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Research areas

The term ‘embodiment’ refers to the development of an enhanced awareness to our bodies as sensors of crucial information about ourselves and our reality. Whereas the links between our mind and body, and between our physical and mental well-being were thoroughly studied in recent decades, the role our body plays in sensing, perceiving, deciphering, understanding and interacting with the world around us is still understudied.

This is particularly so with regards to the place bodies play in professional practice, professional education and research in many disciplines.

Many academic and professional disciplines within Brunel University rely on the understanding and interaction of people connecting with each other as a focal process. Improving how people use and understand their own bodies to communicate and interact is a shared goal.

With the concept of embodiment, the dualism of mind vs body, or consciousness as subjective and the body as an object separated from our interaction with the world and others, is challenged. Instead of ignoring the body (in all its diverse manifestations and different abilities) as is often the case, members of the group seek to understand and explore the body as a sophisticated organism that if harnessed correctly, could greatly enhance our performance as human beings, practitioners, researchers and educators.