BECOMING A WANDERING BODY: EDUCATION AND BODY IN TIM INGOLD'S THOUGHT

ABSTRACT:

The article deals with the place of the body and education in the thought of Scottish anthropologist Timothy Ingold. We present the author's main metatheoretical assumptions, highlighting those central to our argument: the pairs nature-culture, body-mind, and animality-humanity. Ingold's thought is a wager on a human education based on becoming, understood as a singular insertion in a tradition always situated on historicity and immanence. It does not have a pre-defined direction but rather establishes itself through wandering, starting from a relationship of attention and perception of the world mediated by others who are already present in it. The body is conceived as a constitutive dimension of the human being, without which it is impossible to understand the way of being-with-others in the world. Thus, human potential is realized, and attention and perception are crucial. By problematizing the consequences of this thought for human education and body education, we found powerful conceptual tools to criticize the modern tradition of education, as well as to envision another way of conceiving human and body education, which are not understood as a transmission of the knowledge with which one operates logically, nor as the education of a material body that should perform as much as possible. Contrarywise, it is conceived as the transmission of a singular form of perception and (re) creation of the world and as an instance of creating paths wandering, respectively.

Keywords:
Education; Body; Anthropology; Perception; Ingold

RESUMEN:

El artículo trata del lugar del cuerpo y la educación en el pensamiento del antropólogo escocés Timothy Ingold. Presentamos los principales presupuestos metateóricos del autor, haciendo hincapié en aquellos que son vectores centrales para nuestro argumento: los pares, naturaleza-cultura, cuerpo-mente y animalidad-humanidad. El pensamiento de Ingold es una apuesta en una formación humana referenciada en el devenir, entendida como inserción singular en una tradición que está siempre situada en el plano de la historicidad y de la inmanencia, que no tiene un rumbo predefinido, sino que se constituye en el andar vagueando, a partir de una relación de atención y percepción del mundo mediada por los otros que ya están presentes en él. El cuerpo es concebido como una dimensión constitutiva del ser humano, sin el cual no es posible comprender el modo de estar-siendo-con-los-otros en el mundo, sino que en él se realizan las potencialidades humanas, siendo que la atención y la percepción son cruciales. Al problematizar los desdoblamientos de ese pensamiento para la formación humana y la educación corporal, encontramos potentes herramientas conceptuales para criticar la tradición moderna de educación, bien como para vislumbrar otro modo de concebir la formación humana y la educación corporal, que son entendidas no como una mera transmisión de saberes con los cuales se opera lógicamente, ni como el entrenamiento de un cuerpo material que debe rendir lo máximo posible, sino entendidos como la transmisión de un modo singular de percepción y (re)creación del mundo y como una instancia de crear caminos vagueando, respectivamente.

Palabras clave:
Educación; Cuerpo; Antropología; Percepción; Ingold

RESUMO:

O artigo trata do lugar do corpo e da educação no pensamento do antropólogo escocês Timothy Ingold. Apresentamos os principais pressupostos metateóricos do autor, destacando aqueles que são vetores centrais de nossa argumentação: os pares natureza-cultura, corpo-mente e animalidade-humanidade. O pensamento de Ingold é uma aposta numa formação humana referenciada no devir, entendida como uma inserção singular numa tradição que está sempre situada no plano da historicidade e da imanência, que não tem um sentido pré-definido, mas antes se constitui na errância, a partir de uma relação de atenção e percepção do mundo mediada pelos demais que já nele estão presentes. O corpo é concebido como uma dimensão constitutiva do ser humano, sem a qual não é possível compreender o modo de ser-ser-com-os-outros no mundo. Nele as potencialidades humanas são realizadas, sendo que a atenção e a percepção cruciais. Ao problematizar os desdobramentos desse pensamento para a formação humana e a educação corporal, encontramos poderosas ferramentas conceituais para criticar a tradição moderna da educação, bem como para vislumbrar outra forma de conceber a formação humana e a educação corporal, que não são entendidas como mera transmissão de saberes com os quais se opera logicamente, nem como a formação de um corpo material que deve funcionar da melhor maneira possível, mas concebida como a transmissão de uma forma singular de percepção e (re)criação do mundo e como instância de criação de caminhos vagando, respectivamente.

Palavras-chave:
Educação; Corpo; Antropologia; Percepção; Ingold

INTRODUCTION

In contemporary times, the problem of life is a vector in the politics of ideas. Such a problem has been present since the dawn of the Western tradition. In modernity, this debate extends from Montaigne, through Nietzsche, and Heidegger. However, it is with the French current of thought identified with post-structuralism, emerging in the May 1968 movement, that life as a problem of thought gains eminence (Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Michel Foucault, and Jaques Derrida, being the most prominent ones). Nowadays, the leading role in that debate has been taken by Italian philosophy: Giorgio Agamben, Roberto Esposito, and Maurizio Lazzaratto - the latter an Italian, living in Paris. Parallel to this, in social anthropology, this problem is also established based on new methods and theoretical matrices incorporated into this academic discipline, which leads to deeply questioning its way of producing knowledge.

In recent decades, Tim Ingold, a Scottish anthropologist, has renewed the problem from the perspective of anthropology, questioning the human condition from the proposed way of relating to life. For this reason, Ingold's problematization transcends the border of anthropology, while questioning whether his intellectual work can still be considered as belonging to the field of social anthropology. The Scottish anthropologist's inquiry is situated in a structure of four elements: life, the body, action, and imagination/thought. We might say (undoubtedly somewhat schematic, but to situate our argument) that the human being is a constant becoming body from the relationship with the other, which opens to the world from its perception, though not from a fixed and predictable way but situated in a tradition that is imaginatively reinvented and without a port on the horizon. It makes its way by walking, or better, paraphrasing Antonio Machado, wandering.

