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Recent research has drawn attention to the culture of whiteness and Eurocentrism within post-secondary kinesiology and physical education programs. By speaking with eighteen Chinese-Canadian undergraduate students, this case study examines how Eurocentrism manifests in an undergraduate kinesiology program at a western Canadian university. We found that a subtle, yet pervasive, center–margin framework was woven throughout the teaching and research culture of the program. This binary served to legitimize Western approaches to knowing and doing health and physical activity, while marginalizing – if not excluding altogether – non-Western knowledge systems. As one possible pathway for disrupting this knowledge/power hierarchy within kinesiology, we propose building opportunities for epistemic interculturalism throughout the curriculum. We maintain that a first step towards fostering intercultural opportunities is understanding the conditions of possibility that may enable or constrain non-coercive dialogical spaces. To this end, we aspire to expose the complex and subtle everyday processes through which the hegemony of the Western tradition is reproduced, which we suggest is the most significant contribution of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We situate the race-based division of Manitoba's Keystone Junior Hockey League as a case study to reveal the ongoing processes of settler colonialism. We argue that this split is an example of "White settler possessive logics," whereby settler belonging is naturalized through reiterative embodied acts of occupation. That this split happened in hockey, which is colloquially referred to as "Canada's game," is perhaps unsurprising given that hockey is a significant cultural site where Canadian nationhood is produced. However, we also contend that settler entitlement and belonging are never fully secure, but rather always in the process of (un)becoming. Settler belonging is thus threatened by Indigenous embodied sovereignties, which we argue can be found in the game of hockey generally, and in the Keystone Junior Hockey League specifically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper situates Euro-Western sport within a broader settler colonial logic of elimination that frames Indigenous bodies, cultures, and ideas within a politics of containment in the production of the colonized masculine subject. We use three examples to illustrate our argument, including an examination of the use of Euro-Western sport and physical culture in Indian Residential Schools, the definitional confinement of diverse and constantly adapting Indigenous cultures within contemporary Canadian sport policies, and finally the representational fixing of Indigenous masculinities within stereotypes of the hyper-masculine warrior in dominant sport media. However, sport and physical culture are also central to processes of Indigenous resilience, resurgence, and decolonization and, while these themes run throughout the paper, they are explicitly addressed in the final section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship has identified women as the ideal neoliberal subjects of late capitalism and, it is argued, that increasingly intensified practices of appearance and visibility are critical to their new labouring subjectivities. However, there is also a small but growing body of research on the relationship between men, the body, and practices of appearance and looking. In this article, we examine the experiences of men (n = 12, ages 23–33 years) in the highly aestheticized industry of the performing arts, including theatre, dance, film and television. Drawing on feminist- and Foucauldian-informed approaches to creative and cultural industries, we gleaned two overarching themes from this research, including: the imperative to take up a particular bodily ideal and the complexities and uncertainties this entails; and the necessity to successfully emotionally manage these complexities and uncertainties. Together these two dimensions represented key performativities in the emergence of the entrepreneurial subject for men in the performing arts. We conclude with preliminary observations about men working in industry-specific contexts, such as the performing arts, and how the experiences of these men shed insight on practices of visibility and appearance of men more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on semi‐structured interviews with larger bodied patients (n = 20) and their healthcare practitioners (n = 22) in Canada, this paper combines micro and macro approaches in outlining a social justice approach to caring for larger patients in healthcare practice. Theoretically, we draw upon structural competency and critical consciousness to address the question of how social justice is enacted, experienced, and understood in interactions between clinicians and larger patients. Our findings highlight four key themes that provide a framework for integrating social justice into healthcare practice: (1) an awareness of one's simultaneous experience of marginalisation and privilege in the clinical interaction; (2) navigating between additive and interactive understandings of intersectionality; (3) micro and macro approaches to change; and (4) straddling the line between equity and equality. The synergies in participants' perspectives across social identities suggests that the cultivation of social justice awareness potentially mitigates some blinders of privilege. Furthermore, practitioners' social justice orientation positively impacted patient experience, with most patients expressing appreciation for having their various histories of trauma and social challenges handled compassionately during appointments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While interdisciplinary knowledge is critical to moving beyond categorical ways of knowing, this comes with its own set of pedagogical challenges. We contend that acknowledging existing knowledge hierarchies and epistemological differences, recognizing the ideological baggage that students’ bring to the classroom in terms of their understandings of health, embracing intellectual uncertainty, and encouraging learning-as-witnessing, are fundamental to fostering an interdisciplinary pedagogy that opens up a space for dialogue between psychology and