Slowing the social sciences of sport: on the possibilities of physical culture

Abstract

Within this paper, we address how the ‘knowledge market’ positions certain ways of knowing over others. We suggest that this questions the very worth and perceived value of the social sciences of sport, let alone allowing for discussion of the contemporary relevance, quality, position and potential impact of the field. To counter what we perceive as a regressive orthodoxy, we explore the dangers that can arise from narrowly conceived (yet often hegemonic) globally accepted structures, discourses and epistemes and suggest a slow counter: an approach couched in slow pedagogy and that can offer often competing approaches within the context of neoliberal educational rationalities. Through discussing how we have negotiated these conditions within our own institution, we propose what we imagine is a provocative vision of the potentialities of the field. In so doing, and while we are not suggesting this is the way ‘sport studies’ should or ought to be, we suggest that a slow sports studies can open up the critical potential of the field, promote democratic (body) knowledge and ensure the University as a space for vibrancy, innovation, critique, debate and equality.

Notes

^1.Ritzer, McDonaldization of Society.

^2.Giroux, ‘Bare Pedagogy’.

^3.Brown, ‘American Nightmare’.

^4. Ritzer, McDonaldization of Society.

^5.Andrews, ‘Kinesiology's Inconvenient Truth’ and Andrews et al., ‘McKinesiology’.

^6. There are various monikers applied to the loose conglomeration of disciplines that make up the field of the ‘sports sciences’. In the UK, it is more common to use the term Sports Studies or somewhat more tellingly, Sport and Exercise Sciences, while in Australia, Human Movement Studies is the preferred terminology, in the USA, Kinesiology has been instantiated as the name for this discipline. While there are variations in aim and scope – the field is realized in different places and locations as a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and, very rarely, transdisciplinary project – it is an academic discipline, with varying intensities and emphases, that draws from biology, psychology, sociology, philosophy and includes multiple sub-disciplinary areas (e.g. biomechanics, sport history, exercise physiology, sport pedagogy). Cf., Gill, ‘Integration’. However, this is a far from integrated field. Indeed, in its current iteration, it is a field fraught with hyperfragmentation and hyperspecialization in which there is instantiated an epistemological hierarchy that privileges positivist over post-positivist, quantitative over qualitative, and predictive over interpretive ways of knowing. Cf., Andrews, ‘Kinesiology's Inconvenient Truth’.

^7. Cf., Sparkes, ‘Qualitative Research in Sport’.

^8.Frow and Morris, ‘Cultural Studies’, 352.

^9. Ibid.

^10. Ibid.

^11. Ibid.

^12.Denzin, ‘Afterword’.

^13. Cf. Newman, ‘Full Throttle Jesus’ and Silk and Andrews, Sport and Neoliberalism.

^14.Ingham and Donnelly, ‘Whose Knowledge Counts’.

^15. Brown, ‘American Nightmare’, 693.

^16. This curriculum is not conceived in relation to nor restricted to (higher) education but in fact is somewhat more of an incitement to centre the body within teaching and researching practices – a necessary blending of the two. For further discussion of the corporeal curriculum and research methodology, cf., Francombe, ‘Methods that Move’.

^17.Ritzer, The McDonalidization Thesis and Weber, Protestant Ethic.

^18.Clegg, ‘Lives in the Balance’.

^19. Cf. Rogers, ‘Research, Practice and the Space’ and Subramaniam, Perrucci and Whitlock, ‘Intellectual Closure’. Perhaps there is no more pertinent and grounded apparition of this haunting prophecy than the BA (Hons) in Business Management offered at De Montfort University in Leicester sponsored by Kentucky Fried Chicken.

^20. Giroux, ‘Bare Pedagogy’ and ‘Dumbing Down Teachers’.

^21.Giroux, Abandoned Generation; ‘Democracy's Nemesis’ and ‘Bare Pedagogy’.

^22. Giroux, ‘Bare Pedagogy’.

^23.Agamben, Homer Sacer.

^24. Giroux, Abandoned Generation, 22.

^25. Giroux, ‘Bare Pedagogy’.

^26.Giroux, Corporate Culture, 20.

^27. Giroux, Abandoned Generation.

^28. Giroux, Corporate Culture.

^29. Giroux, Abandoned Generation and ‘Dumbing Down Teachers’.

^30. Giroux, ‘Bare Pedagogy’, 185.