We underline in Ingold's thought the central place he attributes in his studies to human education, in addition to the importance that he recognizes to his teaching work in the process of theoretical construction. In this framework, we emphasize that Ingold's work is not only related to the ethnographic description of ways of life (dominant position in social anthropology based on the hegemony of ethnography, which he criticizes) but also his understanding that the task of anthropology must also be the questioning of possible forms of life, of life in its becoming (INGOLD, 2012a; 2017).

In the intellectual autobiography that can be found on his website, we can read about Timothy Ingold's academic path. He points out that his work can be divided into four stages in which the theoretical references and the themes of interest changed throughout time. The first, from 1970 to 1988, is framed by the ethnographic research carried out in Lapland and the work at the University of Manchester. In that period, he confronted ecological anthropology and hunter-gatherer groups that led him to question, on the one hand, the ecological relationships with non-human components of the environment and, on the other hand, social relationships and their relationship with the first dimension. In that period and as part of the movement of meta-theoretical problems with which he dealt, there is a theoretical shift engendered by his contact with Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead's thought. The second moment, from 1988 to 2002, is influenced by the concern to promoting a dialog between anthropology and biology. An effort for which the incursion into developmental biology is essential to find theoretical bases that contrast with the neo-Darwinism evolutionary perspective. At the same time, it brings into his academic work the thought of philosophers Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau Ponty, in addition to James Gibson´s psychology of ecological approach. Despite a certain dispersion in his works, the author points out that the backbone of the research is to elaborate an alternative to the dominant evolutionary perspective so that it would be possible "to bring both 'developmental systems' thinking in biology and 'ecological' thinking in psychology into a dialogue with 'relational' thinking in anthropology.” (INGOLD, 2021?). This theoretical process built the foundation for the next phase of his work. The third phase of his academic life goes from 2002 to 2018 when he retires from his university work but not from his research activities. That period is based on the idea of life as a line. In the author's words:

The starting point for this phase was the idea that life is lived not in locations but along paths or lines. Thus the 'way of life' has to be understood quite literally, not as a received body of tradition handed down independently and in advance of its enactment in the world, but as a creative and improvisatory process of finding a way through a world of relations and processes that are forever unfolding. (INGOLD, 2021?).

In this period, the author develops the idea of a dialog between anthropology and education, or better, anthropology is conceived as an education of attention, which is considered from the perspective of the event, therefore as always being, always becoming. The Merleau-Pontian thought is significant in the work of this period, which, in recent years, dialogues with the post-structuralist perspective of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. In addition, Ingold stresses the importance of walking, understood not as a way of moving from one place to another, but as a central way of learning to live with others in a singular time and space. It is also at that time that his intellectual work moves across anthropology, architecture, and art. This inter- and transdisciplinary character of the work is valuable to breaking disciplinary traditions, consolidated so far in educational and research institutions. We understand that this displacement is central to considering the Scottish thinker as an author of great relevance to problematize how we think about human and body education. For this reason, the work developed here focuses on the third period of the author's intellectual production. The last phase begins in 2018 and extends to the present, aiming for a return to the original place of ethnographic work in Lapland with hunter-gatherer groups.

The reception of Tim Ingold's work in the field of education and physical education is still very incipient. This is probably due to two factors: on the one hand, it is a recent work, which has been receiving wider attention since the end of the first decade of the 21st century, gaining more strength in the second decade. On the other hand, his ideas do not agree with the mainstream education concept in the academic field of human education, which, in general, starts from an ideal anthropological concept as a normative horizon. Hence, Ingold's work remains unexplored in our academic and professional fields. By understanding that his ideas have a critical and creative potential to reflect on human education, in a general way, and the educational process that occurs in the field of body education, we consider it opportune to bring to the debate of the area some theoretical tools developed by Ingold. The problem that guides our reflection is to understand the concept of education and the place of the body in the process of human education in Timothy Ingold's thought and to glimpse possible unfoldings to resignify the hegemonic conception of human and body education in the modern educational tradition.

DILUTING THE BORDERS BETWEEN NATURE AND CULTURE OR RESIGNIFYING ANTHROPOLOGY

Before beginning the discussion of the problem of this article, we should point out some basic categorizations of Ingold's thought to ground our argument. We focus on two conceptual pairs: 1) the relationship and distinction between anthropology and ethnology and 2) the relationship between animality and humanity.

The first point allows us to understand how the author operates when doing anthropology work. He strongly criticizes the disciplinary field to which he belongs (even though he sometimes questions his belonging to that field, or rather the peer recognition of his belonging). The anthropology conception that its endeavor would be established by ethnographic work, almost equating anthropology and ethnography, implies that this area of knowledge would have as its founding task the rich and detailed description of different ways of life and cultures. (Ingold, 2017). Differently, Ingold proposes that anthropology should not be reduced to descriptive activity, however careful, meticulous, and sensitive it may be, but should advance in the sense of proposing possible forms of life, based on the dialogue with existing life forms. Thus, life, in its becoming, would be its object. Let us see what the author states:

I believe that anthropology is a generous, open, comparative, and critical investigation of the conditions and possibilities of human life in the world we inhabit. (...)

