Towards a conceptual understanding of acute cultural adaptation: a preliminary examination of ACA in female swimming

Abstract

This paper considers a novel approach to researching adaptation in transnational athletes. The first part introduces a conceptualisation of acute cultural adaptation (ACA), which extends the current literature in sport psychology by offering original insights into mechanisms underpinning adaptive processes to a new cultural site during an interim relocation. Rereading a self-determination theory through the lens of cultural epistemology, the proposed theorisation suggests that ACA is realised in everyday practices drawing on a range of material and symbolic cultural resources to satisfy basic psychological needs. The second part of the paper engages the conceptualisation of ACA to make sense of the adaptive processes as experienced by female swimmers from Finland during their training camp in Australia. The study’s findings highlight relatedness as a discursive cultural space, offering a starting point for examining the role of culture in psychological functions during short-term relocation.