In praise of body knowledge and stories we need to tell: a response to John Smith

Abstract

10.1080/19398440902908944 Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise 939441 (print)/193 -845X (online) Origin l Article 2 0 Taylor & Francis 0 0002009 JohnEvans .e @lboro.ac.uk I love stories – my mother once told me that if you rub lettuce leaves on your backside in September you’ll never catch Malaria in Merthyr Tydfil or get stung by Killer Bees in Pontypridd. And as this was about as much likely to happen as the local professional drinker Dai Ball and Chain saying, ‘that’s it Boyo, one pints enough for me’, on a Saturday night down the Stute (drinking man’s club), then her reputation as soothsaying purveyor of reputable knowledge was, at least amongst the willing listeners, pretty much guaranteed. Mind you, there may have been some truth in it. I’ve never once fallen foul of either of those maladies (‘touch wood’ as they say – and ritual and old wives tales can – I’ve discovered, be as informative and reliable as some of the claims made by more ‘respectable’ sport and exercise science research, e.g., on obesity, exercise and food, in recent years); though I still like to take tablets and other precautionary measures when travelling abroad. That we story our lives into existence and, just as critically, have them storied into existence for us by powerful others more capable of making their views and values heard, perhaps goes without saying, and Smith (2009) has certainly made seminal contributions – over many years – to our understandings of how important are ‘personal stories’ (that is to say, the narrated knowledge/s, values and ‘truth’ claims of researcher and researched) in the research process, irrespective of the medium through which they are expressed: ‘Story tellers and tattlers, novelists and poets, artists and composers play very important social roles in that they enlarge the social conversation and very often present us with new and different ways to think about our lives’ (p. 9). Indeed, it’s a sentiment that we, like many others in the educational research community in the UK, have embraced over many years; a stance given added status and impetus by the recent sympathetic epistemological leanings of post-structuralist, feminist and critical pedagogical research. Furthermore, few would demur that the various disciplinary strands of the sports sciences would better coexist if they were more attuned to John Smith’s inclusionary ideals and if its fraternities were to act as the ‘connoisseurs of research’ to which Sparkes and Smith (2009) allude; celebrating and recognising each others’ epistemological differences, rather than deriding them, without necessarily subscribing to the ‘others” methodological procedures and rules. A little bit of harmony never did anyone any harm and would be particularly welcomed in these dangerously illiberal post RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) times in the UK, where the future of the