It is generous because it is attentive and responds to what other people do and say. (…)

It is open because we are not looking for final solutions, but paths through which life can pass. (…)

It is comparative because we are aware that any path that life may have taken is not unique. No path is pre-established as the only "natural" one. Thus, the question "Why this way and not another?" always predominates in our reflections. And anthropology is critical because we cannot be satisfied with things as they are. (INGOLD, 2017, p. 223-224)

From what we see in the previous quote, anthropology does not disdain ethnography, but uses it, and transcends it. We could say it is an area of knowledge that not only sees life passing by, but also incorporates itself into the passing of life.

A second categorial definition is a tension between animality and humanity, and the consequent resignification of the relationship between social sciences and natural sciences. In this aspect, Ingold moves away from the essentialist vision of the human being as a specie of different nature than animals. On the contrary, Ingold understands that between animals and humans there is a difference in degree, not substance. "The border between the human species and the other species of the animal world is not parallel, but, in fact, crosses the borders between humanity and animality as states of being" (INGOLD, 1995, p. 47). Later, he complements synthesizing that "the differences between beings are more of degree than species" (Ibid., p. 49). For the same reason, natural and social sciences must have a porous relationship with each other, as neither exhausts the understanding of animals nor does the latter exhaust the understanding of animality. This position has strong implications for the conception of anthropology, placing it as a border field between the domains of both sciences. The two aspects in this section lead us to conceive anthropology no longer from its differentiation but its porous and border character. In the words of our author:

The way I see anthropology is by placing it at a crossroads in the divide between the natural sciences and the human sciences, on the one hand; and between theoretical speculations about what human life can be and empirical observation about what life is like in a certain place and time. (INGOLD, 2012a).

Having delineated these initial appointments, we will begin the discussion of the central arguments of our proposal, delving into the categories of Ingold's thought that allow us to understand his way of thinking about human formation, and its implications to situate the place of the body and its becoming in this process.

HUMAN EDUCATION AS A TRANSMISSION OF PERCEPTION: THE (RE)INVENTED TRADITION

In the tradition of anthropology as a science, the conception prevails that this area of knowledge would have culture as its object. Culture is understood as the production of a symbolic network that identifies a social group, woven from the interactions of the social group members (readers may recognize here the reminiscences of the idea of culture coined by Clifford Geertz, for example). Thus, the function of anthropology, based on ethnography, would be to describe these symbolic networks and the cultural practices connected to them. As Cornelius Castoriadis said at some point, ethnographic practice implies going to a social group different from one's own, pretending to be a member of that group (knowing that one can never be one of them), and returning to the community of origin to tell the peers about the culture of the observed group, as if they were a member of that group. Our author criticizes this position by emphasizing that the intergenerational relationship in a social group does not have so much to do with the transmission of a symbolic order to the next generation, as a way of inserting into the culture, as acculturation Rather, he understands that the intergenerational relationship is guided by the education of attention and perception. Therefore, according to Ingold, anthropology deals with the problem of the order of human education, of a particular way of conceiving the creation of the human being. Let us see what he tells us:

It is through a process of empowerment (enskilment), not enculturation that each generation reaches and surpasses the wisdom of its predecessors. This leads me to conclude that in human knowledge the contribution of each generation to the next is not an accumulated supplement of representations, but the education of attention. (INGOLD, 2010, p. 7).

This concept is decisive because it involves the subjects in the educational process as those who have the capacity for agency in the process we would traditionally call "socialization". In other words, socialization, for Ingold, implies the education of agents to be inserted as protagonists in the production of tradition, which is not conceived in a crystallized way, but always in movement, always becoming. Each new generation assumes the task of the permanent gestation of an always contingent and singular way of life of being-in-the-world-with-the-other. That idea must be complemented with the way of presenting the tradition. For the author, tradition is a horizon from which the 'new' moves, without the 'new' being conceived as a necessary reflection or consequence, determined by what came before. Let us read:

in each response, I discover that, unbeknownst to me, I have been there before, as have my predecessors from immemorial times. It seems that I know the moorings without even being aware of it. Following the current, towards the "not yet", I already know how it goes. Therefore, all experiencing is remembering. As the phenomenologist Bernhard Waldenfels (2004:242) states "we are older than ourselves": behind the individuals we are about to become, but are not yet, there are the individuals we already are without even knowing it. In this continuous and itinerant process of becoming what we were and having been the individual we will become, there is no limit, no point at which we can discover some basic human nature that was there before everything began (INGOLD, 2016a).

The previous quotation, beautiful and challenging, confronts us with the problem of the imbrication of the human being between biography and tradition. The biography is guided in its becoming by tradition and from it extracts the materials for the creation of the 'new', of what is yet to come. In this way, while he does not conceive the subject as being a creation of himself ex-nihilo, neither does he situate it as being a determination of tradition. Another aspect to highlight on the previous point is the centrality of action in the theoretical commitment of the Scottish intellectual. Becoming human is always a problem related to the relationship with the world that is realized in action, not assuming a primacy of ideas over practice, but superimposing, implying an indistinction zone between ideas and practice, or, better still, ideas happen in action, not dissociated from it.

