Invited review artice
A discussion and review of research on embodied knowledge: focusing on body interactions and body techniques
2020 年 20 巻 2 号 p. 45-60
詳細
2020 年 20 巻 2 号 p. 45-60
This article reviews research in particular, classic research on embodied knowledge, with a focus on body interactions and body techniques. In sports science, research on the body has been conducted in the areas of exercise physiology, anatomy, biomechanics, nutrition, kinesiology, sports medicine, sports culture, sports psychology, and education. However, few articles have summarized research on the body's tacit knowledge. In today's inorganic society filled with excess materials and information it is important to rethink embodied knowledge to guide research on the body.
Research on body interactions began with studies of whether such interactions are inherited (innate) or acquired and then shifted to semiotics. Recent mainstream research has tended to focus on practical body interactions using fieldwork methodologies. By contrast, research on body techniques began with studies on the tool–body relationship, eventually turning to studies of behaviors and habits in daily life. However, research on embodied knowledge has not been actively conducted since 2000. Future research should focus on the relationship between the body's transcendence due to the development of information technology, globalization and the body as a reality in localism.
What is happening to children today? The world in which children live, where there is a lack of meaningful relationships between people, where they are exposed to an excess of goods and information that overwhelms their physical senses, and where the urban landscape has become inorganic—is markedly different from the world in which their parents and grandparents lived. Kadowaki describes the latter as “a time when they were able to perceive the real world through their own bodies in the grace of nature” [1]. By contrast, he describes the world in which children live today as an “otherworld,” thus clearly distinguishing the two worlds. Typical examples of this “otherworld” include the fact that children today recognize no boundaries between playing and bullying. They also live in a world of rank-less play, where they cannot experience the sense of accomplishment associated with winning or the frustration that comes with losing a game against their peers. For example, in today's virtual world of video games and computers, there is no physical sensation of engaging in real human relationships. In the realm of real-world “play,” we “enjoy” winning and losing based on social commitments and promises between opponents, with rules that assume we will not hurt each other's bodies. Through such play, a physical sense of reality is developed, and reverence for others is fostered through “norms and principles remembered by the body” [2]. Clearly, the recent spate of brutal incidents perpetrated by juveniles has much to do with the “otherworld” in which children live.
Schools are the venues where the children who live in this “otherworld” spend the greatest amount of time. Therefore, the various problems evident among children today are often attributed to schooling-related failures, such as the declining educational capacity of schools and the quality of teachers. Therefore, this problem has been considered in an aggregate and amplified form as primarily a “problem with the weakened educational capacity of schools.” Kariya points out that “whenever there is an incident involving a child, there are always calls for schools to be partly responsible for that; there is a persistent tendency to associate children's incidents with the problems of the school” [3] and that this is due to the historical context of Japanese education, which has developed in step with society. Therefore, if the current educational system is an outcome of the historical context of Japanese education, it is necessary to reinforce the school's educational capacity to address children's problems. It is clear from the social context that problems of the body affecting children today must be addressed. In school education, a substantial portion of body-related education is provided through physical education. There have been calls to recognize the necessity of physical education and to re-introduce it in the school system. Research on physical education has focused on exercise physiology, kinesiology, psychology, or the ability to enjoy sports as a culture. Research in these areas has been quite successful but has not provided any discussion regarding the tacit knowledge with which the body is equipped. Research interest has typically been directed at the child as a subject and the relationship between teachers and children. Manabu Sato identifies three aspects of the teacher's work: “teaching comes back to the teacher,” “teaching is associated with uncertainties,” and “teaching has no clear boundaries.” Regarding the first aspect, he points out that a deeper look at the teacher's role is an important perspective that cannot be ignored in working with children [4]. These three characteristics are largely based on the “apprenticeship” model followed by Japanese schools, which contrasts with the teaching culture in the United States [5]. Kariya describes this apprenticeship as “the ethnopedagogy of Japanese schools, which is problematic but reproduced without reflection” [6]. However, despite the criticism of this model, it provides an opportunity for teachers to consider their own practice in a “reflexive” way in pursuing professional growth. This growth-promoting “reflective practice” is also articulated in Donald A. Schon's Educating the Reflective Practitioner [7]. In Japan, Takashi Ikuta has been actively conducting an “on-going” practical study [8], which clarifies competence formation from a cognitive perspective.
The objective of the present study is to review the discussions and research on tacit embodied knowledge, to provide new insights into the above issues, rather than to approach the topic from an empirical perspective such as exercise physiology, kinesiology, psychology, or the ability to enjoy sports. It also aims to clarify the role of embodied knowledge in modern society by focusing on classical research on embodied knowledge.
