“Something You Do with Your Body”: The Experience and Meaning of Physical Activity from the Perspective of Transnational Youth

Abstract

Background. The transnational young people’s physical activity participation could intermingle with their ingrained dispositions acquired from their pre-migrating periods, experiences of transnational mobility, new cultural learning, and other migration processes. Objectives. The current study aimed to investigate transnational youth’s physical activity experience using photo-elicitation interviews. This examination also reported the meaning that the research participants attributed to their physical activity. Methods. The participants in this study were a total of 17 teenagers (ages 13-19 years old) who were recent Indonesian immigrants to New Zealand. Informed consent and child assents were sought before the open-ended interviews. Data analysis involved a thematic analysis procedure through category construction, sorting categories and data, and naming the categories. Results. The analysis resulted in the description of the experience of participating in physical activity within transnational contexts. This experience gives a succinct background on the account of the other three themes: physical activity as the utilization of the body, physical activity for the healthy body, and beyond the corporeal dimension of physical activity. The discourse of body in terms of corporeality was visible throughout the data. Another dimension of the body was derivative, but it was still important to the experience and meaning of physical activity. It was a physical activity for enjoyment and socialization. Conclusion. We conclude that the study provides a new perspective on the meanings of physical activity which can contribute to knowledge development, policy improvement, and practices regarding youth physical activity.