sociology. We draw on the case of obesity and physical inactivity in the Canadian context as an exemplar of a kinesiology dilemma in which both psychology and sociology have important, albeit different, roles to play. We suggest that the anxiety provoked by such an approach is not only necessary but productive to forge an intellectual space where psychologists and sociologists may better hear one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a relatively robust body of scholarship examining popular cultural representations of masculinity, yet there is comparatively little research on the men who take up and perform these representations. Based on interviews with 12 men in the performing arts, including dance, theater, film, and television, we examine the everyday lived experiences of men in the arts, with a specific focus on the complex and dynamic processes by which normative masculine performances are materialized. Using Judith Butler's theory of performativity, we argue that performances of normative masculinity in the arts are not nearly as stable and certain as we might imagine. Rather, normative masculinity is continuously formed and re-formed within an assemblage of discursive and nondiscursive relations that performatively materialize the seemingly stable white, heteronormative masculine subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical feminist approaches to eating disorders and "obesity" have recently come under criticism for relying too heavily on textual- and image-based analyses of health, identity and body weight, shape, and size. In this article, we examine qualitative interviews with self-identified anorexic and "obese" women using a new material feminist lens—particularly the work of Karen Barad—to see what this perspective contributes to conceptualizations of weight-based oppressions. In addition to outlining how the material world actively participates in ongoing processes of oppression, we also highlight how the body presses back, offering up potentially less oppressive processes of materialization. The article concludes on a cautiously optimistic note, pointing to how a new materialist framework may draw attention to micropolitical processes of becoming otherwise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the popular representation of the masculine hero migrant (Ni Laoire, 2001), rural youth scholars have found that young men are more likely to stay on in their communities, while young women tend to be more mobile, leaving for education and better employment opportunities elsewhere (Corbett, 2007b; Lowe, 2015). Taking a spatialized approach (Farrugia, Smyth & Harrison, 2014), we contribute to and extend the rural youth studies scholarship on gender, mobilities and place by considering the case of young Newfoundlanders' geographical mobilities in relation to male-dominated resource extraction industries. We draw on findings from two SSHRC-funded research projects, the Rural Youth and Recovery project, a subcomponent of the Community-University Research for Recovery Alliance (CURRA) and the Youth, Apprenticeship and Mobility project, a subcomponent of the On the Move Partnershi We argue that the spatial coding of gender relations in rural Newfoundland makes certain kinds of mobilities more intelligible and possible for young men, while constraining women's. In other words, gender relations of rural places are "stretched out" (Farrugia et al., 2014) across space through the mobility practices of young men and women in relation to work in skilled trades and resource extraction industries. These "stretched out" gender relations are reproduced by the organisation of a sector that relies on a mobile workforce free from care and domestic work and familiar with manual work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the Canadian context, the physical activity levels of children and youth in the after school time period has become a source of public health concern. We argue that this concern is informed by broader public health crises, in particular the ‘global obesity epidemic’ and the closely related ‘global pandemic of physical inactivity', and that these so-called ‘crises’ operate as part of a discursive regime that serves to justify after school interventions aimed at increasing the physical activity practices of children and youth. Although the objectives of such interventions are seemingly well intentioned, we suggest that such interventions nonetheless harbor difficult to discern, but potentially pernicious consequences, for the communities in which they are implemented. We focus our attention on the place-specific effects of one Public Health Agency of Canada-funded after school physical activity intervention – After the School Bell Rings (ASBR) – that was implemented in the mostly Indigenous, northern community of Placid, Manitoba. Based on a critical analysis of the ASBR program itself, along with interviews and focus groups with children, parents and recreation providers (n = 10) from the community of Placid, we contend that the ASBR serves to govern Indigenous recreation at a distance. We argue that when implemented in the place-specific context of Placid, the ASBR functions as part of a broader governmental assemblage composed of loosely connected discourses, institutions, socio-structural conditions and individuals that, when assembled, ultimately serve to govern geographically and culturally distinct communities. We conclude by suggesting that the objectives of broad-based health interventions, such as the goal of increasing after school physical activity levels, should not be universally implemented across diverse locales, but need to account for the diverse, place-specific priorities and needs of the communities into which they are implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In contemporary Western society, both anorexic and obese1 bodies are regarded to be “out of bounds.” Although scholars have enhanced our understanding of anorexia and obesity, these “disorders” have most often been studied in isolation from one another. In this article, we examine the similarities and differences in the embodied experiences of anorexic and obese women. Informed by the phenomenological research tradition, we follow in the footsteps of other scholars who have already begun to depart from binarized, polarized views by describing how women living