The body is not only an entity that forms social relations; it also creates institutions and norms in society through the interrelationships of bodies. In other words, interactions between bodies define each individual body, and the defined bodies collectively form a society, which eventually disintegrates into individual bodies again, thus forming a reproduction cycle. These bodies are the same as the bodies that, as described by Kadowaki, live in a space where there is a lack of meaningful relationships between people, where they come into contact with an excess of goods and information that overwhelms their physical senses, and where the urban landscape has become inorganic. This chapter reviews research on body interactions from the perspectives of “innateness and cultural determinism,” “semiotics,” “cultural anthropology,” “face-to-face interactions,” and “the multilayered nature of the body as an interaction.”
1. Research from the perspectives of innateness and cultural determinism
Charles Darwin was the first to investigate whether human nonverbal behaviors are innate or acquired through learning [9]. He emphasized innateness by assuming continuity of phylogenesis. Based on a careful observation of behaviors, he made a broad comparison between humans and other animals and a cultural comparison of facial expressions. This methodology was succeeded by subsequent praxeology and cultural anthropology research. Employing the methods of cultural anthropology, David Efron criticized Darwin's innateness theory and revealed that gestures are both culturally defined and transitional under the influence of the social environment [9]. Comparing Eastern European Jewish immigrants and Southern Italian immigrants living in New York City, he noted a distinct difference in the style of gestures between the two cultural groups. The most noticeable difference was that Italian immigrants often used graphic gestures that implied the shape of an object, while Jewish immigrants commonly used gestures that illustrated a path of thought. He also found that Italians frequently used gestures with the appearance of “emblems” or improvisational pantomimes, while these were not seen among Jewish gestures.
Ray Birdwhistell advanced Efron's cultural determinism methodology to conceive “kinesics” [10]. He considered that human body movement has a hierarchical segmental structure like that of language. He defined the smallest unit of body movement as a “kineme” (analogous to a phoneme) and proposed that multiple kinemes combine to form a kinemorpheme, and then multiple kinemorphemes combine to form a kinemorphic construction. This hierarchical organization follows a strict code and is shared by the members of a given cultural community through learning, which builds on custom and acquired social foundations. He takes a critical view of innateness because, for example, some societies perceive the lifting of both ends of the lips as an expression of joy, while others see it as a completely meaningless expression.
By contrast, Eibl-Eibesfeldt, in his research on human behavior from a comparative perspective, clearly supported the innateness hypothesis [11]. Based on his analysis of facial expressions in congenitally blind and deaf children, he insisted that facial expressions are governed by a genetic program built into humans through the phylogenetic process. He filmed and analyzed the diverse nonverbal behaviors of various ethnic groups worldwide and found that the “eyebrow raising” and “eye opening” observed in friendly encounters and greetings, various gestures of refusal, and aggressive behavioral elements in young children are genetically programmed. However, his study, while finding commonalities in the vast amount of data, lacks a discussion of how individuals using such gestures are recognized.
Thus, research from the perspectives of innateness and cultural determinism, originating with Darwin, has typically taken either the evolutionary approach or its counterpart, cultural determinism. However, they both lack the perspective of interaction. Miles Patterson [12] asserts that body interactions should be viewed as “perceptions that can give meaning to customary behaviors,” instead of from only the sender's perspective, without considering interaction.
Based on this review of research on innateness and cultural determinism, given that verbal messages and nonverbal behaviors are constantly intertwined in communication, it is important to consider the relationship between the two. In the next section, we review research that takes the semiotic perspective, identical to language.
2. Research from semiotic perspectives
Whereas Birdwhistell described nonverbal behavior as having a hierarchical structure like language, Ekman [13] performed a more detailed analysis and defined five categories of gestures. The first category is “emblems,” which have a distinct meaning within a given cultural community and can be used in place of words. For example, individuals shake their heads vertically when they mean “Yes” or acknowledgment/affirmation and horizontally when they mean “No” or denial. The second category is “illustrators,” which occur in response to an utterance and reinforce its meaning and content or imitate its rhythm. Examples include nodding in response to speech or turning the palm of the hand from yourself toward the other person. The third category is “adaptors,” which regulate the state of the body and adapt it to the social and physical environment surrounding it. Examples include bending down to speak to a child at eye level and shaking hands while speaking. The fourth category is “regulators,” which direct encounters and regulate the flow of conversation. Examples include greeting movements and a changing gaze or posture (e.g., crossing one's legs when entering another conversation). The fifth category is “affect displays,” which are useful for emotional expression. Facial expressions created by the movement of facial muscles are an example of gestures in this category. Key [14] classifies body movements into five types: lexical, descriptive, reinforcing, decorative, and accidental. However, all types are abstract and ambiguous, and it is impossible to explain all body interactions by converging them into these five types of movements. Meanwhile, Patterson [12] discusses 11 types: posture, orientation, distance between bodies, body contact, eye behavior (whether the speaker is looking at the audience), facial expression, length of speech, interruption of speech by the body, body tilt, relational gestures, and nodding. This is a specific classification that considers body interactions.
