Exploring Lived Heat, “Temperature Work,” and Embodiment: Novel Auto/Ethnographic Insights from Physical Cultures

Abstract

Drawing on sociological and anthropological theorizations of the senses and "sensory work", the purpose of this article is to investigate via phenomenology-based auto/ethnography, and to generate novel insights into the under-researched sense of thermoception, as the lived sense of temperature. Based on four long-term, in-depth auto/ethnographic research projects, we examine whether thermoception can be conceptualized as a distinct sense or is more appropriately categorised as a specific modality of touch. Empirically and analytically to highlight the salience of thermoception in everyday life, we draw on findings from four auto/ethnographic projects conducted by the authors as long-standing insider members of their various physical-cultural lifeworlds. The foci of the research projects span the physical cultures of distance running, mixed martial arts, traditionalist Chinese martial arts, and boxing. Whilst situated within distinctive physical-cultural frameworks, nevertheless, the commonalities in the thermoceptive elements of our respective experiences as practitioners were striking, and thermoception emerged as highly salient across all four lifeworlds. Our analysis explores the key auto/ethnographic findings, centring on four specific areas: elemental touch, heat of the action, standing still, and tuning in. Emerging from all four studies were key findings relating to the valorization of sweat, and the importance of "temperature work" involving thermoceptive somatic learning, and physical-culturally specific bodily ways of knowing and sense-making. These in turn shape how heat and cold are actually "felt" and experienced in the mind-body.

Weather-wise? Sporting embodiment, weather work and weather learning in running and triathlon

“…Here, we have analysed some of the practices and modes of undertaking weather work and developing forms of weather wisdom. Our conceptualisation of weather work also coheres with sociologically-attuned conceptualisations of the social production of the senses and the sensory (e.g., Allen-Collinson and Hockey, 2015;Allen-Collinson et al, 2016;Chau, 2008), in that as social actors we must undertake work in sensory production as well as in sensory interpretation. Thus, weather work involves not only considerable interpretative work, but also production work.…”

“…From the individual and combined analyses, a raft of themes emerged, some of which are explored elsewhere (Allen-Collinson et al, 2016). It is upon experiences of 'lived weather' that we concentrate here, structured into three seasons of our (UK) meteorological year: winter, spring and autumn.…”

“…After a few failed attempts I stop for a moment and take breast strokes until I can feel my breathing return to normal and I can get into my rhythm. AnuThe corporeal consequences of failure to engage in weather work, including refined 'temperature work' (Allen-Collinson et al, 2016) in physical-cultural environments, can indeed be severe. Our ability to thermoregulate is vital to our very survival, and immersion in cold water too rapidly or for too long is considered a contributor in the development of lifethreatening conditions such as swimming-induced pulmonary oedema (SIPE) (Smith et al, 2015).…”

‘Weather work’: embodiment and weather learning in a national outdoor exercise programme

“…In people's accounts of their lived experience of exercise in the outdoors, vectors of sensory experience were, for the most part, intertwined, producing a synaesthetic experience to certain forms of intense embodiment experiences, interviewees seemed to struggle at times to convey verbally these instances of heightened, sometimes acute, sensory awareness. I am therefore conscious that much can be 'lost in translation', but hope that nevertheless participants' quotes will engender some degree of sensory recognition, even a vicarious sensorial response in the reader, in a kind of sensory-intersubjectivity (Allen-Collinson et al 2016), despite the limitations of the text.…”

Sensory sociological phenomenology, somatic learning and ‘lived’ temperature in competitive pool swimming

“…Despite this increased interest in the sensorium, however, the lived experience of those senses beyond the 'traditional five', still remains sociologically under-researched (Vannini & Taggart, 2014), including in relation to the lived sense of temperature. This lacuna is perhaps surprising, given the importance of temperature in sustaining or threatening human life (Ong, 2012), as well as its critical role in fundamentally shaping socio-cultural and physical-cultural lifeworlds and practices (Allen-Collinson, Vaittinen, Jennings & Owton, 2018;Vannini & Taggart, 2014), which we discuss below in The Sensory Turn.…”