Complementary, the concept of copy emerges as a way of inserting a subject into the tradition. However, the copy cannot be understood as a mere reproduction of an original, the more exact as the more identical to the original. Analogously to the Benjaminian idea of mimesis, the copy is not reduced to imitation seeking a seamless identity with the original but always implies a poietic dimension of the one who copies, the copy is always of someone who makes the copy. Making here means the creative appropriation of something from and in the world that occurs at the level of tradition. Ingold (2010, p. 15) understands that copying is "(...) following in individual actions what other people do." In this way, copying is inherent in the maturing process of the individual in the relationship with the group to which he belongs, not literal transcriptions, but exercised several times in the way of making his own the world in which he lives, from the relationship he establishes with the existing models in his social group.

There is no linear transmission, but an exercise of oneself in copying (the reflexive verb that here gains special prominence). The relationship with the master is not a relationship of subordination and execution of the same, but rather about making the model his own in an always singular way, so that, in end, what remains is the agent with his creative copy (INGOLD, 2016a). About this point, we should remember that the great masters of painting always had their predecessors as their masters and interpreted iconic works in their way of reproducing, and recreating the work. A classic example is Pablo Picasso's celebrated interpretation of Diego Velázquez's "Las Meninas” in 58 paintings.

Thinking about the body education carried out in the academic and professional field of physical education, this idea allows us to criticize the traditional model of body training, based on the copy understood as a faithful reproduction of the original, of the perfect movement. And it leads us to understand that originality lies in the reflexive possibility of creative appropriation of the gesture. The idea of gesture here is important because it presupposes someone who, when moving, expresses something, and expresses it as something of his own. In the gesture, we recognize the mark and the way of being of the author. In addition, this idea allows us to abandon the false dualism imitate-create that has been established in the academic field of physical education.

This premise allows us to think that pedagogical work in the field of body and physical education is always carried out immersed in a tradition that implies a repertoire of socially codified body movements and practices. This set of practices, which has been called body culture of movement (PICH, 2014), is seen here as a horizon, guiding the pedagogical task, but not as a crystallized normative matrix, which cannot be modified. On the contrary, the insertion in the field of body culture of movement would imply always being part of the tradition from the perspective of resignification. Copying a movement is here meant as making it one's own from the reference to the codified modes belonging to the tradition.

Another central aspect of our argument is the importance of the body in the copying process. The copy is not a process of mental production, in the strict sense, that is, as a disembodied spiritual activity. On the contrary, copying primarily presupposes the body, it presupposes bodily presence in the world and its corresponding opening. We read: “The beginner sees, feels, and hears the movements of the specialist and seeks, through repeated attempts, to match his own body movements to those that are the object of his attention, to achieve a type of rhythmic adjustment of perception and action that is in the essence of fluid performance.” (INGOLD, 2016a, p. 21).

Extending the understanding of this quote, we bring to the discussion the concept of perception. It enables us to comprehend that perception is neither a mere neuronal reaction to sensory stimuli in the environment, nor a symbolic inscription in the perceptual apparatus, but rather a continuous process of construction of meanings from the corporeal relationship with the world, from being-bodily-with-the-other-in-the-world. In Ingold's words: "(…) perception is not an 'inside-the-head' operation performed on the raw material of sensations but occurs in circuits that cross the borders between the brain, the body, and the world."

Complementarily, we highlight that the concept of knowing is directly involved with the condition of the subject as being-in-the-world, referring to the dimension of immanence and life and the field of practice. Consequently, solving a problem "(…) is inseparable from the real movements of the person in action in the practice setting and, therefore, having solved a problem is ipso facto having implemented a solution." (INGOLD, 2010, p. 22). To exist is a permanent movement of production of singular forms of being in the world. However, these forms are not ex-nihilo creations, but modes that find their horizon in tradition in its becoming. In such a way, the creation of meaning is not subordinated to the existing social conditions but is a process of "(...) integral involvement of people with each other and with their environment, in the continuous process of social life."

At this point, it is important to make a metatheoretical clarification on the argument we are presenting. The reader may be wondering about the somewhat vague way of dealing with the dimension of social structure (mainly those versed in historical and sociological analysis). It is key to remember an element we initially pointed out. Because our author is connected to the phenomenological tradition, the structure is invoked to recognize its existence. However, the accent in theoretical production is in the dimension of action. The relationship between structure and action (founding problem of social theory) is solved in this case from the primacy of action, not without emerging from the structure (because it is presupposed), carries it out and constantly updates it.

One aspect that deserves attention in Ingold's discussion, brought up from the earlier discussion of phenomenology, is the question of knowledge, concept, and representation in human education. Consistent with the phenomenological perspective, our author understands that human education should not be guided by a theory-practice relationship, centered on the primacy of the first toward the second, but that relationship must be thought, once again, through the centrality of action. Preliminarily, we emphasize that performance (here not conceived as a to perform for, but as to act in) is considered, not as the result of the application of a load of subject's mental representations in a situation, but as the comprehensive realization of an organism-person in a given environment (INGOLD, 2010, p. 18). To correctly situate this problem, we must recover the notion of intergenerational relationship, central to Ingold's idea of human education:

Through human generations, the contribution of each one to the knowability of the next does not occur by the delivery of a disembodied and context-independent body of information, but per the creation through their activities, of environmental contexts within which the successors develop their own built-in abilities of perception and action. Instead of having their evolutionary capacities taken over by structures that represent aspects of the world, human beings emerge as a center of attention and agency whose processes resonate with those of their environment (INGOLD, 2010, p. 22).

