‘Practice without theory’ : a neuroanthropological perspective on embodied learning | Macquarie University ResearchOnline

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Title: ‘Practice without theory’ : a neuroanthropological perspective on embodied learning
Related: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 16, S1, (2010), p.S22-S40
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9655.2010.01608.x
Publisher: United Kingdom : Wiley-Blackwell
Date: 2010
FoR/RFCD Code(s): 160100 Anthropology
Author/Creator: Downey, Greg
Description: This paper, drawing on research on skill acquisition and sports training, asks two questions. First, how does the mimetic channel function and thus limit what can be acquired by bodily enculturation? Second, given that it was acquired through imitation, what must be the nature of the resulting bodily knowledge? These questions are addressed through a close examination of movement education, especially its neurological, psychological, and interactional dynamics in the Afro-Brazilian art capoeira. The study of embodied knowledge and its development in bodily practices suggests that gaining bodily skills requires more than ‘knowledge’, involving changes in physiology, perception, comportment, and behaviour patterns in unsystematic, diverse modes. Embodied knowledge from this perspective appears more complex, less systematic or susceptible to structural account, than typically modelled.
Description: 19 page(s)
Subject Keyword: 160100 Anthropology
Resource Type: journal article
Organisation: Macquarie University. Dept. of Anthropology

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