Martial Arts Studies Research Network

Four decades after being kicked off by the 'kung fu craze' of the early 1970s, participation in martial arts in the Western world now rivals (and often exceeds) participation in traditional physical cultural practices connected with sport, health and exercise. Taekwondo and t'ai chi are as common in schools, college campuses and community centres as football and tennis; and Mixed Martial Arts are now globally bigger business than boxing. Yet, in the UK (and the English language in general), the academic study of martial arts remains in the shadows. This is so even though academics from a range of disciplines are contributing to diverse international scholarly fields via explorations of the many questions attached to martial arts, culture and society. Indeed, martial arts studies is demonstrably emerging, in diverse academic disciplines and across many geographical regions. Clusters of overlapping problematics are emerging within disciplines such as anthropology, cultural studies, ethnography, film studies, history, medicine, psychology, religious studies, sociology, and sports studies.

However, as these studies have developed within discrete disciplines, researchers have rarely engaged in cross-disciplinary dialogue. In fact, in the UK (and across Anglophone academia), the proliferation of academic writing has outpaced academic events, and there is little face-to-face exchange of ideas and approaches. Yet, there is evidence of not only a national but also an international appetite for a research network to foster cross-disciplinary communication in the development of martial arts studies. As well as increasing publications, there are growing numbers of conferences and events internationally, yet very few events have ever taken place in the UK or in the English language. There are regular academic conferences on martial arts in Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and all over Asia. Around the world, a growing number of degree programmes involve elements of martial arts studies, including some in the UK.

Yet, despite this growing research context, there is little sense of community or network for the development of martial arts studies. To address this lack, the Principal Investigator has already organised an international interdisciplinary Martial Arts Studies conference (Cardiff University, June 2015). The call for papers attracted over 100 proposals, some 60 of which were accepted. Proposals came from the UK, Australia, Guam, North America, China, Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, South America, Germany, Finland, and France, and represent fields as diverse as anthropology, cultural studies, ethnography, film studies, history, medicine, philosophy, psychology, religious studies, sociology, and sports studies. This wide national and disciplinary sweep is matched in a broad spectrum of work, spanning from theoretical to practical orientations. As well as pure academic work, there will be talks by surgeons, security experts, diplomats, and medical doctors involved in research into ways of incorporating elements of martial arts as therapy into NHS treatment for post-stroke rehabilitation and depression.

The Martial Arts Studies Research Network will bring more researchers together in face to face events that advance the study of martial arts and ask what studying martial arts can contribute to knowledge more widely. Each event will engage with a cluster of questions around a specific theme, and will involve the participation of academics, researchers, practitioners, and professionals, in order to explore core social and cultural questions. In this way the research network will stimulate multi-disciplinary conversations that advance our understanding of martial arts in broader cultural contexts. Through these dialogues, the network will generate knowledge and lead the way in the development of martial arts studies that contributes to multiple areas.

1. The Martial Arts Studies Research Network will organise events that seek to impact on diverse practices. Academics and practitioners will engage each others' research and experience at events that will be captured via audiovisual recording equipment and published in locations such as the multimedia areas of the open access journal Martial Arts Studies.

2. There will be a dedicated Martial Arts Studies Research Network Website that will disseminate news about events and outputs via posts and emails, and will also host online discussions. The website will include information about participants, events, and other stakeholders, such as choreographers, directors, actors and artists, and it will be a stable point of presence for the network. The website will also emphasise and build connections with relevant international institutions, such as the International Martial Arts and Combat Sports Scientific Society (IMACSSS), the Martial Arts Studies journal, the Martial Arts Studies blog, the Institute of Martial Arts and Combat Sports, and other networks, organisations and institutes from around the world. It will be built on Wordpress and maintained by the PI.

3. Network events themselves will be freely open to the public, and academic researchers will share platforms with a range of professional practitioner-experts in order to stimulate encounters and engagements that could modify practices of all orders - academic, professional, practical, even personal. For example:

- Dialogues on martial arts, gender and ethnicity could reconfigure of the status of martial arts in activist and practitioner projects and practices, for instance, via projects connected to the ongoing work of key speaker Dr Sukhwant Dhaliwal, who moved to academia after ten years of working in the UK voluntary sector for feminist organisations challenging violence against women and girls. Similarly, key speaker Jon Daniel is an artist whose ongoing work on non-white action heroes of the 1970s could be enriched by his participation.

- Practitioners of writing, choreographing and directing martial arts dramas could benefit from the contributions of key speakers such as emeritus professor and choreographer/director Phillip Zarrilli.

- The Royal Armouries event could impact on museum curatorial practice.

- The SOAS event will stage encounters between academics, practitioners and medical researchers that could inform health, medical, therapeutic and convalescence practices.

- The diasporas event could foreground the creative potential of martial arts in community building or identity projects.

4. At every event, the contact information of participants and attendees will be recorded, and each will be contacted after the period of funding has finished to ask whether the events have affected or altered their practice in notable ways. Wherever the networking events are implicated in a change of practice, these instances can be followed up in order to explore the establishment of impact narratives, and to ascertain the possibility of publishing an academic study of the intervention.

5. At the same time, the network will work to develop its activities, to enhance its agenda-setting status and to make contributions and interventions into ongoing debates, issues and practices. The network will become a nexus from which to develop collaborations and apply for further national and international funding to expand research activities. Funding bodies will include the AHRC, the ESRC, and trusts such as Rowntree and Wellcome, as well as European and international bodies, particularly in nations and areas where there are connections and collaborations to be made with existing martial arts studies bodies, such as Poland, Germany, China and Japan.