Ingold's commitment to the intergenerational relationship based on the problematization of tradition, as opposed to the idea of transmitting a body of theoretical knowledge, conceptually systematized knowledge, implies conceiving the subject as an agent-in-the-environment. In addition, we must note the duality between the problem of disembodied information and the problems in specific environmental contexts in which perception and action skills are developed, always summoning the body. The first element refers to the tradition based on conceptual knowledge as something disembodied, a split between body and soul, or, as Le Breton (2002) understands, between body and subject, which made a dent in the Western tradition of human education. On the other hand, the idea of placing human formation in specific environmental contexts summons the bodily presence of the subject in the course of history. This premise leads him to conceive that human education is not the result of the transmission of information, but rather an oriented rediscovery (Ingold, 2010, p. 19). Finally, we should highlight the understanding of 'knowing' resulting from all this.

Then, knowing is not found in the relationships between structures in the world and the mind but is immanent in the knower's life and consciousness, flourishing within the field of practice - the 'taskscape¹- established through its presence as being-in-the-world (INGOLD, 2010, p. 22).

The previous quote allows us to outline an important element of Ingold's thought. It clearly states his distance from the decontextualized concept, and, therefore, dis-bodied, in favor of the idea of the human being as a being-bodily-in-the-world, which is produced on the level of immanence, of life. By assuming the phenomenological horizon, the concept apparently ceases to have a prominent place. Such a decided commitment to the level of immanence and action opens us questions to think about the relationship between the concept and life, and, in parallel, the relationship between human education and educational trajectories.

As life is problematized as that in which organisms produce their existence (INGOLD, 2016b), life movement cannot be thought of as a closure in certain forms of life whose normativity is given a priori. Life is conceived "(...) as a movement that progressively builds itself in emerging structures" (Ibid., p. 21). In this idea, which seems to evoke Walt Whitman's poetic proposal that life desires itself, we see again the comprehension of an existence situated on the level of immanence and event. This idea serves as a base to deepen the author's concept of human education.

Frame 1
- Process of attentional wandering. Source: The Author

Walking is an important concept to problematize life and human education (in a broad sense) because it implies a walk that can be oriented in various ways, although the movement is always the central issue. When criticizing the educational tradition in Western countries, two metaphors are proposed: the maze and the labyrinth. Despite being apparently similar, the formations have a design that distinguishes them. These metaphors are used to represent two models of human education based on different ways of walking or following a path. The first follows a structure that implies choices but is closed and predefined. The second requires from the agent a relationship of constant attention during the course, to find the way out (INGOLD, 2015). They are related to two concepts of education: 1) induction (bringing inside) and 2) ex-duction (leading outside), which correspond to the terms ed-ucare and ed-ucere, respectively. Walking in the maze relates to the first idea and walking in the labyrinth with the second.

Following the path is less intentional than attentional. The wanderer is taken outside, facing the presence of the real. Just as the intention is for the attention, the absence is for the presence. This is also the difference between wandering and sailing. (Ingold, 2007, p. 15-16). Clearly, there is a mind operating in the attentional wandering of the labyrinth, as well as in the intentional navigation of the maze. But it is a mind immanent to its own movement and not an original source to which that movement can be attributed as an effect (INGOLD, 2015, p. 27)

The idea of an education that "leads to the outside" is related to the concept that human education must be, above all, the education of oneself, shaping the life lived in the relationship with the other, to start from an always singular way of insertion in the tradition to which one belongs. The attention of a wandering walk is not the attention of the subject of the philosophy of consciousness, but one, without focusing on a fixed point and with a predetermined goal, related to the process of the actual walking taking place. Wandering is to turn the contingent process of life into a central element of what matters for existence.

At this point, we ask ourselves: how can the idea of human education, whose horizon is the educational intention, be conceived? In this case, the answer is to intentionally prioritize the education of a subjectivity open to the relationship established with the world, in an inventive way. To achieve this intention, the centrality of imagination is crucial, because to imagine is to make things possible. It is also important to remember that tradition is the substratum of this movement. It is in tradition that the elements for the invention are found since imagination has in memory its raw material Ingold (2015). Imagination is constitutively a power that is updated in the act of wandering:

(...) the imagination tends to wander, to seek a way forward, and not follow a sequence of steps towards a pre-established goal. In that sense, imagination is a generative impulse of a life that is perpetually carried by the hope, promise, and expectation of its continuation. In that life, as the philosopher Gilles Deleuze (2001, p. 31) affirms, there are no realities, just virtualities - things are in the way of being updated or given (INGOLD, 2015, p. 30).

At this point, it is relevant to highlight that by emphasizing the importance of imagination and invention in wandering, there is an option for an aesthetic and poietic dimension of human life in its becoming. Paraphrasing the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben (2015), the constitutive dimension of human living is the production of forms-of-life, lives that cannot be dissociated from their forms because the form given to life coincides with living. Living can never be understood from a monadic or solipsistic logic but realized in life-with-the-Other.

