Body, Movement and Culture

This course studies the body and movement in contemporary cultural and social context. The subject draws mainly on topics from sociology of health and illness and from sociology of the body. Examples of themes are bodily experiences and relationalities, the social orderings of bodies, and conceptualizations of movement. A team based fieldwork assignment is central in the subject.

Knowledge:

The student shall know and recognize:

• how cultural and social norms and values influence bodily experiences and body relations, movement patterns and habitus.
• how social development and changes influence and contribute to new areas of knowledge in physiotherapy practice, and how these are incorporated into physiotherapy practice.
• how to apply ethonographic research methods to acquire new knowledge about the body and movement.

Skills:

The student shall be able to:

• apply theories about the body and movement in its contemporary cultural and social context into practical physiotherapy reasoning.
• implement relevant elements of ethnographic research observation and interview into practical physiotherapy reasoning.
• apply emerging perspectives from relevant social sciences into practical physiotherapy reasoning.

General competence:

The student shall be competent in:

• recognizing relationships between social and cultural influences and body expressions and movement patterns.
• facilitating an open communication reflecting on everyday social life, and its influence on the body and movement.
• recognizing when and how knowledge from the social sciences are adequate in practical physiotherapy reasoning.

Lectures, reflective group discussions, workshops, teamwork assignments, supervision, fieldwork, self-study