Practice as Research: Foundations for a Community of Knowledge

This paper seeks to theorize embodied knowledge. If knowledge is power, then questions of “embodied knowledge” should be central to this conference. How and when is knowledge embodied? Under what conditions can embodied practice constitute knowledge? And what kind of practice-based “research” expands this kind of knowledge? Today, as references to embodied knowledge continue to multiply, it is essential that scholars arrive at a useful and rigorously theorized understanding of this concept that can satisfy both the demands of practice and the requirements of scholarship. This presentation intervenes in the ongoing debate on practice as research, with reference to the conversations of the ASTR working group on Performance as Research (of which I am part) and to two recent books published by Palgrave-Macmillan.