, 1993; Hartley, 1989; Olsen, 1998), types of martial arts, modern dance and movement awareness (Da’Oud, 1995).
Academic identity and the way in which we as academics construct our working and out-of-work lives has an impact on career, health and well-being (Ennals, Fortune, Williams, & D’Cruz, 2015; Freedman & Stoddard Holmes, 2003; Malcolm & Zukas, 2009).
Academia has been described as an unpleasant place (Bloch, 2012), primarily because emotional and embodied feelings are repressed. Employers should be promoting the psychological well-being of their employees (NICE, 2009), but need to find out what helps first (Darabi, Macaskill, & Reidy, 2016).
Many academics enjoy an embodied practice of some kind outside of work, in addition to those who explicitly engage in one as part of their academic practice. This project used discipline crossing creative qualitative methodological approaches (Xenitidou & Gilbert, 2012) that drew on embodied practices to address issues of academic identity.
If academia is an example of a disassociated and disembodied culture, how do academics with an embodied practice negotiate their way around it?