Sport has long been intertwined with the study of human movement in North American post-secondary education. Whereas traditionally, the study of human movement and sport was housed within physical education programs, it is now predominantly offered through kinesiology programs that, more than ever before, align with narrowly defined health sciences. Much like how the Olympics celebrate “faster, higher, stronger” sporting bodies and performances, the current focus of kinesiology as a field of study is increasingly linked to an Olympic-like emphasis on educating students on how to produce “faster, higher, stronger” bodies, optimize performance, and individualizing narratives of health promotion. This intense fixation on functional movement and on narrow conceptualizations of health stands in contrast to kinesiology’s origins as “…the best option in promoting a broad-based disciplinary, professional, and performance approach to the study of physical activity” (Newell, 1990, p. 273). As scholars who study sport from a sociological perspective, we are concerned with these approaches to the study of human movement, as they minimize larger social forces and/or societal structures that impact experience of, access to, and opportunity for physical activity and sport.

The dynamics above are complicated by the postsecondary education landscape in which kinesiology programs operate with dwindling public sector funding, growing corporate influences, and the entrenchment of values that overemphasize individual efforts and competition, to name a few. These forces in part have increased the pressures on academic departments to produce work-ready graduates who respond to current labour trends, including the rise in demand for healthcare sector jobs, as opposed to cultivating critically minded graduates with a breadth and depth of theoretical and practical skills that can address challenges facing our communities. Like others in our field, we are troubled by the reproduction of high-performance sport values (i.e., narrow ways of thinking about what a body should be and do) within kinesiology (i.e., narrow ways of thinking about what a student/scholar should be and do), and raise critical questions about the newly revised Olympic motto “faster, higher, stronger – together” and its influence on both the Olympics and kinesiology.

“Together” on the Olympic Stage

The Olympic motto was revised in July 2021 to “faster, higher, stronger—together”;  a noteworthy change made in order to “recognize the unifying power of sport and the importance of solidarity.”  This overture to the concept of solidarity provides opportunity to further reflect on kinesiology in contemporary higher education as described above.  Despite the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) desire to have nothing distract from the spectacle of the Olympics, the Games always reflect, confront, and operate amid a myriad of complex social issues. This in part has led to many athletes over the years using the spotlight of their participation in the Olympic Games to speak out against oppression. In turn, the IOC has routinely attempted to restrict athletes’ agency and their ability to articulate their political views (see Olympic Charter rule 50).

This places some athletes in an incredibly difficult bind as they grapple with how to express their political viewpoints on the international stage knowing full well the risks they may incur. For example, in 2024, U.S. shot putter Raven Saunders drew attention for their brightly dyed hair, manicured nails, and for wearing a full face-mask and sunglasses while competing. However, in 2021, they were investigated but not punished by the IOC for forming an “X” with their wrists as they held their arms above their head while on the podium—what they described as a representation of “the intersection of where all people who are oppressed meet.” Contrast this with Afghan breakdancer Manizha Tanish who, in the inaugural breakdancing competition in the 2024 Games, ended her routine by wrapping herself in a cape (made from a burqa) bearing the words “Free Afghan Women.” She was immediately disqualified from the competition for her political protest, but expressed no remorse for her actions: “I thought: I’ve got one minute when the whole world’s watching me and I thought, what’s more important, my dream, my life, or women in Afghanistan? I didn’t go there to win, that doesn’t matter to me.”

The hypocrisy of the new Olympic motto is not lost on us. IOC President Bach stated in a press release that: “Solidarity fuels our mission to make the world a better place through sport. We can only go faster, we can only aim higher, we can only become stronger by standing together — in solidarity.” However, as shown by the IOC’s own actions, acceptable acts of solidarity are those that narrowly conform to the IOC’s aims and interests. As journalist Shireen Ahmed notes in her analysis of the absurdity of Talash’s disqualification during a Games that professed a commitment to gender parity: “Either you support women in all their entities or you don’t.”

“Solidarity” in Kinesiology?

As a group of scholars who are working in one Canadian kinesiology program, we draw on these Olympic moments as parallels to what we see as pressures on kinesiology to conform to and reproduce narrowly defined understandings of movement and health and to support a political state project aimed at producing work-ready graduates rather than thought leaders of the future. As a part of a larger study that we conducted examining Canadian kinesiology programs, we interviewed academic leaders in kinesiology who routinely pointed to their need to demonstrate the value of their programs in providing work-integrated learning and experiential education opportunities, and to “demonstrate [their] post graduate success [rate] and that there is opportunities and job placements [for students].” In our interviews with kinesiology students, they defined the discipline singularly in bioscientific ways (physiology, anatomy, biomechanics, etc.) and spoke about how they saw kinesiology exclusively as a stepping stone to a future career in healthcare. Whereas our student participants were aware that the study of human movement also required some awareness of historical and sociological forces and structures—including those that work to exclude people and diminish solidarity against injustice—they focused on what they perceived as kinesiology’s unparalleled ability to make them higher, faster, and stronger in their future careers.

