Beyond the body's skin. describing the embodiment of practices

Abstract

This article addresses one of the key problems of praxeological methodology: the written representation of practice as a situated bodily conduct. It demonstrates multilayered description as a way of taking into account the embodiment of practices, that is, the incorporation of ways of doing as well as the fact that practice is bodily displayed and interactionally constituted as particular activities. Drawing on the case ballet class, I show that mere the documentation of the execution of ballet exercises on video does not provide access to analytically interesting microprocesses. Yet, in combining the video data with observations from the standpoint of a ballet student (a position privileged with access to introspection) and other material, a multidimensional description emerges. This way, insight is given into how, drawing on specific ethnomethods, students work on perfecting their balletic skills. Understanding ethnographic writing as an endeavour that is already highly analytical, I employ different literary strategies to bring out the complexity of what appears to be a simple repetition of a ritualistic succession of ballet movements. Latching on to the literary experiments in the wake of the ethnographic crisis of representation, this study speaks out in favour of innovations and inventions in the description of practices.