Sport&Society Conference 2020

2020 Special Focus—Playful Minds: Assessing the Socio-Cultural Potential of Sport and Physical A au ctivity

Du 18 au 19 juin 2020 Université de Grenade, Espagne

Radical Experience of Uncertainty and Fragility – Identities, Meaning, and Purpose of Running Long Distance?

Mathilde Plard, Universite de Nantes, Nantes, France

Abstract : Making progress in trail running supposes in particular learning how to listen to the subtle or violent signs sent by the body. This research analyzes the difficulties and the strategies implemented by runners to appropriate this living body which reacts and adapts itself to the environment and to the stress generated by the situation of long-distance. The conceptual framework choose is the one of phenomenology. Each type of experience describes a deep level of living bodies and of the consciousness of lived body. I investigate the hypothesis that running very long distances in the wilderness would allow for a radical and fundamental experience of fragility, uncertainty, and presence in the world. These practices evoke a balance between the power and fragility of being – alive – in the world, allowing us to (re)connect with the vital impulse, to increase the power of being. Ultra-trail would be the paradoxical remedy: accelerate to make the world vibrate. Against the spiral of acceleration, increasing speed would allow to experience a connection to the world: a resonance. What if running, faster, longer would finally offer the opportunity for a here and now? The stories of ultra-trail-type races serve as a support corpus for thinking about the relationship of distance with the conceptual framework proposed by Rosa. Trail running is presented as a path of immersion, of plural incorporation into oneself (i), others (ii) and the world or nature (iii).

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Keywords : Body, Immersion, Expérience, Sport, Running, Ultra-trail.

Thèmes : Sporting, Cultures and Identities.

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