with anorexia and obesity in two Canadian provinces experience the body, food and eating. Anorexic and obese women described a vast range of intense emotional experiences to characterize their relationship to food, the body and eating. Shame marked the bodies of these women. Family relationships also changed how the women experienced the body and food over time. The women ascribed a diverse array of complex meanings to the body and food. We hope that our study opens new phenomenological terrain to dialogue with and for anorexic and obese bodies in a relational way, recognizing that both of these bodies hurt in a remarkably similar manner. In a judgement day of sorts, both anorexic and obese bodies carry the heavy burden of culture’s expectations to fit within a narrow range of normative slenderness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the cultural phenomenology of Sara Ahmed, we expand upon biopolitical analyses of obesity discourse by interrogating how the contours of normative feminine embodiment are formed through entangled relations between dominant obesity discourse and everyday sensuous encounters. We examine qualitative interviews with young women and suggest that fat encounters are situated within a 'cultural politics of emotion', where 'feelings about' and 'feelings for' fat others reflect emotional orientations that imbue the boundaries demarcating the normatively thin feminine subject with a sensuous materiality. We conclude by suggesting that Ahmed's cultural phenomenological approach offers novel and nuanced insights into the materialization of embodied feminine subjectivities by centring the sensuous, felt and emotional encounters between sameness and difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a growing body of research exploring the mobility experiences of rural youth as they migrate in search of work, education and leisure. In this article we contribute to this body of knowledge by examining the mobility experiences of young women (16–24 years) living on the southwest coast of Newfoundland, Canada. In contrast to dominant constructions of rural crisis that position out-of-the-way places as in decline, dying or dead, we argue that the young women in our study articulated complex, affective relations to place. In so doing, they negotiated localized histories, prevailing social relations, broader discursive constructions and embodied affective connections in forging their emplaced feminine subjectivities. We argue that foregrounding the complex and at times contradictory relationships that the young women articulated with their rural homes is an important step in prying open dominant albeit constraining constructions of the rural, thereby allowing for alternative and more inhabitable imaginings of out-of-the-way places. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we discuss how photovoice and words-alone methods used in a study with young people living in communities on the west coast of Newfoundland, Canada, helped to tell different stories of rurality. Instead of the dominant narrative of rural decline in the focus groups and interviews with youth, through photovoice young people talked more positively about their home places. Drawing on recent work on emotional geographies and combining realist and constructionist frameworks, we argue that the photographs represent culturally accepted and appropriate ways of thinking, talking, and feeling about place, and that these shared affective practices provide a sense of community and continuity in a context of uncertainty in fisheries communities. It is our contention that such shared practices offer a strategy to deal with, indeed to heal, the damaging impact of the near extinction of fisheries stocks by maintaining a stable sense of self and place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing body of research documenting the impacts of fisheries collapses on communities and fisheries workers. Less attention has been paid to the sustainable use of fisheries resources so that future generations have access to these resources, or to the creation of mechanisms that might contribute to the intergenerational continuity of recruitment of fisheries workers and the regeneration of fisheries communities. In this paper we report on young people's experiences and perceptions of fisheries employment in Newfoundland and Labrador to deepen our understanding of the resiliency of small-scale fisheries. We found that these young people's experiences of fisheries employment are extremely limited and their perceptions of the quality of fisheries work is primarily negative while, at the same time, they recognize its importance to the vitality of their communities. We argue that stock collapses and subsequent downsizing and regulatory changes in the industry have disrupted intergenerational continuity in fisheries work and shaped how young people view their communities and options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current sociopolitical context, the lean, muscular body has come to epitomize masculine health and beauty. Not all boys and young men, however, unequivocally subscribe to dominant constructions that position fatness as unhealthy and unattractive. Using qualitative inquiry with thirty-two “skinny” or “normal”-bodied young men (thirteen to fifteen years of age), I demonstrate that fat talk is a prominent resource through which “normal” masculine embodiment is achieved. More specifically, I reveal that sociocultural positioning influences how young men take up, make sense of, and articulate constructions of fatness and demonstrate how such articulations function in the materialization of their “normal” embodied subjectivities. I also examine how fat masculinities operate differently within diverse emplaced contexts and in relation to distinct discursive communities. Such a line of investigation I argue helps to reveal the ways in which power relations of privilege and oppression are performatively embodied in everyday contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a poststructural framework, this article critically examines how young men (13—15 years) actively fashion embodied masculine subjectivities by taking up available subject positions within discourse. The study employed semistructured focus groups and interviews with thirty-two participants from two locations in a large urban Canadian city. It is argued that young men are confronted with competing discourses of masculinity where they are simultaneously incited to work on and transform their bodies into culturally recognizable ideals, while at the same time remaining distant and aloof to the size, shape, and appearance of their bodies. Resolving this double-bind of masculinity, it is argued, remains a central task of reproducing the privileges of masculinity. This study demonstrated that young men take up, deploy, and perform discourses of normalcy, healthy active living, heterosexuality, and individualism as technologies of the self in negotiating the double-bind of masculinity. This study extends our knowledge base on the embodied experiences of young men. