The First Historical Movements of Kinesiology: Scientification in the Borderline between Physical Culture and Medicine around 1850

Abstract

The kinesiology concept is used worldwide and by many different professional groups with scientific aspirations. Yet nobody seems to know much about where it comes from and why it came into existence. This article traces the origins of the concept back to one of Sweden's greatest cultural exports of the nineteenth century – Swedish gymnastics – and the efforts of especially Swedish physiotherapists and physical educators to spread its scientific doctrines throughout the world. Primarily their goal was to convert the representatives of conventional medicine (pharmacology) into a more mechanical mode of understanding and curing illness (physiotherapy). While following in the footsteps of one physiotherapist/physical educator –‘the father of kinesiology’– and examining the ideological and historical conditions his so-called ‘mission’ was ruled by, the social construction of knowledge and science is made visible in a way seldom highlighted in the history of medicine and physical education.