Introducing three-dimensional body mapping as a creative method for exploring embodied experiences

This paper introduces three-dimensional (3D) body mapping, a creative methodological innovation that advances the existing feminist method of body mapping. We developed 3D body mapping to explore how feminist concerns are lived and felt through the body, and to illuminate the forms of knowledge that emerge from these embodied experiences. We situate these concerns within feminist phenomenology and recent turns toward new materialism and more-than-human theory. We then review the body mapping literature, acknowledging the strengths of existing practices while identifying the constraints of 2D formats. Addressing these constraints, we describe the development of 3D body mapping through ‘body boards’ (like life-sized human pin cushions) with which participants can create spatial representations of embodied experience. To illustrate the method's potential, we present two case studies: one examining the embodied experience of being targeted by online misogyny, and another exploring positive body image and what it feels like to live well in one's body. These examples demonstrate how 3D body mapping elicits rich embodied knowledge and enables novel insights while addressing feminist concerns with systemic inequities and strategies for resistance and resilience. We conclude that 3D body mapping offers participants and researchers a powerful medium for examining embodied knowing.