^31. The processes of militarization – especially in Kinesiology – have a longer history (cf., Giroux, ‘US Higher Education After 9/11’) and have intensified post 9/11 such that within a wider biopolitics of militarization, the university has become a militarized knowledge factory. Giroux argues that there has been an increasing reliance on the Pentagon and corporate interests, and that resultantly the academy has opened its doors to serving private and governmental interests, further compromising higher educations’ role as a democratic public sphere.

^32. Giroux, Abandoned Generation.

^33. While Ritzer is at pains – certainly more than we – to stress that the rational efficiencies associated with McDonaldization do result in some very real benefits and advantages, they are, by the same token, equally fraught with damaging limitations.

^34. Cf. Subramaniam, Perrucci and Whitlock, ‘Intellectual Closure’.

^35. Cf. Giroux, Abandoned Generation; Corporate Culture; Holmwood, ‘ Avalanche of Change’; Lincoln, ‘ Well Regulated Faculty’; Andrews et al., ‘McKinesiology’ for a detailed discussion of the impact on higher education institutions.

^36. In, Hartman and Darab, ‘Call for Slow Scholarship’.

^37. Ibid.

^38.Ball, ‘Performativity, Commodification and Commitment’ (our emphasis).

^39.Brenner, ‘Performative Pedagogy’, 3; cf., Subramaniam, Perrucci and Whitlock, ‘Intellectual Closure’ and Sonu, ‘Illusions of Compliance’.

^40. E.g. Nandy, ‘Science as a Reason of State’ and Rutherford, ‘Cultural Studies’.

^41. Nandy, ‘Science as a Reason of State’.

^42.Shiva, ‘Reductionist Science’.

^43. Nandy, ‘Science as a Reason of State’.

^44. Giroux, Abandoned Generation and Giroux and Searls-Giroux, ‘Universities Gone Wild’.

^45.Lather, ‘This is Your Father's Paradigm’, 34.

^46. Giroux, ‘Bare Pedagogy’, 188.

^47. Giroux and Searls-Giroux, ‘Universities Gone Wild’; cf., Barnett and Griffin, End of Knowledge; Evans, Killing Thinking; Lather, ‘This is Your Father's Paradigm’; Readings, The University in Ruins and Sparkes, ‘Qualitative Research in Sport’.

^48.Denzin and Giardina, Qualitative Inquiry.

^49.Murray et al., ‘No Exit?’.

^50. Rogers, ‘Research, Practice and the Space’.

^51.Murray, Holmes and Rail, ‘Constitution and Status of “Evidence”’, 273.

^52.Cannella, ‘Political Possibility, Hypercapitalism’.

^53.Lipsett, Cash for University Arts.

^54.Curtis, Pointless University Studies.

^55. The curtailing – or perhaps better put, governance – of funding for the social sciences been demonstrated most recently in the USA by the National Science Foundation who recently introduced measures to prohibit funding of research on political science unless that research is in the interest of national security.

^56. Cf. House, ‘Qualitative Evaluation’; Murray, Holmes and Rail, ‘ Constitution and Status of “Evidence”’ and Sparkes, ‘Qualitative Research in Sport’.

^57. Giroux and Searls-Giroux, ‘Universities Gone Wild’.

^58. We do not suggest discarding such advances, yet we do oppose parochialism and domination and the ways in which the conventions of this particular approach become accepted as the natural way of producing knowledge and viewing a particular aspect of the world. As such, our intent is to raise questions, provide an opportunity for thoughtful reflexivity and aid the power of those in the academy to apply research so that it impacts, and is meaningful to, the various communities that sport studies has the potential to touch. These are debates that are likely to continue; we imagine we will be challenged, and opposed, for what may seem to be appropriate to some may well be ludicrous to others – such debates, are, in our opinion, a vital sign of a self-reflexive, healthy, field of study.

^59. Cf. Bairner, ‘For a Sociology of Sport’; Dart, ‘Sports Review’ and Silk and Andrews, ‘Towards a Physical Cultural Studies’.

^60. Giroux, ‘Bare Pedagogy’.

^61. Murray et al., ‘No Exit?’.

^62. Ingham and Donnelly, ‘Whose Knowledge Counts?’, 59.

^63. Shiva, ‘Reductionist Science’. Cf., Kincheloe and McLaren, ‘Rethinking Critical Theory’.

^64. Ingham, ‘Toward a Department of Physical Cultural Studies’.

^65. Cf. Andrews et al., ‘McKinesiology’.

^66. Giroux, ‘Bare Pedagogy’ and ‘Dumbing Down Teachers’.

^67. Giroux, ‘Bare Pedagogy’, 190.

^68.Garbutt and Offord, ‘A Scholarly Affair’.

