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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol.7, No.6
Publication Date: June 25, 2020
DOI:10.14738/assrj.76.8302.
Gonzalez-Posada, C. M. (2020) Somatic Culture In Colombia: Beginnings And Transformations Of The Concept In 27 Years Of Research.
Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 7(6) 356-361.
Somatic Culture In Colombia: Beginnings And
Transformations Of The Concept In 27 Years Of Research
Carlos Mauricio González-Posada
BA. in Physical Education, MSc. in Public Health, Dr. Social Sciences,
Professor at the University of Antioquia, Institute of Physical
Education and Sport, Medellín, Colombia.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this article is to present succinctly, how the concept of
somatic culture was born in our environment, and how it has been the
evolution and transformation of the concept itself, that has resulted in
interdisciplinary work around the dimensions of somatic culture
(sexuality-eroticism, motor expressions, health, aesthetic ideal,
semiotics, work, biopolitics, emotions). The exercise allowed not only to
trace the origin of the somatic culture concept, but also made it possible
to cover the methodological scenario on which somatic culture has
made its foray, that is, the educational and social spheres, thus allowing
that during the 27 years of the group's existence, many research and
intervention projects were born, which have founded and consolidated
two lines of research: somatic culture and educational context; and
somatic culture and sociocultural construction.
Keywords: Somatic, culture, education, sociocultural, research.
THE COLOMBO-GERMAN AGREEMENT AS A HISTORICAL ANTECEDENT
Since 1974, there was an academic and scientific cooperation agreement subscribed between the
governments of Colombia and the German Federal Republic, administered by the National planning
office of Colombia, in the period between 1975 and 1980; developing in this context, a series of
programs in the formerly named Sports Science Institute of the University of Antioquia, today,
Institute of Physical Education and Sport.
The intent of the agreement was framed in advising for the implementation of curricular programs
in Physical Education, at the University of Antioquia (Faculty of Education - Sports Science Institute)
and at the Universidad del Valle, institution in which the program in health sciences is organized. In
the period between 1980 and 1985, the agreement is extended, and the German University of Sport
organizes many events for the dissemination and consolidation of the academic and scientific
program; in this period, emerges the need to investigate the concept of body in the area of physical
education, since the concept of physical exercise that defines the area of physical education, is
overcome through a permanent process of reflexive and theoretical-practical inquiry [1].
In 1984, the basic cooperation agreement was signed, antecedent of the academic-scientific
cooperation project that would be signed later in 1993, between the rectors of the German
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University of sport and the University of Antioquia, which would be periodically renewable by
mutual agreement between the parties on the development of joint work. The program was aimed
at promoting research, teaching and extension, and the research component was responsible for
promoting its development, the objectives were oriented to carry out joint scientific works of local,
national and international interest, promote the exchange and socialization of the information thus
obtained [2].
THE CONCEPT OF BODY AS ANTECEDENT TO THE CONCEPT OF SOMATIC CULTURE
The permanent inquiry into the role of the body in Physical Education, especially from the 90s
onwards, It allows us to observe that different disciplines have dealt with it, highlighting that
interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity contribute precisely to the development of ideas and
concepts, thereby enabling a comprehensive vision and an important epistemological contribution
to the development of a discipline.
The theoretical framework of the Somatic Culture group is based, among many other theories, on
the readings carried out on the relations of the body with the experiences of perception of the
objects around us from a philosophical-phenomenological perspective of Merleau –Ponty (“... but
our phenomenal body, and there is no mystery in that, since our body, as the potentiality of this of
that part of the world, surges toward objects to be grasped and perceives them.”) [3]; or from a
sociological perspective of Touraine, of a subject that is in permanent interaction with a society
where the mass production and diffusion of cultural property, occupies the central place that
previously had occupied the material property of industrial society, and they turn to a consuming
subject (“...consumption is the expression of the social level, ... it is closely determined by social
status) [4]; or the anthropological perspective supported by Arboleda, where variations in the use
of the body are systematically linked to cultural patterns and social structure, where they are
learned through the educational system as a gestural mediator of social behavior [5], but where
each social development according to Rittner, also contains a socio-cultural expression of the body
and a transformation of the body's systems of interpretation, since social changes are also unified
in the transformations of body and personality ideals, which regulate the relationship of individuals
with their bodies [6].
