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“You realise you tick a lot of boxes”: Exploring the Impact of COVID-19 on the Rehabilitating Body Through a Bourdieusian Lens

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Sport and Physical Culture in Global Pandemic Times

Part of the book series: Global Culture and Sport Series ((GCS))

Abstract

There are many complex and varied impacts of changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic on ‘afflicted bodies’ during attempts to rehabilitate following a serious health event, such as a cardiac event. This chapter draws on ethnographic research, which overlapped with the first wave of the pandemic, to investigate socio-cultural influences on embodied experiences of exercise and health during the cardiac patient journey. Methods involved participant observations and repeat in-depth semi-structured interviews with cardiac patients and their significant others. Data were thematically analysed, with Bourdieusian theoretical perspectives permeating the study. During these strange and difficult times, Bourdieu’s theory offers insights into how individuals navigate crisis events in relation to their bodily practices, physicalities and feelings about place, especially given the twofold shaking of the habitus caused by ill-health and then the pandemic.

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Correspondence to Joanna Blackwell .

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Blackwell, J., Henderson, H., Evans, A., Allen-Collinson, J. (2023). “You realise you tick a lot of boxes”: Exploring the Impact of COVID-19 on the Rehabilitating Body Through a Bourdieusian Lens. In: Andrews, D.L., Thorpe, H., Newman, J.I. (eds) Sport and Physical Culture in Global Pandemic Times . Global Culture and Sport Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14387-8_28

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14387-8_28

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