A fundamental statement is an idea of an education focused on attention when walking and wandering, or attentional wandering. We believe that it is pertinent to broaden the understanding of this problem to adequately describe the author's idea. Attentional wandering, as we prefer to call it here, is opposed to what we normally understand as an educational trajectory in the field of education and body education. W can use the metaphor of the straight line as the shortest path between two points, to underline the usual way from which we conceive human education, normally in terms of the appropriation of cognitive tools and the logical operations that make their use correct possible. We assume human education as the most economical path (in the double sense of the word, both in terms of speed and financially) for the growing complexity of the conceptual understanding of the world, without there being any subjective implication with the appropriate knowledge, no matter if it is scientific, artistic, or the human movement. In other words, it is a calculation game of effectiveness and efficiency between ends and means. Further, the knowledge that "enter the game" of the education system is increasingly related to its productive nature, normally in professional terms and, therefore, in economic terms. In this logic, curved paths or detours, interruptions, and pauses are considered obstacles or useless delays. The opposition utility - uselessness is, undoubtedly, of great importance for the training enacted in the modern education system, and, particularly, in contemporary times. Briefly, it is a utilitarian education that leads us to establish an instrumental and productive relationship with knowledge. In this "game", contemplation, attention to events, and the aesthetic-ethical dimension of human life are not called to "enter into the field".

Wander, in modernity, and particularly in our late modernity, is synonymous with indolence, and unproductiveness, connoting a negative and depreciated meaning. Something to be discarded and avoided. Human education must be guided by the denial of the bum and his laziness. Differently, in this case, the attentional wandering does not imply giving centrality to the relationship between a starting point and an arrival point, based on an efficient and effective calculation of means and ends, rather the fundamental element of education is the relationship of attention of the subject with the environment in which it is located, without having the straight line as a goal. The attentional relationship implies aimlessly wandering. Wandering, which for productivist modernity is evil, is here conceived as a type of relationship, first of all, aesthetic with the world, not guided by Khronos' just-in-time logic, but rather by a karyological time, by opportune time, which is not concerned with arriving as fast as possible, and that presupposes a suspension of clocked time. Wandering is not guided by the rhythm of the military parade march, an icon of the march for modernity (not only in military parades), but the march is the result of the dialogue established with the attentively observed world. By focusing on wandering, a turn is made in direction of unproductivity and an aesthetic relationship and non-domination of the environment, of nature, and the body, a sensitive (but not sensitizing) reconciliation with nature is attempted through bodily presence. Paying attention is giving rise to contemplation as a way of establishing a relationship with the world one lives, a way of giving rise to amazement, as we will see below.

Before continuing, we should establish connections between what has been said and the tradition of body education carried out in the Physical Education field. It is no coincidence that the stopwatch and clearly defined spaces such as sports fields, but also climbing routes, and mountain bike circuits, are emblematic of the body education scenario that takes place in Physical Education. This indicates that we are in a tradition based on the logic of the maze, therefore, focused on the idea that in a "correct" body education the times and paths to be covered must be adequately observed (in the literal sense of adequation). The tradition of Physical Education teaches, among other things, how to respect and conform to times and spaces defined a priori, and to pay attention to reaching the end as quickly as possible, because it is efficient and effective. On the contrary, paying attention to the path, and being sensitive to what is happening is considered a loss, a failure, and a fault. The proliferation of contemporary diagnoses of ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, is well known. From the perspective we are working on, perhaps the diagnosis is a symptom of the objectification of the attention we are subjected to, and physical education based on effectiveness and efficiency has played, and continues to play, an important role.

A conceptual pair that should be highlighted is the relationship between innovation and improvisation and their connection with creativity. Innovation, so eminent in contemporary social and academic life, is the current version of the imperative of progress. Innovation is considered the genuine expression of creativity, based on scientific-technological progress guided by the premise of productivity and the development of new patents and their respective goods. On the contrary, improvisation, which has a depreciated symbolic value in contemporary times for it is seen as a lack of foresight and planning, is considered the appropriate manifestation of creativity and a fundamental element in the constitution of the human being, because it is not based on the idea of the accuracy of an already established roadmap, but is rather the production of a wandering walk that happens while walking. Let us read:

equating creativity with improvisation is reading it forward, following the paths of the world as they unfold, and not seeking to recover a chain of connections from a final point to an original one on a route already traveled (INGOLD, 2012b, p. 30)

A second conceptual pair that deserves our attention is surprise and amazement. Surprise is identified with science and amazement with those who effectively want to have a relationship of world discovery, of opening. Science operates from closure to the amazing, to be permanently surprised. The predictability and control typical of science have no opening for amazement, thus, finding in the surprises of scientific discoveries its way of being. On the other hand, the relationship with the world carried out through amazement implies seeing the world as in a permanent state of germination, of continuous gestation. In this state resides the true opening to the world, so human education should be guided by amazement and not by surprise as a formative principle, or, we could say, it should also be guided by the primacy of amazement. The relationship between the opening for amazement and the closing of science is presented as follows:

Those who are truly open to the world, despite being eternally amazed, will never be surprised. If that attitude of amazement, not surprise, leaves them vulnerable, it is also a source of strength, resilience, and wisdom. Well, instead of waiting for the unexpected to happen and being taken by surprise as a result, that attitude allows them to respond to the flow of the world with caution, discernment, and sensitivity at every moment (INGOLD, 2013, p. 23)

Amazement, as an educational principle, leads us to understand that human education should be centered on an attentive and sensitive relationship with the world, which does not deny, in our opinion, the value of scientific knowledge, but instead subordinates it to the former.

Recovering the initial idea of educating that brings inside (educare) and educating that leads outside (educere), for Ingold they respond to two important institutions of the Western tradition of human formation: the school and the scholè, respectively. They are taken as opposed and, in a certain way, irreconcilable. We read:

The institution of the school and the free time of the scholè are committed, respectively, to the opposite imperatives of educare and educere: bringing in and leading out, inculcation and exposition, intention and attention. What the first appropriates, the second puts on hold (INGOLD, 2015, p. 32).

