In the wake of canada’s violent eugenic legacies: An urgency to ReVision Fitness

ABSTRACT

Eugenics is often misunderstood as a historical set of practices that mobilized outside of canada and ended after World War II. Less is known about canada’s influence on and participation in the practices/ideologies/movement, and even less about how contemporary fitness practices continue to be tethered to eugenics. ReVisioning Fitness aims to counter/refuse eugenic-infused fitness regimes designed to eliminate ‘unfit’ people, by centring the lived experiences of trans, non-binary, queer, Black, racialized, disabled, and fat/thick/thicc/curvy people. We created three-to-five-minute multimedia videos that express our fitness-related experiences and inventiveness. We explore the concept of ‘inclusionism’ and critiques of current anti-racism rhetoric and reflect on our videos across three themes: complexities of racism and other markers of difference; politics of rest in leisure; and unsettling white supremacy in fitness. We call on fitness stakeholders to examine our/their implicatedness in upholding eugenic underpinnings of fitness as a call to action to refuse anti-life agendas.

Résumé

L’eugénisme est souvent considéré à tort comme un ensemble de pratiques historiques qui se sont mobilisées en dehors du Canada et qui ont pris fin après la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. On en sait moins sur l’influence et la participation du Canada à ces pratiques, idéologies et mouvements, et encore moins sur la façon dont les pratiques contemporaines de conditionnement physique continuent d’être liées à l’eugénisme. Le projet « ReVisioning Fitness » vise à contrer/refuser les régimes de remise en forme influencés par l’eugénisme et conçus pour éliminer les personnes « inaptes », en mettant l’accent sur les expériences vécues par les personnes trans, non binaires, queers, noires, racisées, handicapées et grosses/épaisses/« thicc »/curvilignes. Nous avons créé des vidéos multimédias de trois à cinq minutes qui expriment nos expériences et notre inventivité en matière de conditionnement physique. Nous explorons le concept d’« inclusionnisme » et les critiques de la rhétorique antiracisme actuelle et nous réfléchissons dans nos vidéos sur trois thèmes : les complexités du racisme et d’autres marqueurs de différence ; la politique du repos dans les loisirs ; et la perturbation de la suprématie blanche dans le domaine du conditionnement physique. Nous appelons les parties prenantes du conditionnement physique à examiner notre/leur implication dans le maintien des fondements eugéniques du conditionnement physique comme un appel à l’action pour refuser les agendas anti-vie.

KEYWORDS:

• Ongoing eugenics
• racism
• bodymind differences
• inclusionism

MOTS-CLÉS:

• eugénisme permanent
• racisme
• différences entre le corps et l’esprit
• conditionnement physique
• inclusionnisme

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Ash McAskill for her support in bringing this team together during the beginning of our ReVisioning Fitness journey.

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Notes

1. We do not capitalize europe or the names of countries (canada, germany, etc.) in order to decentre and deauthorize these nation states.

2. We use the term ‘Original Peoples’ as opposed to the more common term ‘Indigenous’. Many white settlers inappropriately claim indigeneity, arguing that if they trace far back enough, everyone is indigenous to a land. Anishinaabe Elder Mona Kahawane Stonefish, who we work with beyond the ReVisioning Fitness project, rejects the term ‘Indigenous’ since it homogenizes large and diverse communities across Turtle Island. For Stonefish, the term is assimilating (see Kelly et al., 2023). She encourages us to use the term ‘Original Peoples’, and so, we do. We pluralize Original Peoples to help highlight that this is not a homogenous group, and we adopt this language as a way to challenge how terms are dictated/controlled by the government.

3. Bodies of difference is a disabilities studies term (e.g. Davis, 2002) that has been taken up across queer, fat, aging, and mad studies (e.g. Hogg, 2020). We adopt a broad definition of bodies of difference to encompass fat, neurodivergent, disabled, trans, gender non-conforming, and more. This is a shorthand way to capture all our experiences.

4. Rice and Kelly have created intimate and vulnerable stories focused on embodiment and movement for previous projects and follow the ethic of researcher reflectivity practiced at Re•Vision Centre.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Development Grant [430-2020-00030].

Notes on contributors

K. A. Bailey

Aly Bailey is a Mitacs-funded Postdoctoral Fellow working at McMaster University with an Adjunct Appointment at the University of Guelph. Her research unpacks fitness-related imperatives by exploring counter-narrative that centre disabled, fat, queer, racialized, and aging expressions of movement and fitness.

M. Bessey

Meredith Bessey is a PhD candidate in Family Relations and Applied Nutrition at the University of Guelph. She is a registered dietitian, and her research is broadly focused on critical perspectives of food, bodies, health, and fitness, using qualitative, arts-based approaches.

C. Rice

Carla Rice is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences and Founding Director of the Re•Vision Centre for Art and Social Justice at the University of Guelph. She specializes in disability and embodiment studies and in arts-based research methodologies with a focus on changing systems and fostering social well-being and justice.

E. Kelly

Evadne Kelly is an independent artist-scholar with a PhD in Dance Studies from York University. Her research investigates danced expression as a source of social change and social response-ability (and indeed responsibility).

T.-L F. McHugh

Tara-Leigh McHugh is a Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation at the University of Alberta. Dr. McHugh’s research is broadly focused on addressing gender equity in sport, and subsequently enhancing the experiences of women and youth in sport and physical activity.

S. Punjani

Salima Punjani is a Montreal-based multisensory artist and social worker. Her work focuses on the intersections of the arts and care.

B. Dube

Bongi Dube is a Senior Education Program Associate in the department of Family Medicine at McMaster University, based in Hamilton, Ontario.

P. Tshuma

Paul Tshuma is a Zimbabwean born musician and poet, and an alumnus of McGill and Concordia universities. He is a disability activist and an independent accessibility consultant.

K. Besse

Kayla Besse is the Accessibility Coordinator at the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario. She holds a Master of Arts in English Literature and Theatre Studies from the University of Guelph. Her current work focuses on the intersections of disability, representation, care, and creativity in accessible performance.

S. Sookpaiboon

Skylar Sookpaiboon is an Education Coordinator at ARCH (HIV/AIDS Resources and Community Health) in Guelph, Ontario. They hold a Masters of Science in Family Relations and Human Development from the University of Guelph.

S. Quest

Seeley Quest is a trans disabled environmentalist, working in literary and body-based composition, curation, and facilitation. Sie presented actively in the San Francisco Bay Area 2001-14, with the Sins Invalid project 2007-15, and has toured to Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, and many U.S. cities.