Helen Owton
Biographic Data
| ID | 99484 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Helen Owton |
| GIVEN NAMES | Helen |
| FAMILY NAME | Owton |
| SIGNATURE | OWTON H |
| AFFILIATIONS | The Open University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5233-960X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 149 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Touch and Tension
This paper explores the significance of touch in Martial Arts and Combat Sports (MA/CS) through collaborative feminist phenomenological autoethnography, drawing on women’s lived experiences to examine how physical contact shapes both the body-mind-self and environment. Through personal reflections, the paper investigates the tensions of touch in the development of technique, trust, power dynamics, and identity within combat sport practice. The co…
In Granny’s Memory
This article seeks to continue unraveling the grandparent–grandchild relationship as an embodied, intergenerational process through which social and historical lives are carried forward. Using poetic inquiry, I attend to “bits and pieces” that connect a grandmother, mother, daughter, and granddaughter, not just as data to be collected, but also as moments the researcher inhabits through relational encounters. These fragments of memory surface une…
An Autoethnography beyond Academia
This autoethnographic account explores the challenges and revelations of cultivating a life outside academia. Through reflections on professional rejection, personal recalibration and the rediscovery of joy and connection through motorcycling, the narrative reveals how stepping away from academia's relentless demands fosters resilience, creativity, reconnections and a renewed sense of self. Balancing professional identity with meaningful personal…
Intense Embodiment and Women's 'Weather Work' in Motorcycling
This article aims to develop the underexamined lived experiences of 'weather work' via the motorcycling 'weather world', addressing the embodied and sensorial learning ways of knowing. Drawing on a phenomenologically inspired approach, I explore the haptic senses of heat and cold via heightening understandings of weather work, aiming to provide key conceptualisations of phenomenological mind-body-world nexus through auto/ethnographic data. This a…
Oh Shit!' Moments
Through a series of vignettes, this article offers an insight into the intense embodied and sensorial experiences of motorcycling via 'sudden moments.' I reflect on the phenomenological interconnectedness of environment and the fragility of the motorcycling body-self via the exploration of 'thrownness' and 'sudden moments.' These intense embodied moments of 'thrownness' can disrupt the feelings of pleasure and enjoyment from being 'in the zone.' …
Quest for Freedom
This article provides an insight into the embodied and sensorial experiences of motorcycling through a series of vignettes. Through a phenomenologically inspired approach, I attempt 'to bring the body back in' and explore how tests of experience can cultivate a sensuous self by sharpening awareness of all the senses and extending the mind-body-self to interconnect with a motorcycle. Motorcycling requires a sharpening of senses, meticulous prepara…
Weather-wise? Sporting embodiment, weather work and weather learning in running and triathlon
Weather experiences are currently surprisingly under-explored and under-theorised in sociology and sport sociology, despite the importance of weather in both routine, everyday life and in recreational sporting and physical-cultural contexts. To address this lacuna, we examine here the lived experience of weather, including 'weather work' and 'weather learning', in our specific physical-cultural worlds of distance-running, triathlon and jogging in…
Exploring Lived Heat, "Temperature Work," and Embodiment
Drawing on sociological and anthropological theorizations of the senses and "sensory work," the purpose of this article is to investigate via phenomenology-based auto/ethnography, and to generate novel insights into the underresearched sense of thermoception, as the lived sense of temperature. Based on four long-term, in-depth auto/ethnographic research projects, we examine whether thermoception can be conceptualized as a distinct sense or is mor…
A/r/tographic inquiry in sport and exercise research
This research paper centres on a pilot study where a/r/tography, an arts-based methodology, was implemented into a sport and exercise research context. A/r/tography is yet to be employed in this particular research context; therefore, an emphasis is placed on exploring the versatility and feasibility of this methodology when applied to the field of sport and exercise. In addition, we explore whether a/r/tography offers anything new and/or unique …
‘It stays with you’