In this section, we review a model of person-to-person sharing of body interactions from semiotic perspectives. However, for interactions to take place, a relationship must be established between those who send messages using a socially shared system of signs and those who interpret and receive the messages using the same system of signs. According to this model, a “gesture” of the sender is interpreted by any recipient as the same sign. However, according to cultural determinism, for example, the sender's gesture of shaking the head vertically may be perceived differently among diverse cultures, based on their different systems of signs. Moreover, close relationships may allow for accurate communication and inferences to be made based on behaviors specific to those groups. Kitamura states that communication is an interaction coordinated in a consistent direction of “communicability” [15] and proposes to “change the definition of communication to one that can reasonably evaluate the phenomenon of physical interaction” [16]. As critics of converging verbal communication into symbolic communication, Sperber and Wilson [17] believe that if we try to explain body communication through semiotic approaches, we will enter an impasse with no exit in sight.
It is clear from this review section that, in addition to perspectives that transcend a shared system of signs, as used in cultural determinism, there are also group-specific body communication patterns in intimate relationships and among people sharing well-honed physical skills.
3. Research from cultural anthropological perspectives
Whereas Efron, in his research based on innateness and cultural determinism perspectives, compared Eastern European Jewish immigrants and Southern Italian immigrants living in New York City and found that gestures differed between the two cultural groups, Desmond Morris [18] investigated how the forms and meanings of gestures differed among regions and cultures on a broader scale. He examined differences in gestures corresponding to Ekman's “emblems” in semiotics in 40 locations evenly selected from the European continent and identified the distribution of 20 different forms of “emblems.” That study revealed that there are only one or two “emblems” that are used commonly from Northern to Southern Europe and that the same types of “emblems” can be found in many other regions but often with significantly different meanings. He also found that Southern Europeans used more gestures than Northern Europeans, that Latinos made more expansive gestures than did other ethnic groups, and that the distribution of gestures was not associated with specific languages, but rather, the commonality of cultural history. For example, if you divide the Italian peninsula into north and south at 50 km south of Naples, Northern Italians shake their heads horizontally to express “No,” while Southern Italians tilt their heads back to express the same. He also found that these gestures are widely distributed from Greece to Turkey, speculating that such gestures are remnants of the Greek colonization of Italy 2,000 years ago.
McLuhan [19], by contrast, takes neither the perspective of the communication of the body itself or the semiotics of the body but, rather, believes that different behaviors of the body in different cultures lead to differential verbal and nonverbal communications. Thus, research from the cultural anthropological perspective is based on the recognition of cultural determinism, which rejects evolutionary approaches such as Darwin's innateness hypothesis. However, from a semiotic or cultural anthropological perspective, earlier studies only provide “classifications” of diverse body movements. In other words, each study simply divides various body movements based on “objective criteria.” For a substantial characterization of body communication, however, it is important to look at interactions through the body—for example, by seeing how the receiver responds, or does not respond at all, to a body message sent by the sender with exceptional care. For this reason, we will next review research that recognizes such interactions.
