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Mindful Movement as a Cure for Colonialism

Ganoe, Kristy L.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1367936488

Abstract Details

2013, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies.
This study investigated aikido, a martial art that emphasizes non-violent conflict resolution. After an extensive period of preliminary research including personal study of aikido and historiographical contextualization of aikido lore, fifteen aikido students and instructors were interviewed, and thirty-four students were observed during a total of sixty-four classes at two different aikido schools, each of which were led by female head instructors who taught a mixed-sex student body. Ethnographic data was analyzed from a multidisciplinary perspective that blends feminist cultural studies with decolonial and psychoanalytic theories. Connections between research participants' understandings of the concept of power and their approaches to conflict resolution are explored. Participants described power as: physically internal, the ability to be grounded and centered, the ability to direct and re-direct energy, the ability to maintain awareness of one's self and environment, and the ability to cultivate growth. Study participants' sense of generative power resonated interpersonally through participants' self-reported and observed conflict resolution strategies, which include: maintaining awareness of one's environment, adjusting one's posture through practices called centering and grounding, not fighting by turning (tenkan) and blending with one's "opponent" while entering (irimi) the conflict with measured assertiveness, and maintaining a capacity for a wide range of reactions (ukemi). Participants demonstrated an ability to think about and productively engage with large-scale social conflicts (such as gender violence) by relying on philosophically and kinesthetically sophisticated understandings of links between the personal and the political. This is because the movement practice aikido challenges colonial ways of knowing by functioning as an embodied meta-ideological deconstruction, one of several (r)evolutionary tactics discussed in decolonial feminist theory. This dissertation concludes with a meditation on the application of aikido philosophy to a practical deconstruction of the social institutions of contemporary American imperialism.
Vikki Krane, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Ellen Berry, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Marv Belzer, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Don Callen, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Christina Guenther, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
246 p.
Aesthetics; Alternative Dispute Resolution; American History; American Studies; Art Criticism; Art Education; Art History; Asian American Studies; Communication; Comparative; Cultural Anthropology; Dance; Education; Education Philosophy; Ethics; Ethnic Studies; Fine Arts; Folklore; Gender Studies; Kinesiology; Modern History; Multicultural Education; Peace Studies; Pedagogy; Performing Arts; Philosophy; Physical Education; Rhetoric; Sociolinguistics; Sports Management; Sustainability; Womens Studies; World History
Aikido; Cultural Studies; Womens and Gender Studies; Decolonial Theory; Peace Studies; Mindful Movement; Martial Arts; Transformative Praxis; Performance Studies; Decolonial Feminist Cultural Studies; Consciousness Studies

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Ganoe, K. L. (2013). Mindful Movement as a Cure for Colonialism [Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1367936488

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Ganoe, Kristy. Mindful Movement as a Cure for Colonialism . 2013. Bowling Green State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1367936488.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Ganoe, Kristy. "Mindful Movement as a Cure for Colonialism ." Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1367936488

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1367936488
99
© 2013, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Mindful Movement as a Cure for Colonialism by Kristy L. Ganoe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.