Moved to messiness: Physical activity, feelings, and transdisciplinarity Zoë Avner a , William Bridel b, * , Lindsay Eales a , Nicole Glenn a , Rachel Loewen Walker c , Danielle Peers a a Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, VanVliet Centre, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2H9, Canada b Department of Kinesiology and Health, 216 Phillips Hall, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056, USA c Department of Philosophy, University of Alberta, 2-40 Assiniboia Hall, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E7, Canada article info Article history: Received 20 December 2012 Received in revised form 6 November 2013 Accepted 9 November 2013 Keywords: Movement Emotion Messiness Physical activity Collaboration Transdisciplinarity abstract This paper is based on conversations that took place during a scholarly reading group on the sociology of emotions. The members of the group shared an interest in the body, movement, and culture, but our academic and ‘athletic’ backgrounds were quite varied. Our diverse socio-cultural understandings of emotions were complicated by our own (emotional) experiences of physical (in)activity, thus conver- sations cut a wide and varied path. One idea, however, continued to resonate throughout our discussions; we found the experiential, theoretical, and methodological notion of messiness to hold great possibility as it allowed us to avoid the urge to reduce diverse experiences to a singular voice (Christians, 2011; Cornforth et al.,, 2012; Ellingson, 2009; Noble, 2009). Consequently, our project here is twofold. First, we experiment with communal writing as a method for undertaking a study of physical activity. Second, rather than any one perspective taking precedence we use this practice as a way to demonstrate the potential of embracing messiness as a collaborative ethical and theoretical method for understanding the complexities of emotions in relation to (in)active bodies. Specifically, using a variety of disciplinary and theoretical lenses we explore physical (in)activity in relation to pain/pleasure, and the gaze and per- formance. The result is a conversation made up of traditional and non-traditional approaches to aca- demic writing that work to reconfigure and to challenge traditional dichotomies and hierarchical understandings of the active body, understandings that potentially over-simplify and close-down our emotional experiences of physical (in)activity. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. “Cultural interpretation is an ongoing, always incomplete pro- cess, and no one gets the final word” (Bordo, 1999: 29). In 2011, the authors of this paperdcolleagues at the University of Alberta with a shared interest in the body, movement, and cul- turedtook part in a scholarly reading group on the sociology of emotion. Over the course of 8 weeks we read and discussed 14 articles spanning disciplinary boundaries and taking up historical, theoretical, ethical, and philosophical components of affect and emotion, with conversations paying particular attention to the ways different socio-cultural perspectives on emotions might help inform theorizations of the moving body. 1 Our academic backgrounds were varied: we were philosophers, critical disability theorists, phenomenologists, poststructuralists, and theoretical- fence sitters (inasmuch as these are distinguishable from each other). We also brought differing experiences of physical activity to the fore: we were high performance athletes, recreational movers, dancers, exercisers, and the sport-averse. The range of experiences and knowledges resulted in conver- sations that cut a wide and varied path. But as we spent hours exploring emotions, the body, movement, and culture from often quite different theoretical and experiential places one word continued to resonate with all of us, as a descriptor of our own experiences of physical activity, but also as the flavor of our shared conversations. That word was messy. Messy (adj.): untidy or dirty; confused, disordered, careless and slovenly; cannot eliminate attitudes, emotions, values, and desires; multiple; difficult to deal with, full of awkward complications (Barber, 2004a,b; Gove, 1993b, 1418). The etymology of messy, from mess (n.)dmeaning a communal meal (Gove, 1993a, 1993b; Barnhard 1988)dreveals a connection with the communal work we have undertaken here. It was messiness that allowed us to * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 513 529 2717. E-mail addresses: avner@ualberta.ca (Z. Avner), bridelwf@miamioh.edu (W. Bridel), leales@ualberta.ca (L. Eales), nglenn@ualberta.ca (N. Glenn), rl. walker@ualberta.ca (R.L. Walker), peers@ualberta.ca (D. Peers). 1 The original reading list is available at www.movedtomessiness.wordpress.com. The reference list at the end of this paper includes additional readings drawn on to inform our work here. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Emotion, Space and Society journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/emospa 1755-4586/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2013.11.002 Emotion, Space and Society xxx (2013) 1e8 Please cite this article in press as: Avner, Z., et al., Moved to messiness: Physical activity, feelings, and transdisciplinarity, Emotion, Space and Society (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2013.11.002