My Phd. Research

My PhD explores moments in which dominant ways of living are unsettled and alternative possibilities begin to emerge. Drawing on endurance cycling and the experiences of childfree women, I investigate how embodied practices can create openings through which life may be sensed, queered, imagined, and lived otherwise.

Rather than focusing on resistance as “heroic gestures” (Nigel Thrift), I am interested in the small affective shifts through which people become capable of inhabiting different futures. These moments often occur through movement, sensation, endurance, attachment, and encounters that disrupt the gravity of dominant norms surrounding family, femininity, time, and adulthood.

The project therefore examines the “agentic capacities” (Simone Fullagar) that emerge through embodied practice: the ways people cultivate new orientations, experiment with alternative forms of life, and create possibilities.

Filmmaking for this Phd. project enabled an “enacting video-making” process between researcher and participant. This approach engages with visceral, embodied experiences—such as the rhythms, pain, and joy of endurance—that often elude traditional text-based research. By jointly filming and editing, collaborators move beyond mere representation to "make and feel" something together; the focus lies equally on the process and the final product. A 30-minutes film has been produced thanks to this encounter.