Slowing, Stillness, and Sedentarism: Interdisciplinary Methodologies Workshop

The health potential of the moving body is often framed in contrast to a body that is not moving, or not moving enough. In this workshop, we seek to explore the ideas, practices, and methods that are at play in our understandings of health and the moving body, through a focus on slowing and stillness.

Slowing and still bodies may present themselves in different ways in different disciplines; from the reclining figure in art history, or the sedentary body in contemporary public health discourses on physical activity. These bodies are represented, measured, and valued in a variety of ways, and in doing so, occupy discursive and material landscapes in ways that are often challenging and critical.

The workshop will take a critical approach to the public health issue of sedentarism and physical inactivity by asking: What are bodies doing, when they are slowing or still?

Through a series of talks and practical sessions, we will explore the contexts, technologies, relationships and cultures of slow and still bodies, and how they relate to health.

Workshop contributors:
Dr Chloe Asker, Exeter
Dr Jennifer Airlie, Durham
Nora Heidorn, curator and researcher
Dr Arya Thampuran, Durham

This event is hosted by Durham University's Institute for Medical Humanities and the Moving Bodies Lab of the Discovery Research Platform.

This event is free to attend.