This article considers the integration of arts-based representations via poetic narratives together with artistic representation on dancing embodiment so as to continue an engagement with debates regarding multiple forms/representations. Like poetry, visual images are unique and can evoke particular kinds of emotional and visceral responses, meaning that alternative representational forms can resonate in different and powerful ways. In the articl…
Opening up dialogues and airways
This article explores the lived experience of asthma in a specific population of sport and exercise participants, drawing on an approach currently under-utilised in studies of asthma: vignettes. These were used as an elicitation technique in research with 19 frequent exercisers and sports participants with asthma, eight of whom responded to vignettes. We describe and evaluate this approach as deployed in relation to a phenomenological study of th…
‘I wanted to be Darcey Bussell’
Dance, analogous to professional sport, constitutes an interesting occupation in that there are relatively few vocations in which the athleticism of the body is inextricably linked to the ability to perform and teach. Dance teachers could pursue teaching as a career as a way to remain involved in the physicality of dance to maintain a sense of self as a dancer. Dance teachers make up a large proportion of the professional dance world in the Unite…
A Father's Son
Conformers, Contesters, Creators
Through a phenomenologically-inspired approach, the purpose of this article is to examine the different ways in which sportspeople experience asthma, a condition that affects 5.4 million people in the UK. To date, sociological phenomenology has been under-utilised both in relation to health and illness experiences and vis-a-vis sporting embodiment. Drawing on in-depth interview data from non-elite sportspeople ( n = 14), all of whom had been diag…
Sexual Abuse in Sport
A Better Life
This paper offers a poetic narrative of an international student-mother. The author seeks to address the call for more in-depth qualitative inquiries into student-parent experience in higher education. This poetic narrative is offered in the hope that humane connections are discovered that facilitate others to make sense of a similar life event as well as to challenge preconceived perceptions of undergraduate international student-parents
Sexual abuse and the grooming process in sport
Through a process of collaborative autoethnography, we explore the experiences of one female athlete named Bella who was groomed and then sexually abused by her male coach. Bella's story signals how the structural conditions and power relationships embedded in competitive sporting environments, specifically the power invested in the coach, provide a unique sociocultural context that offers a number of potentialities for sexual abuse and exploitat…
Intense Embodiment
In recent years, calls have been made to address the relative dearth of qualitative sociological investigation into the sensory dimensions of embodiment, including within physical cultures. This article contributes to a small, innovative and developing literature utilizing sociological phenomenology to examine sensuous embodiment. Drawing upon data from three research projects, here we explore some of the 'sensuousities' of 'intense embodiment' e…
Performative Embodiment and Unraveling Grandparent-Grandchild Relationships
This article seeks to intertwine women's embodied experiences of wartime, dancing, and chronic illness. The author introduces "Granny" through the unraveling rhythms of grandparent-grandchild relationships. Through narrative poems, the author shares Granny's dramatic stories of World War II. Bodies are socially and historically located, which therefore illuminates the ways in which her past is sedimented into her body and provides an understandin…
Playing with purpose
Take a deep breath
There has been a veritable efflorescence of interest in sporting embodiment in recent years, including more phenomenologically inspired sociological analyses. A sociology of the senses is, however, a very recent sub-discipline, which provides an interesting new dimension to studies of sporting embodiment, focusing inter alia upon the sensory elements of 'somatic work': the ways in which we go about making sense of our senses within a socio-cultur…
Close But Not Too Close
Friendship as method" is a relatively underexplored-and often unacknowledged-method, even within ethnographic inquiry. In this article, we consider the use of friendship as method in general, and situate this in relation to a specific ethnographic research project, which examined the lived experience of asthma amongst sports participants. The study involved researching individuals with whom the principal researcher had prior existing friendships.…
Beyond the book
[Event review] \n \nAs I walked into the Wolfson Theatre in the bustling LSE, amidst the showcasing of the university’s fifth annual ‘Space for Thought’ Literary Festival, I picked up a brightly coloured project pack entitled ‘Ages and Stages’ and settled into the audience, which was exuding an anticipating ambiance. Amy Mollett, who chaired the session, introduced three experts, each engaging in new forms of academic communication in their own f…