^69.Stevenson, ‘Critical Pedagogy, Democracy and Capitalism’.

^70. Giroux, ‘Dumbing Down Teachers’.

^71. Giroux, ‘Bare Pedagogy’, 187.

^72.Bauman, In Search of Politics.

^73. Giroux, Abandoned Generation.

^74.Said, The World, the Text, 4.

^75.Denzin, ‘War on Culture’.

^76. Cf. Andrews, ‘Kinesiology's Inconvenient Truth’; Giardina and Newman, ‘Physical and the Possible’ and Silk and Andrews, ‘Towards a Physical Cultural Studies’.

^77. Brainer, ‘For a Sociology of Sport’.

^78. Denzin, ‘Afterword’, 296.

^79. Ibid., 298 (our emphasis).

^80.Titchkosky, ‘Pedagogic Possibility’.

^81. Denzin, ‘Afterword’.

^82. Ibid.

^83. Ibid.

^84. Ibid.

^85.Brophy and Hladki, ‘Introduction’.

^86. Titchkosky, ‘Pedagogic Possibility’.

^87.Rose, ‘Human Sciences’.

^88. Frow and Morris, ‘Cultural Studies’, 354.

^89.Fine, ‘Working the Hyphens’.

^90. Giroux, ‘Bare Pedagogy’.

^91. Ibid.

^92. Denzin, ‘Afterword’.

^93. Giardina and Newman, ‘Physical and the Possible’.

^94. Ibid.

^95. Ibid. Cf. Bairner, ‘For a Sociology of Sport’.

^96.Pink, ‘From Embodiment to Emplacement’.

^97. Cf. Silk, Bush and Andrews, ‘Contingent Intellectual Amateurism’.

^98. This list is, of course, necessarily abbreviated.

^99.Miller and Ahluwalia, ‘Humanities and Social Sciences’.

^100. Giroux, ‘Democracy's Nemesis’, 691.

^101. Silk, Francombe and Bush are all full-time employees at the University of Bath. Andrews is appointed as a Visiting Professor.

^102. Sparkes, ‘Qualitative Research in Sport’.

^103.Miller, ‘What It Is’, 1 and Evans, ‘Ideational Border Crossings’.

^104. Cf. Andrews, ‘Kinesiology's Inconvenient Truth’; Atkinson, ‘Physical Cultural Studies’; Giardina and Newman, ‘Physical and the Possible’; Silk and Andrews, ‘Towards a Physical Cultural Studies’ and Rich, ‘Pedagogy and Physical Cultural Studies’.

^105.Giroux, ‘Something's Missing’.

^106. Cf. Silk, Bush and Andrews, ‘Contingent Intellectual Amateurism’ for a more detailed account of what we termed, following Said, a contingent intellectual amateurism.

^107. A Higher Education agenda focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects.

^108. Cf. Amis and Silk, ‘Philosophy and Politics’.

^109. In its previous incarnation, the programme was called Coach Education & Sports development. In the period since 2008, we have worked with alumni, current students, employers, external examiners, Visiting Professors and colleagues in other Departments within our Faculty (including Politics, Social Policy Sciences, Health) to re-write and re-structure the entire programme.

^110. This can position philosophers, historians, pedagogues, sociologists, social-psychologists, geographers, cultural theorists within ‘sport’ departments as either ploughing a solitary scholarly furrow or lacking membership of the type of critical mass of likeminded intellectuals that could generate a truly vibrant and productive research culture.

^111. Cf. Reay, Crozier and Clayton, ‘Strangers in Paradise?’.

^112. Cf. Giroux, Abandoned Generation.

^113.Rich, ‘Body Pedagogies, Education and Health’ and ‘Pedagogy and Physical Cultural Studies’.

^114. Fusco, ‘Inscribing Healthification’.

^115.Kincheloe, ‘Describing the Bricolage’.

^116. Giroux, ‘Something's Missing’.

^117. Rose, ‘Human Sciences’, 24.

^118. Giroux, ‘Something's Missing’.

^119.Cote, Day and de Peuter, ‘Utopian Pedagogy’, 317.

^120. Giroux, ‘Bare Pedagogy’.

^121. Denzin, ‘Afterword’, 294.

^122. Hartman and Darab, ‘Call for Slow Scholarship’. We read, with excitement, Simone Fullagers’ recent (6 August 2013) article in the Australian version of The Conversation that calls on us to embrace slow, social and sensuous sporting experiences (in cycling); a counter-movement that compliments our call for a slow sports studies.