Moving beyond the anthropos and reclaiming the geo in intercultural communication: The transculturation of the martial art practice of Aikido

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis ethnographic study examines the practice of Aikido, a martial art style originating from Japan, by a community of non-Japanese practitioners in the southwestern region of the United States. This paper recounts the second nature-making of the art's skillful responsiveness as a thing to be explained from the ground, rather than leaving its cultural dynamics and their appropriative relations unchallenged as a relatively homogenous process of globalization and increased contact. In the case of Shining Energy (a pseudonym), the “taking” of another's cultural elements and “making” it a fully habituated and naturalized way of moving and being (second nature) are predicated on geo-making, the production of ontologizing resources (first nature) that enable culturally sanctioned modes of somatic engagements with the world. The process of appropriating Aikido entails an inversion between the figure and ground that foregrounds the geo-making of the ground/field for activity itself.