It has been said that the ‘Slow Living Movement’ began with the Slow Food Movement started by Carlo Petrini in Italy in 1986, as a reaction to the opening of a McDonald’s fast food outlet in his town. He emphasized the eating of fresh, local, sustainable and ethical foods, prepared leisurely and with love, and consumed in the company of good friends and family.
More recently, Michelle Boulous Walker (Walker 2016) has argued for Slow Philosophy. Since philosophy involves the patient work of thought, philosophy can be described as the art of reading slowly – and this inevitably clashes with many of our current institutional practices and demands.
The question arises: can we resist the era of accelerated time and can we spot innovative experiments of deceleration (Marie, Thomas, 2006)? If performance and speed have long governed the relationship to the body and space in modern societies, contemporary ethical and environmental concerns call for a ‘slow philosophy’: slow sport, slow tourism, slow food, slow sex, slow management, slow design, slow urbanism, etc. Our question now is how to (re-)think bodily experience in a culture of slowness, slow sport, ecomobility and substainability (Borne, Ponting, 2017).
This Special Issue proposes to question the epistemological implications (Andrieu, 2014) of this ‘turn’ to slow culture, and the implications of the practice of ‘slowness’ for the body, sports, leisure activities, and social, spatial and touristic transformations. In connection with the reflections initiated in the field of body ecology (Andrieu. Parry, Porrovechio, Sirost. eds, 2018), we propose to extend the debates around ‘emersiology’(Andrieu, Nobrega, Sirost, 2018), by focusing on the quality of experiencing (Martinkova, Parry, 2011), the body depth discovered by the emersion of awareness in slow sport, games and challenges of spatiality, mobility and corporeality, and by the immersion of the body in emersive leisure activities (Andrieu, Loland, 2017).
We propose to consider the awakening and mindfulness practices of Tai chi, yoga, Qi Gong and other modes of relaxation or meditation; aquatic itineraries concerning apnoea, surfing, kayaking, paddling, long-coast, etc., illustrating a close intimacy with the natural environment of practice; and other modes of wandering or roaming such cycling, pedestrianism, Nordic walking, slacklining, off-piste, etc – all bypassing competition and motivated by a will of slowness.
By modifying the quality of one’s life practices, the individual transforms his ecology through micro-situations, contemplations of landscapes and micro-experiences that engage our daily responsibility. The objective will be to bring together, in the same thematic axis, body ecology and the sports environment, in order to grasp the mechanisms of slowness experienced in sporting leisure. So, as well as a theoretical consideration of the philosophy of slowness,we hope that there will be presentations on a very wide range of physical and sports activities, illustrating the culture of slowness and its outcomes and effects.
Examples of Possible Themes for Consideration
- Slow philosophy – MB Walker and the art of reading slowly
- Slow sport: games and the challenges of spatiality, mobility and corporeality
- Slow tourism and the challenges of spatiality, mobility and corporeality
- The dimensions of the lived body in motor activity
- Motor experience and bodily registers considered from a phenomenological point of view
- Heidegger’s understanding of original temporality and its relation to linear time in sporting contexts
- Micro-phenomenology through experiencing movement in Zen, Tai-chi, Qi Gong and the timing of action
- Micro-ecology through immersion in an element of nature (water with apnoea, air with slackline, space with weightlessness, oxygen privation in the high montains, isolation in the desert, nordic walking on the earth, in the forest, etc.)
- Emersion of the living body in esthetic experience, in the discovery of body depth
- Modification of consciouness by meditation, by yoga,
Those interested in contributing to the special issue, please submit a title and a brief abstract for review (200-500 words) to both editors:
Irena Martínková (martinkova.ftvs@seznam.cz)
Bernard Andrieu (bernard.andrieu@parisdescartes.fr)
Abstracts received from now onwards – deadline: June 31, 2018.
Notification of abstract acceptance by (final date) July 31, 2018.
Full manuscripts – deadline: January 31, 2019.
Length: 5,000-7,000 words (inclusive of references and notes).
Further information about the journal: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsep20
Instructions for authors: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rsep20