S. Pink, Advances in Visual Methodology
Sarah Pink advances critical debates in visual methodology by collaborating with key scholars who are pushing the boundaries in this field. As an early careers researcher who has engaged in these v
Integrating Multiple Representations
This article seeks to engage debates about integrating pluralisms regarding multiple forms/representations and how they might function smoothly if they are closely aligned. This article offers, narrative poetry with an artistic impression aimed at seeing how these might interact with each other. Like poetry, visual images are unique and can evoke particular kinds of emotional and visceral responses. By offering narrative poetry together with an a…
Intense Embodiment
In recent years, calls have been made to address the relative dearth of qualitative sociological investigation into the sensory dimensions of embodiment, including within physical cultures. This article contributes to a small, innovative and developing literature utilizing sociological phenomenology to examine sensuous embodiment. Drawing upon data from three research projects, here we explore some of the 'sensuousities' of 'intense embodiment' e…
Close But Not Too Close
Friendship as method" is a relatively underexplored-and often unacknowledged-method, even within ethnographic inquiry. In this article, we consider the use of friendship as method in general, and situate this in relation to a specific ethnographic research project, which examined the lived experience of asthma amongst sports participants. The study involved researching individuals with whom the principal researcher had prior existing friendships.…
Take a deep breath
There has been a veritable efflorescence of interest in sporting embodiment in recent years, including more phenomenologically inspired sociological analyses. A sociology of the senses is, however, a very recent sub-discipline, which provides an interesting new dimension to studies of sporting embodiment, focusing inter alia upon the sensory elements of 'somatic work': the ways in which we go about making sense of our senses within a socio-cultur…
Exploring Lived Heat, "Temperature Work," and Embodiment
Drawing on sociological and anthropological theorizations of the senses and "sensory work," the purpose of this article is to investigate via phenomenology-based auto/ethnography, and to generate novel insights into the underresearched sense of thermoception, as the lived sense of temperature. Based on four long-term, in-depth auto/ethnographic research projects, we examine whether thermoception can be conceptualized as a distinct sense or is mor…
Sexual abuse and the grooming process in sport
Through a process of collaborative autoethnography, we explore the experiences of one female athlete named Bella who was groomed and then sexually abused by her male coach. Bella's story signals how the structural conditions and power relationships embedded in competitive sporting environments, specifically the power invested in the coach, provide a unique sociocultural context that offers a number of potentialities for sexual abuse and exploitat…
Weather-wise? Sporting embodiment, weather work and weather learning in running and triathlon
Weather experiences are currently surprisingly under-explored and under-theorised in sociology and sport sociology, despite the importance of weather in both routine, everyday life and in recreational sporting and physical-cultural contexts. To address this lacuna, we examine here the lived experience of weather, including 'weather work' and 'weather learning', in our specific physical-cultural worlds of distance-running, triathlon and jogging in…
Oh Shit!' Moments
Through a series of vignettes, this article offers an insight into the intense embodied and sensorial experiences of motorcycling via 'sudden moments.' I reflect on the phenomenological interconnectedness of environment and the fragility of the motorcycling body-self via the exploration of 'thrownness' and 'sudden moments.' These intense embodied moments of 'thrownness' can disrupt the feelings of pleasure and enjoyment from being 'in the zone.' …
Quest for Freedom
This article provides an insight into the embodied and sensorial experiences of motorcycling through a series of vignettes. Through a phenomenologically inspired approach, I attempt 'to bring the body back in' and explore how tests of experience can cultivate a sensuous self by sharpening awareness of all the senses and extending the mind-body-self to interconnect with a motorcycle. Motorcycling requires a sharpening of senses, meticulous prepara…
Streams of Bereavement
This article offers "streams of bereavement" narratives across time. The author seeks to present a multilayered voiced account through vignettes and poems about the loss of her father who died 20 years ago. This aims to address the complex and traumatizing nature of living with grief and the shifting and multifaceted ways a young bereaved daughter might try and make sense of such a loss. This article is in response to reading "Fathers and Sons: B…
