Paper short abstract:

Our research focuses on the cognitive basis of rugby referee's experience. We view practical knowledge as embodied knowing which is only manifest through action in a particular situation. Accordingly, the method developed constitutes an aid to return to the intended action and to verbalise it.

Paper long abstract:

Our research focuses on the cognitive basis of rugby referee's experience. We view practical knowledge as embodied knowing which is only manifest through action in a particular situation. First, we consider that practice is embedded in its context action, is not dissociable from situation, nor from cognition: it is impossible to understand the practice outside of its local setting. In the tradition of ethnological research, rugby referee's activity is thus apprehended in a usual situation, in the way it was done, and in its singularity - and not only through the referee's discourse. Second, an exterior observation seems neither sufficient to account for, nor to explain the referee's experience. It is important to consider one's own way of living, of perceiving, of making sense of one's situation… to consider one's own world. The difficulty lies in the fact that the subjective side of practice stems from an embodied meaning. But the actor is considered to be a reflective practitioner. Any actor is capable of reflection, but it is not a position that is spontaneously adopted towards his/her own action. He/she tends to use abstract knowledge in order to describe his/her actions, especially referees. Accordingly, the method developed constitutes an aid to return to, to reflect on, the intended action and to verbalise such action. In this paper, we present this new method of investigation which allows the investigator to dialectically link an image, the actor's situated subjective perspective, with a type of interview that focuses on phenomenological experience, the subjective re situ interview. We present how this kind of method is a means to study referee's experience in different sports contexts.