Mapping embodiment: methodologies for representing pain and injury

This article examines the insights that visualization technologies such as 3D body scanning and mapping may provide for understanding embodied experience. The analysis draws on data from a research project on the socio-cultural contexts of dance injuries which used a mixed methodology including questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and body mapping with 205 dancers to explore how they distinguish between pain and injury and the consequences this has for their bodies and careers. The findings point to important differences between the data gained through the questionnaires and the data gathered in mapping and in-depth interviewing, suggesting that body mapping may point to the limitations of questionnaire methods in gathering data about experiences such as pain. Using a framework for understanding embodiment derived from cultural phenomenology, we argue that body mapping can be a useful tool for increasing awareness of embodied experiences such as pain which often recede from conscious perception.