Feminist collaborative becomings: an entangled process of knowing through fitness objects

ABSTRACT

This paper details a collaborative journey in which we sought to use new materialist theoretical and post-qualitative approaches to explore the entangled phenomena of women’s moving bodies and fitness objects. In particular, we engaged with Karen Barad’s agential realism to explore the materiality of the sports bra and its material-discursive relationality with women’s bodies, fleshy exertions, and physical forces. In this paper, we outline our improvised process of using new materialist theory to guide our research journey as we moved and lived with lululemon’s Enlite sports bra. We describe the fluid, unscripted nature of this entangled collaborative research process, including visiting a lululemon store together, a seven-month digital dialogue about our experiences of moving with Enlite, and different techniques (i.e., cutting together-apart, moving methods, and creative writing) used to challenge the boundaries of our collaborative knowledge production process. In so doing, we contribute to two key bodies of literature, i) scholarship exploring the onto-epistemological challenges of new materialisms, and ii) a growing body of work by feminist scholars drawing upon new materialisms to examine sporting objects and the fine details of women’s moving bodies. Although some may consider the sports bra to be a trivial object, this paper reveals a feminist politics in rethinking the research process and carefully examining the entangled relations that unfold between women’s moving bodies and everyday fitness objects.

KEYWORDS:

• New materialisms
• Barad
• agential realism
• post-qualitative inquiry
• collaboration
• methodology and research process
• sporting objects
• sports bra

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Canadian-based global activewear company lululemon has played a significant role in the quickly growing women’s activewear industry. The company has been credited as starting the ‘activewear trend’ (Segran 2018), and in 2018 became the fifth highest revenue grossing athletic apparel company (Leading athletic apparel, 2018).

2. We appreciate the contribution of lululemon in donating four Enlite bras to this project.

3. Enlite is made with a brand new Ultralu™ fabric described as ‘soft, smooth, and powerfully supportive’ and with Lycra® fibre added for stretch and recovery.

4. During the research, one of the authors moved overseas. Therefore, our yoga session was conducted using digital technologies (Skype, Youtube).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julie Brice

Julie Brice is a doctoral candidate in Te Huataki Waiora/School of Health at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand. Julie’s research focuses on new materialist theories and conceptual practices regarding women’s embodied experiences of fitness and the athleisure phenomenon.

Marianne Clark

Marianne Clark is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Vitalities Lab at the University of New South Wales (Sydney), Australia. Her research interests include women’s moving bodies, sport and technologies, and women’s health.

Holly Thorpe

Holly Thorpe is Professor in Te Huataki Waiora/School of Health at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Her research interests include the moving body, gender, and women’s health. She continues to find much inspiration in the challenges of working across disciplines, engaging with social theory, and exploring feminist methodologies.