The perspectives of body, movement and sports in christianity, islam and buddhism (PhD)
Involverte ansatteDagmar Dahl
Beskrivelse In our gymnastic lessons we have Muslim girls, who would prefer not to participate, at least not together with boys. If we attend Yoga courses today they teach us a totally different concept of movement than that which is typical for traditional Western sports, where the aims are to be faster, jump highest or score most. Further, sports projects for immigrants, which were meant to integrate them, don't reach all the target groups they were intended for. Obviously different perspectives of body and movement exist and therefore also different views regarding which is the "right" physical education. Why?
This newly started project intends to put focus on religion and aspires to find possible approaches between these religions. The next step should be finding or developing possibilities for an interreligious sports ethos. The methodical procedure for this investigation is a kind of triangulation. That means qualitative data are collected from researchers in the area of religion basic texts/scriptures and recent resolutions and representatives of the individual religions. This information refers back to each other reciprocally; methodical it is a hermeneutic way. The reception and interpretation of the data will be carried out through qualitative interviews and content analysis. The field of investigation is limited to the countries of Norway, Germany and Great Britain, as examples of multicultural communities. The selection of these three religions is also a function (among other things) of this field of investigation.
The project's main aim is to explore the possibility of formulating a common ethical foundation for sports that cross religious and therefore also cultural borders in the three major world religions Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. The purpose is to explore the possibility of developing an interreligious sports ethos. One aim in this process is to develop comprehension of body, movement and sports in light of the individual religion. The possibility of developing a common sports ethos will be explored, despite religious differences, related to use of body, body in movement and physical education. We will also focus on presenting the reasons why the religious traditions are so different in their perceptions of the body.
A sports ethos which is based on the religion's different views of body-movement- sport can contribute to a mode of "Reframing" of actual problems in sports, e.g. doping, extreme commercializing in top sports and of course for the multicultural physical education at school. And at last but not least: an analysis of other's and own view can help to understand each other in a better and deeper way, especially when we are doing sports together in a multicultural context.
The first results shows us that in western Christendom as it is represented by the evangelical and catholic church in Germany exists concise statements concerning sports and a Christian sports-ethos. We are aware of Christian sport groups such as in the YMCA and "Athletes in Action", in Germany: "Sportler ruft Sportler", in Norway: "KRIK". Even in the bible, esp. in The New Testament, we can read about body and physical activity and will find a lot of expressions with connection to sports (HOGNESTAD). We assume that we will find current statements and those from Holy Scriptures in the other religions too, because the representatives and members of these in Europe are confronted with body-movement-sports in their everyday life. At this early point in our investigation we can conclude that both in Islam and Buddhism attitudes exist towards at least a functional body in common with the Christianity. The differences lay obviously in the achievement motivation and competition-orientation. If it would be possible to formulate the first steps to an interreligious sports ethos, so must this besides the cultural influences be considered.
REFERENCES
Hognestad (1994). Løpet og seierskransen
Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (ed.) (1990). Sport und christliches Ethos