4. Research on interaction
Adam Kendon is considered a pioneer in diverse research areas of nonverbal communication [20]. He contrasts the approach of comparing behaviors in different regions in researching interaction with his own structural research approach, called the “cybernetic model” [21]. Typical models for researching interaction using a behavior comparison approach can be divided into three types: 1) treating interaction as a series of separate actions of individuals, with each step being a simple consequence of the previous step; 2) analyzing interaction at a single level; and 3) analyzing what is accomplished by the interaction. By contrast, Kendon's “cybernetic model” can be divided into the following three types: 1) focusing on the behavioral relationships between participants, instead of looking at them individually, with an emphasis on the process of feedback; 2) looking at interaction as a multilayered structure; and 3) observing the ongoing process, not the result of person-to-person interaction. Kendon criticizes mechanical approaches that seek to understand person-to-person interaction as a chain of elements. However, he only criticizes them, neglecting the concreteness of the body beyond its existence as a machine that works as programmed. Erickson [22], by contrast, points out that the fact that a given action is determined by the previous action implies that the posture and spatial distance of the body undergoes a change, even as people create interrelationships by talking and moving, suggesting the contextual nature of the body. Since then, research has begun to interpret body communication “in context,” based on face-to-face interactions between people [23]. This research approach is based on the recognition that it is only by cross-referencing language and body movement that we can understand what is going on between people. Meanwhile, Sugawara argues, citing Fernando Poyatos, that if we take the complex of language, paralanguage (e.g., pitch, intensity, quality, and speed of voice), and body movement as the basic three structures, we would be reintroducing the limitations associated with the dualism of verbal and nonverbal communication. This can also be interpreted as a tendency to obstinately treat language as the central element and the body as a secondary element of language. Sugawara stresses the need for research that reveals the body itself to have a definite specificity in communication, not merely as a secondary element [24]. Nomura argued as follows:
The human body is not a mere symbol. Rather, the significance of the human body lies in the fact that it is a symbol as well as before and after a symbol, going beyond the idea of making everything into a symbol. [25]
This is the same as Merleau-Ponty's idea of considering the body, not only as a symbol that has meaning but also as a medium for mutual communication open to others and to the external world [26]. Therefore, future research on body interaction is not to inwardly and meticulously analyze the body as a secondary element linked to language but to understand what the body as a whole means as a reality, without losing the ambiguity of the body itself. The next section addresses recent research trends in which the body as an interaction is regarded as a multilayered entity and not as a machine.
5. Research on the body as an interaction, focusing on its multilayered nature
Piaget describes a higher order of development as the transition of activities and awareness directed outward from one's body to an increased awareness of one's body's interior. By contrast, Wallon states that the opposite vectors of activities/awareness directed outward from one's body and awareness directed toward one's body's interior can work simultaneously and in opposition to each other. In recent years, an increasing number of reports have emerged to support Wallon's notion [27]. Yamada derived and demonstrated “static cognitive behavior” through observations of his own children [28]. When children point at something they have encountered for the first time, there is a cessation of body movement expressed by “stopping” and “staring.” This cessation of body movement, involving the use of the finger as the medium (with meaning) to indicate something else (what is meant), represents the first act of symbolization. An infant who has been living as a part of other people and things enters a world of ternary relationship of “infant–medium–other,” using the finger as the medium. He sees “stopping” and “staring” as part of the communalization of attention, whereby one pulls oneself away, maintains distance, and then becomes drawn to the object at which others are gazing. Body movements, such as finger pointing, have been interpreted as forms of pre-verbal communication. In this regard, Baron [29] studied how children can infer the intentions of others from others' gazes. Yamada further argues that there is a “body that does not sing immediately when children are drawn to their own voice based on the sound of others' voices” and describes it as a function of delayed imitation. There are two vectors: one that goes from one's own body to others that exist outside and one that makes a U-turn back to one's own body. In this process of returning to the inside, or “embodying,” children do not transform the outside but recreate themselves. He also states that the root cause of imitation and gestures is the “echoing coexistence of humans.” Making the body “wait,” “pause,” or “lie down,” instead of immediately echoing, involves the spatial distancing of the static cognitive action of finger pointing. Thus, delayed imitation can be considered a distancing time. While Yamada focused on infants, Kumiko Ikuta addressed the same “pause” issue [30]. Since Ikuta treats this pause as a manifestation of ability, we consider her research on the topic to have been conducted from a cognitive science perspective and will address it in another review study.
The next area of research concerns studies based on an anthropological perspective, including research that uses semiotic approaches and research that deals with the interactions of the body by adopting a clearly different mindset. Imamura conducted a fieldwork study of the hunter-gatherer culture of the Central Kalahari Bushmen in the Republic of Botswana in Southern Africa [31]. He studied the behavioral patterns of the women as they collected rhizomes, beans, nuts, wildflowers, and other foodstuffs, the distances between them, and the duration of this activity. He also revealed the interrelationship between secondary behaviors performed in between the “serious” work of collecting, such as singing and lice picking, and their tense bodies that perform the “serious” work. In collaborative work such as cutting branches with an ax, aligning trees, and carrying trees, there are several times as many bystanders as there are those who are working, and they frequently take turns. There is, he says, a “body synchronization” of collaborative work resulting from overly complex turn-taking behaviors. During collection activities, they walk in single file for about 2 km from the settlement, but as the objects to be collected appear, they gradually disperse, and the distance between them becomes several hundred meters. Nevertheless, the collection movements and patterns of each person are almost the same; for example, no one person moves faster or collects more food than the others. Imamura states that the reason Bushmen can perform highly coordinated collaborative work as if it were performed by a single person is because they relate to others as subject actors and synchronize each other responsively or isomorphically [31]. Ichikawa refers to this type of resonance that occurs in relationships with others as “synchronization” [32] and distinguishes between isomorphic synchronization and responsive synchronization based on the way it occurs. People who perform sports, music, surgery, and so on are isomorphically and responsively synchronized to the movements of their opponents, and the two types of synchronization are also found in the Bushmen's collection activities. Imamura also states that the tensions caused by the “serious” work of collecting and the social tensions that tend to arise among women who are not related to each other are resolved by secondary behaviors such as singing and lice picking. Even in personal acts, such as mood swings or attempts to escape tension, they need the others' bodies and engage themselves in interaction through instantaneous synchronization. He also focused on children's play that hones these physical sensations and closely observed how they control their bodies as well as their five senses.
