Examining Physical Culture Through Qualitative Research Methods
The Physical Cultural Studies (PCS) laboratory is a site in which we examine physical culture in its various forms, including sport, exercise, health, dance, and movement related practices.
Department: Kinesiology
Room Number: 0110K
Director: Shannon Jette
Office Phone Number: (301) 405-2497
Email: jette@umd.edu, scork@umd.edu
Webpage: Physical Cultural Studies
The lab is currently run by Dr. Shannon Jette's (See THINC Lab for more information). Researchers based in this lab use qualitative research methods (e.g., ethnography, participant observation, in-depth interviews, media and discourse analysis, archival techniques) to develop a contextually based understanding of the corporeal practices, discourses, and subjectivities through which active bodies become organized, represented, and experienced in relation to the operations of social power.
Through the development and strategic dissemination of potentially empowering forms of knowledge and understanding, PCS seeks to illuminate, and intervene into, sites of physical cultural injustice and inequity. While much of our data is collected at research sites outside of the laboratory (in the contexts in which daily physical culture occurs), data is also collected and analyzed within the lab space using equipment such as digital recorders, transcription equipment and qualitative data analysis software.