Surveillance from the Others into Self: The Tears and Self-imposition of Male Artistic Swimmers

Based on the interviews with 34 artistic swimmers, the Michel Foucault's theory of surveillance is employed to analyze the crying behavior exhibited by male artistic swimmers during the development of their flexibility, trying to investigate the influence of traditional artistic swimming knowledge as the foundation for "the others' surveillance" and "self-surveillance" on male artistic swimmers as well as its working pathways. The findings reveal that the two techniques, through the two pathways of the "shame effect" and "internalized control", maintain the domination of traditional artistic swimming knowledge and orthodox male role behaviors over the crying behaviors of male swimmers with the seemingly autonomous but actually structure-restricted ways. The surveillance from society of male swimmers' crying behaviors will gradually diminish as members increasingly recognize, identify with, and acknowledge the rationality of their behaviors.