Regarding synchronization, Saito examined the “technique of walking side by side” to characterize embodiment in daily life [33]. Regarding walking, we will review Mauss's work in the next chapter on body techniques. Saito conducted research from a perspective that is absent in Mauss's body techniques and focused on walking side by side as an interaction of bodies. Saito's research is characterized by his use of Wajiro Kon's modernologic methodology for describing the body positions of couples walking side by side in Shinjuku, Tokyo and in Kawaramachi, Kyoto. Following the teachings of Kunio Yanagida and research on rural villages from a folkloric perspective, Kon illustrated “the way women walk” in the Tokyo districts of Shibuya and Ginza and statistically revealed the relationship between their way of walking and their social status/class [34]. Through this observation, he identified seven patterns of walking and carefully recorded the attributes and seasonal changes in each pattern. After a discussion, he concluded that the positioning of bodies when walking side by side has a certain uniqueness and meaning in body interaction and is the basic framework for the existence of bodies that originated in modern European civilization.
Studying the spatial relationship of bodies is important for developing an awareness of embodiment in the era of information technology advances. Marshall McLuhan states as follows:
Western children are taught from early in life to stack building blocks, insert keys into locks, turn on faucets, etc. Thus, because of the complex and interwoven mechanism of various matters and incidents that are encountered in the educational process of early childhood, they are inevitably required to think about things from the perspectives of temporal and spatial relationships, and even mechanical causality. In contrast, African children are educated exclusively by the spoken word, and this type of education contains a higher degree of tension and emotion compared to Western education. [19]
He points out the differences in the use of the senses between Western children living in a temporally and spatially homogenous society and children who do not live in such an environment. We can also think of expanding bodies from a phenomenological perspective, such as a body that expands to the size of a car when driving a car, a body that dodges flying fighter jets in a video game, and a body that travels across the border to meet someone contacted through e-mail exchanges on the Internet. An example of research from this perspective is Kimura's research on the sense of coexistence among Bantu peasants in the Republic of Zaire. Through an observation of these peasants and interviews with informants, Kimura identified a sense of spatial coexistence. This tribe has a physical sense of considering people within a 20-meter radius as “being together” and people within a 150- to 200-meter radius as objects with which to exchange greetings. Furthermore, people who are 50 meters away from each other engage in “conversation,” which he considers as creating a large physical space. He also added that this survey of peasants taught him the day would come when we would have to pay a price for the rapid development of technologies focused on being together and connectedness. Yuichiro Anzai states, as follows:
In the body theory, the “body” is simply a vague image we have of all our interactions with the outside world, and there is no actual existence of the body. It is likely that the whole thing that influences or is influenced by the outside world is called a “body.” [35]
Toru Konma states that handshaking, a common form of greeting behavior among the Kipsigis in Kenya, has the functions of harmonizing and of dissolving/dismantling “internal/external” and “self/other” conflicts [36]. He also describes expressive hand gestures in detail and discusses handshaking and sensory repression in Japanese culture, questioning the extent to which our bodies can be considered subjective entities.
This chapter has reviewed earlier studies on body interactions. These studies can be roughly divided into studies of innateness or cultural determinism, related studies that deal with body interactions in a semiotic way, studies that compare various cultures anthropologically, and more recent studies that go beyond previous studies in the field and see body interactions in a multilayered way. It appears that recent multilayered research has radically pursued the embodiment of people living in today's society by focusing on subjects and methods such as the casual behaviors of children, the behaviors of people walking in the street, and the embodiment of indigenous peoples in Africa, rather than by using an empirical or laboratory cognitive psychological perspective.
