Anne Bolin, professor of anthropology, presented a paper titled “Playing at Work and Working at Play: Experiential Ethnography and Self in Bodybuilding Subculture” at the annual meetings of the Association for the Study of Play in Atlanta, Feb. 18-21. Tom Henricks, Distinguished University Professor and professor of sociology, also presented at the conference.
The abstract of Bolin’s paper appears below:
“Reflexive ethnography was born of debates in anthropology influenced by thick description, postmodernism and feminism. Within this crisis of representation evolved a reflexive ethnography in which the ethnographer’s voice of authority was no longer unseen and unchallenged. New ethnographic approaches incorporated the ethnographer reflexively wherein the subjective lived experience of the anthropologist became part of the ethnographic “story.” This paper focuses on the theoretical/methodological implications of an extreme form of experiential ethnography in which the anthropologist has become the “other;” in this case a native of bodybuilding subculture. Reflection on the positioning of the “self” as bodybuilder and anthropologist is addressed. It is argued that a horizontal and democratic approach to ethnographic research is not only possible in the study of sporting identities but that such lived experience may offer unique insights into understanding bodybuilding culture from the inside out.”