Mesa Temática Pesquisando Ginástica Para Todos: a Experiência da World Gymnaestrada Sob a Perspectiva dos Participantes

The paper presents selected results of a larger research project that seeks to identify and make sense of the meaning gymnasts attach to their participation in the World Gymnaestrada, the official worldwide event of Gymnastics for All. Drawing on a sociological perspective and a qualitative, ethnographic research approach, it aims to explore the World Gymnaestrada and its socio-cultural meaning from the participants’ perspective, using the international large group performance at the 2015 World Gymnaestrada in Helsinki, Finland, as a research setting. While notably artistic gymnasts in competitive or elite contexts have been the subject of sociological investigations, Gymnastics for All, in general, and the non-competitive context of the World Gymnaestrada, specifically, are largely under-researched. In particular, and informed by corresponding theoretical accounts, the investigation seeks to explore the translocal and supra-national, episodic and perpetual, physical and social, nature of the community that emerges and develops among the World Gymnaestrada participants. In doing so, the investigation seeks to contribute to provide insight into, and develop an understanding of, the socio-cultural meanings and impacts of Gymnastics for All with particular relevance to the World Gymnaestrada

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