On the one hand, the "extreme body" (Baudry, 1991) fascinates and attracts, defying traditionally set limitations (Ehrenberg, 1999; Queval, 2000), incarnating the dream of the all-mighty and eternity. On the other hand, the "discredited" (Goffman, 1963, 1975), the misshapen, the monster (Fisher, 1991; Héritier, 1991), the disproportionate (Courtine 1993, Monaghan, 1999), appear as the terrifying products of social irregularity (Marcuzzi, 1996), evolving in defiance of the laws of nature and provoking anguish over the disappearance, the wiping out of all humanity.
Kaufman (1992) stresses that the social being is condemned to seek existing codes and to comply with them. From that moment, the "foreign body" is identified, labelled. The hybrid being does not correspond to "the healthy ideal", to the established criteria "the provision of sexuality" (Foucault, 1984). It is considered as "abnormal" or "non standard".
From a body reduced to that of a body increased, the new "body techniques" (Mauss, 1950) that ensue ask the question as to what is acceptable? How do some aids become problematic and then illicit? How are these increased and/or artificial practices perceived over time?

Since the pioneering work of Mauss, there have been numerous, highly relevant studies on the body (Elias, 1939; Douglas, 1971; Blacking, 1977; Vigarello, 1978; Le Breton, 1990; Featherstone, 1991; Schilling, 1993; Turner, 1996) and movement (Parlebas, 1981; Berthoz, 1997; Sheets-Johnstone, 1999).
Human and social sciences, assisted in this by globalisation, are confronted by new practices: the martial arts (Boudreau, 1992; Min-Ho, 1999; Chan, 2002; Villamon & Brown, 2004; Downey, 2005; Bar on Cohen, 2006), non-Western physicians (Frank & Stollberg, 2004; Smith, 2006; Guilloux, 2006) and dance etc.
The study of these practices by Western and above all non-Western anthropologists "can convey to the arena of Western theoretical discussion the concepts and theories (implicit if not explicit) of non-Western peoples about bodies and bodiliness." (Turner, 1995).
In an article, Chikako Ozawa Da Silva (2004) tries to imagine and construct a sociology that breaks with the dualism of the body / spirit dualism profoundly anchored in epistemology (Foucault, 1966) or Western non-thought (Jullien, 1998). She then comments that this opposition undermines: "other oppositions largely alien to Japanese thought tend to appear: nature/culture, subject/object, sociology/biology, sacred/secular."
So, how do we now think about knowledge and practices that are foreign to us? Are they able to renew the theoretical concepts of various disciplines that take an interest in the body and movement? How can we write about these practices where the experts often claim that we can only understand them through experience? What method(s) must be used or designed in order to study them?

In France, several researchers have recently taken an interest in images of the "damaged body" (Stiker, 2006), images of hideousness (Grim, 2000), handicapped figures in contemporary art (Korff-Sausse, 2004) and more generally in images of handicap (Blanc & Stiker, 2003). Analyses of fixed images have been refined (classical painting, photography, posters, etc.), as well as animated images in the media (in documentaries for example, Lachal & Combrouze, 1997; Lachal, 2000) and in film (Grim, 2000; Ethis, 2002).
The sports arena, where visualisation of the body is fostered, is also beginning to be observed through press photographs of handicapped sportspeople (De Léséleuc et al., 2005; Marcellini, 2001, 2006).
Others are interested in visualising the "contagious body" through iconographic representations of the plague in classical painting (Aichardi-Chevé, 2003).
Finally, historians have focussed on the subject of images of the "Other" as seen by colonial powers, for example Nicolas Bancel (2003) is studying the treatment of iconographic sources in the history of mentalities.
What status does the image have in the scientific approach to the social sciences? How can we guarantee the reproducibility of the analysis of images in social sciences? And what is the interest and limit to the use of image in social sciences? To what extent is the dramatisation of the handicapped body, deformity, hideousness etc, in fixed or moving images, an indicator of current social representations? What method might be used when reading these images? Are there differences in purpose, usage and method of analysing the image according to its use (artistic images, media images, scientific images, etc.)?

