Abstract - Reasons for the karate practice in Portugal
The interest in martial arts and sports of combat – «technologies of the body», in Michel Foucault sense (1988: 17), because they allow the «(...) individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection or immortality» –, continues to grow in Portugal. The first edition of the Scientific Congress on Martial Arts and Sports of Combat [SCMASC]1, 13th and 14th April 2007, in Viseu, is a good example of this point of view. This event has showed the increasing number of researchers and academics, and the working papers have brought solids results in this matter.
The present paper, presented at the SCMASC, is the results of an inquiry for questionnaire (preliminary) about the motivations and others sociological aspects of sixty-two (62) karatekas.