Conformers, Contesters, Creators
Through a phenomenologically-inspired approach, the purpose of this article is to examine the different ways in which sportspeople experience asthma, a condition that affects 5.4 million people in the UK. To date, sociological phenomenology has been under-utilised both in relation to health and illness experiences and vis-a-vis sporting embodiment. Drawing on in-depth interview data from non-elite sportspeople ( n = 14), all of whom had been diag…
Integrating Multiple Representations
This article seeks to engage debates about integrating pluralisms regarding multiple forms/representations and how they might function smoothly if they are closely aligned. This article offers, narrative poetry with an artistic impression aimed at seeing how these might interact with each other. Like poetry, visual images are unique and can evoke particular kinds of emotional and visceral responses. By offering narrative poetry together with an a…
An Autoethnography beyond Academia
This autoethnographic account explores the challenges and revelations of cultivating a life outside academia. Through reflections on professional rejection, personal recalibration and the rediscovery of joy and connection through motorcycling, the narrative reveals how stepping away from academia's relentless demands fosters resilience, creativity, reconnections and a renewed sense of self. Balancing professional identity with meaningful personal…
Intense Embodiment and Women's 'Weather Work' in Motorcycling
This article aims to develop the underexamined lived experiences of 'weather work' via the motorcycling 'weather world', addressing the embodied and sensorial learning ways of knowing. Drawing on a phenomenologically inspired approach, I explore the haptic senses of heat and cold via heightening understandings of weather work, aiming to provide key conceptualisations of phenomenological mind-body-world nexus through auto/ethnographic data. This a…
Bases Student Conference
‘All the World’s a Stage’ symposium
The trouble with higher education
Retired Lives
Granny's Memoirs
A review of innovative QMiP performances at the British Psychological Society Annual Conference 2012
Streams of Bereavement
This article offers "streams of bereavement" narratives across time. The author seeks to present a multilayered voiced account through vignettes and poems about the loss of her father who died 20 years ago. This aims to address the complex and traumatizing nature of living with grief and the shifting and multifaceted ways a young bereaved daughter might try and make sense of such a loss. This article is in response to reading "Fathers and Sons: B…
Beyond the book
[Event review] \n \nAs I walked into the Wolfson Theatre in the bustling LSE, amidst the showcasing of the university’s fifth annual ‘Space for Thought’ Literary Festival, I picked up a brightly coloured project pack entitled ‘Ages and Stages’ and settled into the audience, which was exuding an anticipating ambiance. Amy Mollett, who chaired the session, introduced three experts, each engaging in new forms of academic communication in their own f…
S. Pink, Advances in Visual Methodology
Sarah Pink advances critical debates in visual methodology by collaborating with key scholars who are pushing the boundaries in this field. As an early careers researcher who has engaged in these v
Integrating Multiple Representations
This article seeks to engage debates about integrating pluralisms regarding multiple forms/representations and how they might function smoothly if they are closely aligned. This article offers, narrative poetry with an artistic impression aimed at seeing how these might interact with each other. Like poetry, visual images are unique and can evoke particular kinds of emotional and visceral responses. By offering narrative poetry together with an a…
Playing with purpose
Take a deep breath
There has been a veritable efflorescence of interest in sporting embodiment in recent years, including more phenomenologically inspired sociological analyses. A sociology of the senses is, however, a very recent sub-discipline, which provides an interesting new dimension to studies of sporting embodiment, focusing inter alia upon the sensory elements of 'somatic work': the ways in which we go about making sense of our senses within a socio-cultur…
Close But Not Too Close
Friendship as method" is a relatively underexplored-and often unacknowledged-method, even within ethnographic inquiry. In this article, we consider the use of friendship as method in general, and situate this in relation to a specific ethnographic research project, which examined the lived experience of asthma amongst sports participants. The study involved researching individuals with whom the principal researcher had prior existing friendships.…
A Better Life
