Abstract
Parkour, along with “free-running”, is a relatively new but increasingly ubiquitous sport with possibilities for new configurations of ecology and spirituality in global urban contexts. Parkour differs significantly from traditional sports in its use of existing urban topography including walls, fences, and rooftops as an obstacle course/playground to be creatively navigated. Both parkour and “free-running”, in their haptic, intuitive exploration of the environment retrieve an enchanted notion of place with analogues in the religious language of pilgrimage. The parkour practitioner or traceur/traceuse exemplifies what Michael Atkinson terms “human reclamation”—a reclaiming of the body in space, and of the urban environment itself—which can be seen as a form of playful, creative spirituality based on “aligning the mind, body, and spirit within the environmental spaces at hand”. This study will subsequently examine parkour at the intersection of spirituality, phenomenology, and ecology in three ways: (1) As a returning of sport to a more “enchanted” ecological consciousness through poeisis and touch; (2) a recovery of the lost “play-element” in sport (Huizinga); and (3) a recovery of the human body attuned to our evolutionary past.
Highlights
Over the past two decades, the sport known as parkour has become a global phenomenon, with groups of practitioners or traceurs emerging from Paris to Singapore
Jeffrey Kidder has written of the “global ethnoscape” of parkour, which captures something of the ethos of this subculture; traceurs and traceuses from around the world have become connected via YouTube and other social media, sharing videos of difficult techniques and innovative movements, creating a global community which inhabits a kind of boundless, virtual meta-city (Kidder 2017, p. 48)
A constructive way forward for understanding the relationship between parkour and spirituality might focus on ecology
Summary
Over the past two decades, the sport known as parkour has become a global phenomenon, with groups of practitioners or traceurs emerging from Paris to Singapore. Intuitive exploration of the urban environment, it is not fanciful to suggest that parkour undertakes a kind of creative refashioning of the individual’s relationship to the cityscape, but involves the city itself in a process of poeisis, as several theorists have described it, full of spiritual meaning Such an approach can be contrasted to the “disenchanted”. This study will examine this aligning, reclaiming, and “re-enchanting” aspect of parkour and free-running at the intersection of spirituality and ecology in three ways It will be examined as a returning of sport to a more enchanted ecological consciousness through poeisis and touch, in connection with a notion of the traceur as a kind of urban pilgrim. It is hoped that such crossdisciplinary exchanges will aid, rather than hinder, further contextual study of the social roles of parkour in the global city
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