Kinesiology's Inconvenient Truth and the Physical Cultural Studies Imperative

Abstract

This article explicates the inconvenient truth that is at the core of the crisis currently facing the field of kinesiology. Namely, the instantiation of an epistemological hierarchy that privileges positivist over postpositivist, quantitative over qualitative, and predictive over interpretive ways of knowing. The discussion outlines the political, economic, and cultural forces responsible for kinesiology's putative scientific hegemony and speaks to its corollary: the very demise of the field caused by intensified subdisciplinary specialization and fragmentation and fundamental lack of comprehensiveness. The article outlines a potential corrective to kinesiology's blinkered epistemological and empirical vision, currently being developed at the University of Maryland. Physical Cultural Studies (PCS) is introduced as a synthesis of empirical, theoretical, and methodological influences (drawn from, among other sources, the sociology and history of sport and physical activity, the sociology of the body, and cultural studies) that are focused on the critical analysis of active bodies and specifically the manner in which they become organized, represented, and experienced in relation to the operations of social power. Thus, PCS is offered as an important contribution toward realizing the truly integrative and comprehensive kinesiology to which we as kinesiologists—and regardless of our empirical, theoretical, or epistemological proclivities—should aspire.