This paper offers a poetic narrative of an international student-mother. The author seeks to address the call for more in-depth qualitative inquiries into student-parent experience in higher education. This poetic narrative is offered in the hope that humane connections are discovered that facilitate others to make sense of a similar life event as well as to challenge preconceived perceptions of undergraduate international student-parents
Sexual abuse and the grooming process in sport
Through a process of collaborative autoethnography, we explore the experiences of one female athlete named Bella who was groomed and then sexually abused by her male coach. Bella's story signals how the structural conditions and power relationships embedded in competitive sporting environments, specifically the power invested in the coach, provide a unique sociocultural context that offers a number of potentialities for sexual abuse and exploitat…
Intense Embodiment
In recent years, calls have been made to address the relative dearth of qualitative sociological investigation into the sensory dimensions of embodiment, including within physical cultures. This article contributes to a small, innovative and developing literature utilizing sociological phenomenology to examine sensuous embodiment. Drawing upon data from three research projects, here we explore some of the 'sensuousities' of 'intense embodiment' e…
Performative Embodiment and Unraveling Grandparent-Grandchild Relationships
This article seeks to intertwine women's embodied experiences of wartime, dancing, and chronic illness. The author introduces "Granny" through the unraveling rhythms of grandparent-grandchild relationships. Through narrative poems, the author shares Granny's dramatic stories of World War II. Bodies are socially and historically located, which therefore illuminates the ways in which her past is sedimented into her body and provides an understandin…
Opening up dialogues and airways
This article explores the lived experience of asthma in a specific population of sport and exercise participants, drawing on an approach currently under-utilised in studies of asthma: vignettes. These were used as an elicitation technique in research with 19 frequent exercisers and sports participants with asthma, eight of whom responded to vignettes. We describe and evaluate this approach as deployed in relation to a phenomenological study of th…
‘I wanted to be Darcey Bussell’
Dance, analogous to professional sport, constitutes an interesting occupation in that there are relatively few vocations in which the athleticism of the body is inextricably linked to the ability to perform and teach. Dance teachers could pursue teaching as a career as a way to remain involved in the physicality of dance to maintain a sense of self as a dancer. Dance teachers make up a large proportion of the professional dance world in the Unite…
A Father's Son
Conformers, Contesters, Creators
Through a phenomenologically-inspired approach, the purpose of this article is to examine the different ways in which sportspeople experience asthma, a condition that affects 5.4 million people in the UK. To date, sociological phenomenology has been under-utilised both in relation to health and illness experiences and vis-a-vis sporting embodiment. Drawing on in-depth interview data from non-elite sportspeople ( n = 14), all of whom had been diag…
Sexual Abuse in Sport
A/r/tographic inquiry in sport and exercise research
This research paper centres on a pilot study where a/r/tography, an arts-based methodology, was implemented into a sport and exercise research context. A/r/tography is yet to be employed in this particular research context; therefore, an emphasis is placed on exploring the versatility and feasibility of this methodology when applied to the field of sport and exercise. In addition, we explore whether a/r/tography offers anything new and/or unique …
‘It stays with you’
This article considers the integration of arts-based representations via poetic narratives together with artistic representation on dancing embodiment so as to continue an engagement with debates regarding multiple forms/representations. Like poetry, visual images are unique and can evoke particular kinds of emotional and visceral responses, meaning that alternative representational forms can resonate in different and powerful ways. In the articl…
Exploring Lived Heat, "Temperature Work," and Embodiment
Drawing on sociological and anthropological theorizations of the senses and "sensory work," the purpose of this article is to investigate via phenomenology-based auto/ethnography, and to generate novel insights into the underresearched sense of thermoception, as the lived sense of temperature. Based on four long-term, in-depth auto/ethnographic research projects, we examine whether thermoception can be conceptualized as a distinct sense or is mor…
Psychology (25 works) · Sociology (24 works) · Aesthetics (13 works) · Art (12 works) · Diversity and Impact of Dance (10 works) · Epistemology (10 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Embodied cognition (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works)