By operating binarily, opposing school and scholè, there is a risk of creating opposite poles that can fall into a problematic reductionism. The effect of the hammer that tries to deconstruct a tradition, reducing the problem to a simple overcoming of a new model. However, we should ask if the school tradition should be completely denied or if its working mode, particularly the relationship with the knowledge proposed in that institution, as well as the types of knowledge thematized, which should be problematized. We do not believe that the simple denial of the institution is a possible way out. Rather, it may be more powerful to think of a dialectical relationship, a negative dialectic, which does not seek to overcome the proposed poles, but rather keeps them in permanent tension.

According to the concept of human education referenced in wandering and scholè, the body is the main reference. Immanence and contingency as founding elements of this educational process cannot be understood, as we explained before, without a process of embodiment and becoming body in the wandering. A body, which, as Le Breton (2003) says, is always a draft, something unfinished, incompleteness is its way of being. The following quote eloquently elucidates what we are saying:

The world is then objective as long as it resists or obstructs; the procedure is to achieve a rupture. In life, however, I am with my body, not against it. The body does not get in the way —or at least not often— but it is the way, the very movement, execution, or passage of my own existence in the world. In this sense, the body is not an object nor am I a subject. The body is a thing, as I certainly am. And the thing about things, if you will, is that each one is a 'going on '—or rather, a place where multiple 'going ons' intertwine. (INGOLD, 2012b, p. 36).

The body, when becoming in movement, is the lócus of walking, where the existence of the subject materializes in the world in his attentional wandering. The subject is with his body when walking and crossing his line with that of other 'walks' that move in the world. Making oneself while walking is always making oneself a body. In this sense, paraphrasing Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, the body is not a datum but a fact, or perhaps it is better to say: a doing along the way with the Others.

In this sense, thinking body education implies assuming the impossibility of having a body, the founding ideal of the modern tradition, but that one body is always becoming another when wandering in the world with Others. This implies acknowledging that the relationship with the body must be defined by the paradox of seeing the body as a thing, at the same time, one's own and something foreign, a thing that one is (and is always being), but that one does not have. From this perspective, the ambitions of always exceeding body limits crumble, because what is considered a limit is nothing more than the way of being of the body. For this reason, a backbone of body education (and not only of Physical Education) is to consider being in and with the body as a lócus for reconciliation with feeling life with the Other and feeling alive in life with the Other.

We should devote one specific paragraph to the author's warning about the relationship between body and life. In the end: what body can be effectively called a healthy body? That question, presented as having a certain obvious answer, resonates here like a parenthesis that suspends the certainty of the response, in a general way in modernity: paraphrasing Bichat, the healthy living body is the one that exists in the silence of the organs, that is, the one whose metabolism operates in normal conditions, whose organism is in a normal state. In the field of body education, we would say that a healthy body is one fit (to perform). However, the idea of a fit and healthy body brings with it the notion of being armed (supposedly against contingencies and to account for daily work performance) and immunized (in the sense of being prevented from environmental aggressions, always seen as hostile). The normalizing ideal of our world is to see life and the body as that which must be fit and immune. Contrary to this ideal, Ingold proposes that we go beyond the opposition between fit versus incapable, to question whether the idea of (physical) fitness is a notion that considers life in its way of being. Let us see the author's provocation, which is key to (re)think body education:

Perhaps the opposite of "physically fit" should not be "disabled", but rather "full of life". The animated body may be at risk and vulnerable to exposure, but at least it is alive for the world. Where the competent body of the self-sufficient volitional agent is put to work in carrying out its intentions, the animate body is always amid "making trhough," of calling the being to life, or what Maning calls "living life". It is animated (INGOLD, 2020, p. 63).

The quote above opens a wide horizon to think about the field of education and physical education, both strongly referenced in the idea of efficiency and fitness. In particular, the tradition of physical and intellectual training is based on the premise of fitness as almost an imperative. The definition of the education and training of the body based on the need to adjust it to an ideal of performance defined a priori always implies a movement of shaping and making it functional for a way of life focused on the standardization of life based on the maximum possible production (physical and intellectual). Furthermore, we should say that this horizon leads us to define which lives are worth living, and which can be left aside. In Ingold's perspective, life is the power that takes shape when existing-with-the-other. 'making through is centred on the idea of the impossibility that the power of life can be realized from normative ideals of an a priori nature. On the contrary, this concept implies that the norm of life can only be realized from one's own existence, the norm of life must be immanent to living itself, by "making trhough". Therefore, life and the body as the lócus in which human life power is produced in its radicality can never be situated in the logic of "fit for", but, on the contrary, from the overcoming of the a priori performance normativity. Starting from the idea of shaping the life lived in walking, in wandering. It is precisely where the animated body lies.