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, we argue that mass media representations of obesity operate biopedagogically and, in doing so, teach viewers how to think and feel about what it means to be fat. These teachings are what we call “life lessons”—that is, lessons aimed at instructing viewers in how to relate to both their own bodies and the bodies of others—and are readily discernible in a wide variety of magazines, radio segments, and television shows. We suggest that life lessons of this sort are neither separate nor entirely distinct from public health campaigns, but rather overlap with and, at times, intensify their messages. With this in view, we undertake a four-part analysis of how the North American mass media represent obesity. In the first part, we outline contemporary theories of biopower, biocitizenship, and biopedagogy and how they can be used to make sense of these representations. In the second part, we contextualize them by providing an overview of relevant public health policy such as the United State’s Let’s Move campaign and the World Health Organization’s Prioritizing Areas for Action in the Field of Population-Based Prevention of Childhood Obesity. In the third part, we present a systematic review of the critical literature on representations of obesity with an emphasis on the North American media landscape. And in the fourth part, we submit an episode of the popular television program Nip/Tuck to an in-depth critical examination as a case study of how mass media representations of obesity function biopedagogically. In the end, we show that the representations we discuss not only reflect public health priorities but also reproduce neoliberal ideas about how to manage the life of the human body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined how men varsity athletes' embodiments of masculinities shaped their perceptions and experiences of self-compassion to manage sport-related challenges. Two semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 men varsity athletes (20 interviews total). Vignettes depiciting athletes low and high in self-compassion were used as talk elicitation tools during interviews. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis and four themes were identified from the mens' accounts. Participants utilized self-compassion as a coping strategy in sport and other life-domains to maintain well-being. Self-compassion was used to balance self-criticism to support achievement striving efforts. The experience of contrasting masculine ideologies (hegemonic and inclusive) promoted and constrained the men's implementation of self-compassion. Traditional masculine narratives created tensions for participants who at times embodied the (mis)belief that self-compassion promotes complacency in the pursuit of athletic achievement. Findings contribute to understandings of men athletes' experiences of self-compassion and masculinities in relation to sport-related challenges and performance. • We examined men athletes' experiences with self-compassion and masculinities. • Men used self-compassion to cope with sport and life-related challenges. • Men balanced self-kindness and self-criticism to support achievement striving. • Participants embodied conflicting hegemonic and inclusive masculinity norms. • They perceived (at times) that self-compassion promotes complacency in sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community-based and Indigenous-led health and wellness approaches have been widely advocated for Indigenous peoples. However, remarkably few Indigenous designed and led interventions exist within the field. The purpose of this study was to evaluate an Indigenous-led and community-based health and wellness intervention in a remote and rural Indigenous community. This protocol was designed by and for Indigenous peoples based on the aspirations of the community (established through sharing circles). A total of 15 participants completed a 13-week walking and healthy lifestyle counselling program (incorporating motivational interviewing) to enhance cardiometabolic health. Measures of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA; 7-day accelerometry and self-report), predicted maximal aerobic power (VO2max; 6-min walk test), resting heart rate and blood pressure, and other health-related physical fitness measures (musculoskeletal fitness and body composition) were taken before and after the intervention. The intervention led to significant (p < 0.05) improvements in VO2max (7.1 ± 6.3 % change), with the greatest improvements observed among individuals with lower baseline VO2max (p < 0.05, r = -0.76). Resting heart rate, resting systolic blood pressure, and resting diastolic blood pressure decreased significantly (p < 0.05) after the intervention. Self-reported and accelerometry-measured frequency of MVPA increased significantly (p < 0.05), and the total MVPA minutes (~275 min/week) were above international recommendations. Change in VO2max was significantly correlated with change in self-reported (r = 0.42) and accelerometry-measured (r = 0.24) MVPA minutes. No significant changes were observed in weight, body mass index, waist circumference, body fat (via bioelectrical impedance), grip strength, and flexibility. These findings demonstrate that a culturally relevant and safe, community-based, Indigenous-led, health and wellness intervention can lead to significant and clinically relevant improvements in cardiometabolic health and physical activity behaviour, with the greatest changes being observed in the least active/fit individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]