The previous chapter reviewed research ranging from the body's elementary interactions to multilayered body interactions in social and cultural contexts. This chapter reviews research on body techniques that consider culturally influenced body techniques as a human sense. Research on the culturally influenced body began by focusing on the relationship between tools and the body and the boundaries between the two. Specifically, it is research in which tacit “skills” that individuals have mastered over an extended period are made explicit, detached from the body, and incorporated into the principles of the machine/tool. In the past, mastering the body's “skills” created an individual, and the body told the story of his or her experience. In contrast, in machines, learning how to use these skills is manualized. Autonomic machines independent of humans and society are rationally changing the human body that uses them. These studies raise questions about modern bodies that have become part of machines.
Then, there is research on a physical education program of “sensory training” in 18th-century Germany, which viewed culturally influenced body techniques as a sensory aspect of human beings. Research on sensory training in physical education was conducted by GutsMuths and colleagues. In recent years, an increasing number of reports from Japan have studied the embodiment of culture from the perspective of cultural anthropology and the body's posture and stance in daily movements. These studies examine modern embodiment, which we take for granted in social and cultural contexts, from the perspectives of martial arts and dance, and through observation of changes in the body in daily life, such as changes in the sitting posture in Europe.
1. Research on the instrumentality of the body
If we assume that the body is influenced by culture and view the body's technology as the body's techniques, then research on the body originates in research on the relationship between the body and tools, especially between the hand and tools. Henri Focillon describes the close relationship between tools and the hand as follows.
“The relationship between the two is based on close mutual support and cannot be described by simple relations, such as habits. Once the hand follows the tool and begins to work within the material to fulfill its desire to be an extension of its own body, the relationship between the tool and the hand becomes apparent: the tool is in fact nothing more than the hand's creation.” [37]
In an age when tools were an extension of the hand and were inseparably linked to it, tools external to the body were incorporated into the body as hands. However, as tools have been transformed into machines and incorporated into the machinery system, the hand, which used to be the equivalent of tools, and the entire human body, have also been incorporated as parts of machines, governed by external rationality. Ingold discusses this issue by focusing on the origin of the term “technology,” which is a composite of the classical Greek words “techne” (skill, craft) and “logos” (reason, rationality). In the same way that the printing of language does not merely enable the articulation of words but also changes linguistic activity itself, the mechanization of skill—enabling its articulation as “technology”—can change the skill itself [38].
By contrast, Gourhan dimensionally organized the culturally influenced body and classified human behaviors into three dimensions. The first relates to automatic behaviors linked to biological properties. The second relates to mechanical behaviors resulting from an operational sequence acquired through experience and education. Behaviors of the first and second dimensions are rather spontaneous, but if the operational sequence is interrupted, it immediately transforms into behavior of the third dimension— actions with awareness of language and other images. The third dimension relates to lucid actions in which linguistic activity intervenes significantly, compensating for interruptions during the activities of other dimensions or creating an entirely new operational sequence [39]. Thus, Gourhan captures behaviors in three dimensions: automatic, mechanical, and conscious, of which the second dimension relating to the mechanical operational chain is particularly important in considering the cultural formation of the body. This is because these behaviors, including habitual behaviors such as daily eating and walking, occupational movements, and interpersonal behaviors, are the basic behaviors of the human as a social being. Masakazu Nomura describes such mechanical operations as “gestures” and states: “If we call mechanical operations gestures, most of them are learned early in life through imitation, experience through trial and error, or oral transmission” [40]. This is exemplified by Ramazzini's Diseases of the Working People [41], which describes in detail the body shape, gestures, or postures specific to different occupational groups such as tailors and shoemakers.
Marcel Mauss was the first to focus on such diverse possibilities of the use of the body by humans and to describe them as socially transmissible “bodily techniques.” He pointed out the need for a general inventory of all human body techniques, saying “every possible bodily technique precedes techniques using tools” [42]. However, since then, the focus of research has shifted to body interactions, such as the studies conducted by Birdwhistell, and research on the technical aspects of the body has not progressed.
The recent renewed interest in the body has been centered in Japan. Masao Yamaguchi's Folklore of Clowning [43], which characterized physical performance and symbolism in culture, and Keiji Iwata's study of the embodiment of minority cultures in Southeast Asia are the earliest reports in Japan to examine the body from a phenomenological perspective. Iwata contributed a unique discussion of daily gestures he observed during his fieldwork in Southeast Asia, such as jumping, sitting, and turning [44, 45]. Junzo Kawada has also published several studies on African body techniques, most notably “The Heart and Shape of Africa” [46]. Cultural studies of the body movements of Japanese people have also been reported by Michitaro Tada in a paper titled “The Japanese Culture of Gestures” [47] and by Michizou Toida in “Acting” [48] and “The Structure of Forgetting” [49]. Toida's “The Structure of Forgetting” is notable for its focus on the relationship between space and perception.
