‘My body, used like a tool’: somatic education and the achievement body

Abstract

This article argues that the global neoliberal university produces an ‘achievement body,’ a bodily-social condition characterized by compulsive performance and exhaustion. Existing somatic pedagogies primarily address Cartesian mind–body dualism and lack the vocabulary for bodies conscripted by ‘compressed modernity.’ Drawing on body diaries and reflective essays from 172 students in an interdisciplinary course integrating feminist studies and somatic education at a South Korean women's university, this study explores the pedagogical conditions required to interrupt this somatic colonization, introducing meomureugi (dwelling), a critical somatic counter-habitus that cultivates non-instrumental attention. The pedagogy facilitates somatic awakening, transforms students from passive executors to generative agents, and reconfigures competitive isolation into relational solidarity. Ultimately, the paper posits that embodied pedagogy is a vital epistemological intervention rather than a marginal supplement, offering a necessary conceptual framework to resist the normative pressures of the modern achievement university.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Teaching in Higher Education, 2026 · DOI ↗