Feel the difference: The Dantian, cultural difference, and sensory remapping

Bowman, Paul ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2264-7596 2024. Feel the difference: The Dantian, cultural difference, and sensory remapping. Asian Journal of Sport History & Culture 3 (1) , pp. 1-19. 10.1080/27690148.2024.2327985 Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This work engages with a longstanding problem of East-West cultural difference: the different conceptions of anatomy and biology between modern scientific/‘Western’ medicine and traditional Chinese medicine. To do so, the work focuses on only one example of difference: the Chinese notion of the dantian (丹田). This is not present in Western anatomy or biology. So, the question arises as to its objective existence: If Western science cannot detect it, what does it mean to say that it exists? Must a Westerner who has no prior exposure to such a notion believe in the dantian? What is the status of this belief? Many approaches to such questions turn to debates in phenomenology, epistemology, translation and religious studies. However, this work instead proposes a more direct way to proceed. It proposes that that such differences arise and can helpfully be understood in terms of the specific sensory maps and fields of the body that are developed by specific exercises, disciplines, or training regimes (what philosopher Peter Sloterdijk calls anthropotechnic practices).

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Journalism, Media and Culture
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
ISSN:	2769-0148
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	21 February 2024
Date of Acceptance:	17 February 2024
Last Modified:	13 Jun 2024 16:27
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/166437

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