Bourdieu's elaboration of Mauss's earlier argument based on the concept of “habitus” is one of the leading studies in recent years. In “La Distinction” [50], Bourdieu examined the relationship between the body and daily life actions in a class society and provided an elaborate and comprehensive summary of body techniques. Shigeharu Tanabe and Masato Fukushima also studied body techniques using ethnography under the influence of cognitive science. Both are more familiar with the ways of using ethnography for cognitive purposes than for the identification of embodied knowledge.
As mentioned above, there are two main streams of research on the culturally influenced body: research that deals with the “traditional” body in pre-industrial societies, that is, from the perspective of adaptation to the physical and human environment of “techne” (skill), and research on the body that is independent of culture due to industrialization. The generalization of the body in terms of its mechanically responsive social functions and its individualization in terms of awareness are the keys to the identification of embodied knowledge in modern society.
2. Research on body sensation and body training
When we think of body techniques, we think of movements involving muscles and nerves, but the technicality of the human body also extends to the sensory level. This is a phenomenological perspective, which is different from the mechanization of body movements in the laboratory that occurs in research on muscles and nerves. Given that culture has influenced the body, it is necessary to review how body sensations have been addressed in sensory education both historically and today, in relation to society and culture.
Elias states that there was a major change in the body in Europe during the process of civilization in the 18th and 19th centuries [51]. In this period, people placed their primary focus on the refinement of their lifestyles, but, at the same time, it was a process of abandoning embodiment from human life. In the 18th century, Europeans became increasingly interested in the “senses” to compensate for the lost embodiment, followed by the establishment of modern “physical education and sports” in the second half of the 18th century to the 19th century. However, in physical education and sport, which involves the body, sensory function training failed to produce a sufficient effect. Elias states that modern physical education and sports are primarily concerned with the training of or remaking (modification) of the human body. However, Yamamoto points out that Guts-Muths' main work titled Gymnastics for Youth (1793), contains the following sentence: “We do not make to humans the kind of efforts that we are expending to train hounds to gain a keen sense of smell” [52,53]. Yamamoto found Guts- Muths' work while studying Jahn's “Turnen” and pointed out the differences between GutsMuths' sensory education and Jahn's Turnen as follows.
While GutsMuths tried to include body education in the overall educational plan with the aim of general human development, Jahn made physical exercise a means to nurture state citizens. [52]
The fact that GutsMuths' movement generation and sensation training was not taken into Jahn's ideology indicates a major influence on today's physical education and sports in Japan. It is therefore likely that a review of GutsMuths' work on sensory education will enable an open mindset for thinking about today's physical education and embodiment. For GutsMuths' Gymnastics for Youth, there is an excellent Japanese translation by Jujiro Narita [54], but it has not been fully translated owing to the large volume of the original work. Unfortunately, Chapter 18 of the book on sensory training is also only partially translated. This fact itself shows the lack of interest in the “senses” in modern physical education. It should be noted that there are differences in educational content between Jahn and GutsMuths. For instance, horizontal bars, parallel bars, and wooden horses were included in Jahn's but not in GutsMuths' educational program, while vocal exercises and sensory education were not included in Jahn's but were included in GutsMuths' program [55].
Citing Rousseau, Umene explains the importance of body training targeting the senses as a major educational discipline in childhood as follows: “Do we only have arms and legs? No, we also have ears and eyes. Moreover, these organs are necessary for the use of arms and legs. Therefore, we should not only teach physical fitness, but also train all the senses of the body” [56]. GutsMuths cited abundantly from Rousseau's Emile, which shows that he was influenced by Rousseau's thought. GutsMuths compares artisans who are well trained, from both the sensory and physical perspectives in life, and those with dull senses. He says, “People who are not sensory trained have eyes but cannot see; they have noses but cannot smell. Their judgment is as a childish as an infant who thinks he can grasp the moon” [54]. He goes on to argue that “it is not the organs themselves that make us see, feel, or smell wonderfully, but the training of their internal sensory functions that makes it possible” [54], emphasizing that training programs such as acquired sensory training can make the senses keen.
The above review focused on GutsMuths' sensory training, which can be interpreted as a thesis arguing for the development of modern physical education and sports into a means to develop uniform human standards in modern society. It also allows us to explore the necessity and potential for sensory education to be included again as part of physical education today.
3. Research on the relationship between embodiment in daily life and culture
A review of the above literature has made it clear that our bodies in modern society have been culturally formed. This section reviews studies that characterize the socially contextualized body as a phenomenon by reducing it to specific gestures and techniques.
