New materialisms, sport and the environment: imagining new lines of flight

ABSTRACT

Written at a time when new ways of knowing, relating and responding to the environment appear more urgent than ever, this paper explores the potential of using new materialist theory for more-than-human understandings of sport and the environment. The paper consists of three parts. We begin by reviewing key trends in research on sport and the environment, before signaling the recent turn towards new materialist ontological principles to explore the intra-actions between sport, physical leisure and the natural environment. We then turn specifically to feminist new materialisms to examine the important contributions such theoretical strands offer for rethinking human and nonhuman entanglements with the environment. In the third and final part we take inspiration from feminist new materialisms to propose a research imaginary aimed towards opening new ‘lines of flight’ in sport and environment research, praxis and pedagogies, particularly in relation to: (i) methods, (ii) modes of representation, (iii) ethical understandings, and (iv) teaching tools. In so doing, we hope this paper encourages others to explore how feminist new materialist approaches might enable new noticings, vital respondings, and thus feminist ethics and response-abilities to (and with) the environments that our sporting and movement practices are already entangled.

KEYWORDS:

• Sport
• new materialisms
• environment
• feminist theory
• methods
• relational ethics
• teaching tools

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank John Evans, the guest editorial team (Michael Gard, Nicole Taylor and Rosie Welch) and the reviewers for their helpful suggestions and support along the way.