FINAL REMARKS

The theoretical framework that we deal with here focused on the problem of human education and the body that is constituted from wandering. It takes us away from commonplaces, but, at the same time, confronts us with a horizon that also unsettles us, opening questions that also need to be problematized. Ingold's educational commitment invites us to think of an in-between place, situated on the threshold of a traditional mode of education, referenced on the idea of cognitive and instrumental appropriation of academic-conceptual knowledge, of a pseudo-aesthetic nature, the domain of human movement unrelated to life, and a concept based on the centrality of attention (and, we add, aesthetics) that is carried out in the intergenerational relationship and encounters that have in the body its emerging ground. In the first, we have a "safe harbor" to which we are heading and the relationship between teachers and learners is one of linear universal transmission of a set of knowledge, without distinctions between the subjects, and centered on surprise. In the second way of conceiving education, the center is not a knowable object, but a way of relating to the world that is attentive to events and therefore open to contingency and amazement. In addition, emphasis is placed on life as always being, in a permanent state of opening and lack of finish, to which the subject is connected without a previously established purpose, but through wandering. In this sense, we highlight the idea of an aesthetic relationship with the world, which precedes the conceptual link (without the presence of the latter). To this is added the idea of wandering as a way of walking, which is not guided by productivity, but by the affirmation of the life lived, in a permanent state of creation. For this reason, the body emerges as a grounding dimension of the human constitution that, like a draft, is always being made (again and in new ways), a wandering body is the lócus and the way of being of this educational proposal. It is true that based on how the relationship between the aesthetic dimensions and the conceptual dimension is elaborated, sometimes there is the perception that they are antipodes, but this does not mean that Ingold's questions lose their value. We believe that this is a burning problem that education and body education urgently need to face as a way of resisting the prevailing way of life in contemporary times, which, paradoxically, seems to have contempt for life. It is urgent to conceive an aesthetic relationship with the world, from which the concept is called upon to create possible worlds. In short, wandering bodies that invite to amazement and to be amazed in this gloomy world.

Preprint

DOI: https://preprints.scielo.org/index.php/scielo/preprint/view/3290

REFERENCIAS

• AGAMBEN, Giorgio. Meios sem fim - notas sobre a política Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2015.
• INGOLD, Tim. Humanidade e animalidade. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, São Paulo v. 10, n. 28, p. 39-54, 1995. Disponible em: < Disponible em: http://www.anpocs.com/images/stories/RBCS/28/rbcs28_05.pdf > . Acceso en:15/10/2021.
  » http://www.anpocs.com/images/stories/RBCS/28/rbcs28_05.pdf
• Ingold, Tim. Pare, Olhe, Escute! Visão, Audição e Movimento Humano, Ponto Urbe [Online], n. 3, 2008, disponibleonline el día 31 julio 2008, consultado el 19 diciembre de 2019. DOI: < https://doi.org/10.4000/pontourbe.1925 >
  » https://doi.org/10.4000/pontourbe.1925
• Ingold, Tim. Da transmissão de representações à educação da atenção. Educação, Porto Alegre, v. 33, n. 1, p. 6-25, jan./abr. 2010. Disponible en: Disponible en: https://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/ojs/index.php/faced/article/view/6777 Acceso en20/10/2021.
  » https://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/ojs/index.php/faced/article/view/6777
• Ingold, Tim. Ambientes para la vida Conversaciones sobre humanidad, conocimiento y antropología Ediciones Trilce, Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación y Extensión universitaria-Universidad de la República (Udelar). Montevideo: 2012b.
• Ingold, Tim. O dédalo e o labirinto: caminhar, imaginar e educar a atenção. Horizontes Antropológicos, Porto Alegre, ano 21, n. 44, p. 21-36, jul./dez. 2015. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-71832015000200002
  » https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-71832015000200002
• Ingold, Tim. La creatividad que se experiencia… Innovación e Investigación en Arquitectura y Territorio. Departamento de Expresión Gráfica y Cartografía. Arquitectura. Escuela Politécnica Superior. Universidad de Alicante. Nº5 diciembre 2016a. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14198/i2.2016.5.13
  » https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.14198/i2.2016.5.13
• Ingold, Tim. Una mirada antropológica de la biología. Apuntes de Investigación del CECYP, Buenos Aires, n. 27, p. 10-39, 2016. Disponible en: < Disponible en: https://publicaciones.sociales.uba.ar/index.php/apuntescecyp/article/view/4609 >. Acceso en: 20/10/2021.
  » https://publicaciones.sociales.uba.ar/index.php/apuntescecyp/article/view/4609
• Ingold, Tim. Antropologia versus etnografia. Cadernos de Campo, São Paulo, n. 26, v.1, 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2316-9133.v26i1p222-228
  » https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2316-9133.v26i1p222-228
• Ingold, Tim. Antropologia e/como educação Petrópolis: Vozes, 2020.
• Ingold, Tim. Research Statement. Disponible en:Disponible en:https://www.timingold.com/research-statement Aberdeen, [2021?] Acceso en:10/06/2022.
  » https://www.timingold.com/research-statement
• Ingold, Tim (et al.) Diálogos Vagueiros: Vida, Movimento e Antropologia, Ponto Urbe [Online], 11 | 2012, subido online en el día 01 julio 2012a, consultado 20 octubre 2020. DOI: < https://doi.org/10.4000/pontourbe.334 >
  » https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4000/pontourbe.334
• Le BRETON, David. Antropología del cuerpo y modernidad Buenos Aires: Nueva Visión, 2002.
• Le BRETON, David. Adeus ao corpo Campinas: Papirus, 2003.
• PICH, Santiago. Cultura corporal de movimento (verbete). In: GONZÁLEZ, Fernando. Jaime.; FENSTERSEIFER, Paulo. Evaldo. Dicionário crítico de Educação Física 3ª. ed. Ijuí: UNIJUÍ, 2013. p. 163-165.

• 1
  The concept of taskscape presented in the excerpt will later be abandoned, due to the interpretations it rose (see Ingold et al., 2012a).

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  14 Apr 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  16 Nov 2021
• Accepted
  12 June 2022