THE FOUNDING CONCEPT OF "HABITUS" AND ITS RELATION TO SOMATIC CULTURE
Before referring to the concept of Somatic Culture and its meanings, it is necessary to refer to the
concept of "Habitus", raised by Bourdieu, who said to it as the "system of acquired schemas that
function in a practical state as categories of perception and appreciation, or as principles of
classification at the same time as organizing principles of action” [7], where the individual has the
creative, active, inventive capacity and not that of a transcendental subject, rather he is an acting
subject. The explanation that Téllez (2002) gives to the term habitus is understood as:
“a system of acquired, permanent and transferable dispositions that generate and
classify actions, perceptions, feelings and thoughts in the social agents in a certain way,
generally escaping the conscience and the will. Such dispositions are usually
incorporated from the earliest childhood, throughout the lives of individuals, through a
whole process of multiform and prolonged socialization that enables the appropriation
of the world, of the self and of others” [8].
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Gonzalez-Posada, C. M. (2020) Somatic Culture In Colombia: Beginnings And Transformations Of The Concept In 27 Years Of Research. Advances in Social
Sciences Research Journal, 7(6) 356-361.
It is interesting to observe that the habitus, as a product of history, establishes individual and
collective practices, producing “history” according to the principles engendered by history, thus
ensuring the active presence of past experiences, which is deposited in each organism in the form
of a principle of perception, thought and action, and generally tend to guarantee the conformity of
practices and their consistency over the time [8].
THE SOMATIC CULTURE CONCEPT
The official introduction of the concept of Somatic Culture in Colombia, has its genesis in the
international event held in July 1994, in the Coldeportes Antioquia auditorium (today Indeportes)
and which was called "Sport and modern society". The event included the 3rd International Seminar
on Sports Sociology and the 1st International Seminar on Sports Pedagogy and Didactics; such
activities commemorated 25 years of Coldeportes Antioquia and 25 years of the Institute of Physical
Education at the University of Antioquia.
The conference of the director of the Institute of Sociology of sport of the German University of
sport, the University Professor Doctor Volker Rittner, entitled Body, health, sport and lifestyle as
benchmarks of social development, hints at the relationships of sport, the health and lifestyles in a
social context, and they are part of somatic culture.
For Dr. Rittner, under the concept of somatic culture, it should therefore be understood, “a system
of values and norms related to each other, in a given society, which includes perception and use, or
use of the body as a whole” [6].
The central topics of the concept relate three aspects:
1. The different dimensions of somatic culture.
2. The effect of transformation between the dimensions of somatic culture.
3. Changes in somatic culture in the processes of development and modernization
The concept has implicitly developed some dimensions which refer to:
1. The use of the body in work systems.
2. The conception of disease and health, or the care of disease systems as well as the availability
of medical knowledge.
3. The norms and values concerning to feeding (drink and food).
4. Sexuality and eroticism.
5. The aesthetic perception of the body in the field of the dominant body ideal.
6. Hygiene practices.
7. Phenomena of body language and gesticulation.
8. Phenomena of movement and sport.
EVOLUTIONS OF THE CONCEPT OF SOMATIC CULTURE BASED ON LOCAL RESEARCH
Once the academic and scientific cooperation agreement was formalized, the macro research called
“Somatic Culture and social profile of a Latin American city, Medellín. Interdisciplinary research of
the sport phenomenon” (in spanish: “Cultura Somática y perfil social de una urbe latinoamericana,
Medellín. Investigación interdisciplinaria del fenómeno deporte”). This research was linked to the
German Sports University of Cologne, and the support of the Cologne Club, the University of
Antioquia through the dependencies of the Institute of Physical Education, the school of