The purpose of this symposium is to provide the elements of a reply to these and further questions that are bound to arise.

It is clearly quite impossible to conduct even a partial review of the innumerable investigations into bodily education at school throughout the world (there are many thousands of references). The foundations may have been updated in the study by Norbert Elias, (particularly in his Civilising Process, 1973) and certainly by Marcel Mauss (1936 and 1951) but should not be confined to the findings of just these two writers. Faced with the rise in the number of publications starting in the nineteen seventies, particularly with the work of Jean Le Boulch L'Éducation par le mouvement (Education through movement, 1966), and if only involving French publications, undertaking such a review has become, de facto, improbable.
However, the main lines are identifiable (Reboul O., 1980): functionalist type studies, those that might be qualified as humanist, contentious, and traditionalist that cross over into the fields of sociology, cultural anthropology, psychoanalysis, ethnology, history, psychology, life and earth sciences and even didactics. We should, on the other hand, note that the body in movement in disciplines other than Physical and Sports Education is very seldom discussed (perhaps in linguistics or in respect of techniques applicable in industry and the service industries). Yet, since the first studies by Janine Filloux (1974), by René Scherer and Georges Lapassade (1976), and most importantly by Claude Pujade-Renaud (1983), we know that "the body is really there, it is even overly present in the pedagogic relationship […] it parasites the relationship." Furthermore, Michel Foucault (1975) turned the spotlight on the founding dogma of the French school system: "silence and immobility", in Surveiller et punir (Keep watch and punish) specifically in his chapter "Docile bodies".
For the symposium, these studies, like those previously mentioned, may be reactivated and re-energised for all the school disciplines and particularly in respect of the issue of hyper-activity in the school environment or children that are "kinaesthetic". However, it is also very important to discuss the issue of the body and the voice of the teacher. Most precisely, the body language of the teacher must not be ignored in terms of pedagogic know-how and training no matter what the discipline concerned. In the pedagogic field, the body is necessarily involved. Research in this area can and must be developed. It is given its full place in the symposium.

It was doubtless in Simone de Beauvoir's Le deuxième sexe in 1949 that the issue of the body in movement was first raised in the gender perspective. The author describes how her movements are limited by the clothes she wears by comparison with her male cousins. However, it was the Feminist Studies Journal, starting in 1972 in the United States, that was to contribute most significantly to examining the subject of the body in movement and gender. And subsequently Gender Studies pursued this enormous task from 1985. Studies by Ann Fausto-Sterling, Gender and Myths (1992), as well as more recently Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality (2000), provide important base lines. Studies by Pierre Bourdieu (2000) in French, and by Cheryl L. Cole (1998) in English and more directly the work lead by Geneviève Rail Sport and post-modern times (1998), particularly Chapter II covering "Sport and the Post-modern (De)construction of gender". The bibliography is vast.
Strictly in terms of France and sports, authors such as Nicole Dechavannes (1983), Nancy Midol (1989), Françoise Labridy (1989) and Catherine Louveau (1992) have spearheaded research. Subsequently, Geneviève Cogérino (2000) developed her work on the subject, and succeeded in opening the door to a great many young researchers.
Regarding the history of Physical and Sports Education, Thierry Terret and Pierre Arnaud must be given the credit for the first symposium held on the subject (1996). More recently, four enormous tomes appearing under the auspices of L’Harmattan (2004) are dedicated to Sport and Gender. They complement the actes des Carrefours d’Histoire du Sport de Lyon (Crossroads in the History of Sport in Lyons). This topic is clearly of growing interest. Yet this symposium seeks to turn the spotlight not just on the subject of bodily and sports practices, but much more generally on that of male and female bodily movement, which largely exceeds the frontiers of sports and physical education.