At the 2004 Athens Olympics, Japanese athletes produced brilliant results in swimming and judo. They also achieved promising results in short-distance track and field events, which had been considered an inherent disadvantage for the Japanese. These achievements are considered the result of not only following rational bodybuilding training programs imported from the West but also introducing training programs designed by re-evaluating ancient Japanese body techniques suited to the Japanese body. Ryosen Kono focuses on the walking techniques of Westerners and Japanese. In contrast to the Western way of walking, which is a rational body technique in which the waist is elevated, and the hands and feet move symmetrically, the Japanese way of walking is a “suriashi (sliding foot) technique,” which is used in sumo, martial arts, or in the imperial marriage ceremony, in which individuals walk while holding the midline, sliding feet with no up and down motion, and applying light pressure to the abdomen [57]. He also states that Westerners walk with their hips, while the Japanese walk with their knees. Tetsuji Takechi noted that many people in Tibet, which, like Japan, has many mountainous regions, often walk on muddy or mountainous roads with poor footholds in a seemingly playful manner, balancing on their knees and holding out their right leg together with their right hand while keeping their kneecaps functional, and he called this walking style “namba” [58]. He also argues that the movement of the right leg forward and the left hand out at the same time came to be seen in the Meiji era, when Western-style armies were organized, and schools began to teach uniformly moving marches. This argument by Takechi, who analyzed body movements from the ukiyo-e and realistic paintings of the 1700s, is compelling. In particular, his argument that the “namba” movement is derived from the Japanese way of plowing with a hoe and a spade since the movement is depicted in the realistic paintings of farmers and expresses messages—accurately characterizes the embodiment of the Japanese people, which is deeply linked to their occupation.
In relation to martial arts, Yoshiyasu Yamamoto focused on the movement of simultaneously holding out the left leg and left hand in the sumo's san-dan-gamae (three-stage stance) and attributed its roots to Korean taekwondo [59]. He also argues that the stance with the left hand and left leg forward and the right hand and right leg back is intended to keep the heart away when the opponent is holding a blade. Takechi describes “namba” as “plowing the fields,” while Yama-moto describes it as a martial arts stance; nonetheless, it is likely that the embodiment of “namba” today is an inevitable consequence of the awareness of the body in daily life. Namba movements are also seen in dance and are used in Japanese dance for puppet poses and comedic effect. South and Southeast Asian dances have a strong relationship with martial arts. In fact, “namba” is the basis for male dance martial arts such as Pencak Silat in Java and Krabi-Krabong in Thailand [60].
The final part of this section reviews research on the body techniques of sitting. In his research on the Gwi hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari Desert in South Africa, Kazuyoshi Sugawara analyzed the unique and diverse postures of human beings. He points to the influence of posture during labor work, saying “people have a unique way of placing and bending their limbs that is never seen in monkeys” [61,62]. Sasuke Nakao states that the Indian culture of sitting has been established from their posture in daily life, since the kitchen of the common Indian household has an earthen floor, and they handle the knife with their feet [63]. Tetsuo Yamaori speculates that while Rodin's “Thinker” represents a man who was originally standing and exercising and then sat down, the Hanka Shiyui statues at Chugu-ji and Kouryu-ji temples in Japan represent a man who was sitting on the floor and then raised his upper body and sat down on a stool [64]. Furthermore, Hartsfield argues that sitting in a chair is a sign of comfort for the superior and that sitting is superior to standing [65].
This section reviews research on body techniques, which have been studied mainly in phenomenological Japanese research. Although all the studies on body techniques are linked, this review can only provide a fragmentary overview of them. Given the scarcity of recent research, further research on the body and senses is needed at a time when we are being asked to rethink embodiment.
As we have seen, research on embodied knowledge can be roughly divided into two categories: research on body interactions and research on body techniques. Furthermore, research on body interactions began with studies in support of either innateness or cultural determinism, followed by semiotics and interaction theories. More recently, research focusing on the multilayered nature of the body has been advancing. By contrast, research on body techniques began with research on the relationship between the body and tools, eventually shifting to studies on body techniques influenced by tools, professional body techniques, and, finally, daily body techniques. It should also be noted that discussions of sensory education of the body have been conducted in the past, although research on embodied knowledge has not been actively conducted since 2000. Looking over these research streams, future research should be conducted while considering embodiment in daily life as a real practice and embracing the multilayered nature of the body. In terms of methodology, it is also necessary to realistically portray live daily practices as phenomena instead of adopting empirical research methods. This is evidenced by the fact that research on body theory, especially in recent years, has been conducted as cultural anthropological fieldwork using ethnography and monographs. Furthermore, to characterize the multilayered body as a sense, it is necessary to focus on how and what the body perceives and to capture practical embodied knowledge in a sensory and detailed manner.
