Kinanthropometry in Brazilian Physical Education (1970s): a new knowledge perspective for this field

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to understand the constitution of kinanthropometry as scientific disciplinary field in the 1970s in Brazil. Therefore, a bibliographic review was carried out in nine databases and in a specific journal focused on publications from the Kinanthopometry perspective, since this is an element to legitimize a scientific discipline. Only two studies dealing with this topic were selected. Given such a gap in the literature, three interviews with professors who organized the Physical Education (PE) course laboratories, as well as a newspaper report from the period, were used in the study. Different names have been associated  with the scientific field of human composition assessment throughout history, as well as formulating different body perceptions, such as Biometrics, Anthropometry and kinanthropometry. Each of these factors determine relationships with the involved socio-cultural context. Such a complexity to understand a conjecture within a historical time expands the space available for analyses. In the 1960s, the term kinanthropometry emerged in foreign countries as a new way of interpreting human body composition assessments linked to knowledge in the PE field based on movement and anatomy. This term was imported by Brazilian researchers after their contact with scientists in USA and Canada, since it offered the possibility of acquiring new representations for research in the PE field back in the 1970s.