The Inaugural Game Changer: Bodies as Collective Inquiry

Written by the Bodies Collective

Edited by Claudia Canella, Jess Erb, Sarah Helps, Mark Huhnen, Davina Kirkpatrick, Alys Mendus, Ines Barcenas Taland.

On behalf of the Bodies Collective –

Charlotte Benoot, Ryan Bittinger, Sara Coemans, Elena Drozdowskyj , Nicoletta Ferri, Evan Kent, Kate O’Brien, Luna Machtelin, Marta Madrid, Tara Mcguinness, Alexandra Markati, Yasushi Miyazaki, ErikaSarivaara, Hubert Van Puyenbroeck, Qingchun Wang. 

The Concern: Our main philosophy

           The inaugural Game Changer, for the 2018 European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, hosted in Leuven Belgium, became a place of pushing at the boundaries and silence placed upon the material body – the corporeal site of intra-actions (Barad, 2007; 2014) and becomings (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987).

Within this nascent group of predominantly early career researchers, our concerns at exploring the body were varied, divergent and presented an exciting opportunity to flatten academic hierarchies through conversations and movements aimed at seeing, perhaps even appreciating, the corporeal body anew . Conversations continued between those privileged and resourced enough to attend ICQI in May 2018 and have woven their way through our time over recent months. Each of our fields presented diffracting facets in which to seek knowledge on the body. Yet, one key philosophical tenant remained consistent: Our bodies are the first point of contact with another. In fact, our bodies are the relational entry point into knowing another (Merleau-Ponty, 1968, Gergen 2009). Each of us, within our own disciplines, have experienced how the body has not been privileged within varying Western academic discourses (Grosz, 1994; Young, 2006; 2008).

To read further please go to….European Network of Qualitative Inquiry, Game Changer session 2018