The question before us, as members of the kinesiology higher education community, centres on how do we push back against the narrowing of possibilities for students and scholars in our programs. How do we ensure that our students are able to secure meaningful careers for themselves, while also appreciating and protecting themselves as part of local-to-global communities with capacity, if not responsibility, to care for collective interests and identities? Stimulating such awareness and expression runs counter to the mindset that positions both the individual’s and nation’s economic success as dependent upon the protection and stimulation of the marketplace at all costs. One way we see this happening is by creating space for students, staff, and faculty to connect and voice concerns regarding work in a constantly changing healthcare labour market and to think through possible solutions together. In essence, perhaps the best way to promote community and collective action is to start in the very departments and academic units within which we find ourselves located.

Author Biographical Notes:

Parissa Safai, PhD, is Full Professor and Chair of Kinesiology and Health Science at York University. Her academic interests and expertise include: sociology of sport, health and medicine; risk and risk-taking in sport; sport and social inequality.

Alixandra Krahn, PhD, is a Post-Doctoral Visitor in Kinesiology and Health Science at York University. Her academic interests and expertise include: sociology of sport and sport coaching; sport coaching-gender-work nexus; sport, inequity and social change.

Yuka Nakamura, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Kinesiology and Health Science at York University.
Academic interests and expertise: sociology of sport; intersecting oppressions; diaspora, belonging, and community.

Elite sport, especially on display at large-scale televised events, can provide a site for social and political messaging, including in the form of support, dissent, or opposition. One of the most iconic examples of dissent occurred at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics when successful US athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith, supported by Australian silver medal winner Peter Norman, took a symbolic stand against the deep and pervasive oppression of African Americans.  In more recent times, and in the wake of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, around Europe some sports stadiums witnessed fans flying Ukrainian flags: representing condemnation of Russia and support for Ukraine.

Recognition of the wider history and presence of social, political, and ideological messaging in sport provides context for reflection on supporters of Celtic Football Club in Scotland, and their decades long practice of flying Palestinian flags, referencing the ongoing conflict involving Palestinians and the Israeli state. The low-level activism of these supporters, who although living over 4000 kilometres away and having no historical or contemporary religious or ethnic connection to any of the main communities or nationalities in Palestine, intends to offer symbolic, moral, and political backing for the Palestinian people. However, in the context of recent European history, it is worth asking whether this support for Palestinians also entails antisemitism.

Generally, research demonstrates the widespread contemporary presence of anti-Jewish hostility, antagonism, and racism in sport in numerous countries. Social science researcher Emma Poulton, who has written on soccer fan cultures, has noted various nuances with regard to what constitutes antisemitism. In this light, in considering the pro-Palestinian political activism of Celtic supporters and the possible corresponding presence of antisemitism in Scottish football, my recent research demonstrates the complexity of antisemitism, real or imagined, as well as its potential to be used as a political tool in relation to the current conflict in the Middle East.

Having previously researched and written about nationalism and ethno-religious identities in and around football in Scotland, a year prior to the recent demoralising escalation of the Middle Eastern conflict, I conducted a small-scale qualitative styled survey amongst Celtic supporters to gain insight regarding Palestinian flags and the noted potential antisemitism. Thirty-one responses were constituted by 23 men and 8 women. The ages of respondents included two under 25, six aged 26-39, and 23 over age 40. Around half of Celtic fans completing the survey held professional occupations and approximately two thirds were season ticket holders. Initially, with a view to building understanding and knowledge about these topics, respondents were asked to rank which ethnic and religious groups generally in Scotland they thought faced most hostility. In the context of avoiding reference to British/Scottish Protestants and immigrant Irish descended Catholics—a relevant significant historical and contemporary reference there—Muslims (45%), Pakistanis (23%), and English (16%) constituted most responses. Two-thirds of Pakistanis in Scotland are Muslim and Celtic respondents see this group of Pakistanis and Muslims (at 77,000/1.4% of the population and of similar size to Jews) as subject to what they believe as the most expressed ethno-religious hostility and prejudice.

The main rationale for this enquiry was to focus on perceptions of Jews and the state of Israel, and to see if these are inextricably linked or in some way distinct in the eyes of supporters. Celtic followers’ responses indicated a clear majority stating they were ‘emotionally and morally sympathetic with respect to Jewish people’s historical oppression and suffering’.  Only 7% said they were not sympathetic, 25% were generally sympathetic, and 68% said they were ‘strongly’ sympathetic. Relatedly, participants were also asked if they thought it possible to distinguish between the oppression of Jewish people in recent European history and the modern Israeli State. All but one answered ‘yes’ to this question with 80% stating ‘yes strongly’.

Fans were invited to express which side they believed was primarily/mostly responsible for the conflict in terms of Israelis and Palestinians. Only one person said both were equally to blame, with all others stating the Israeli State was culpable. One respondent said in a caveat, ‘If you go deeper into the origins of the conflict, you could assert that other players are responsible e.g. the UK in helping to establish the State [of Israel]’. Celtic supporters were asked if they agreed or disagreed with flying—sometimes hundreds—of Palestinian flags at Celtic games. A definitive nine out of ten said they agreed.

Celtic supporters were also asked about antisemitism. Their answers demonstrated a perception of this as constituting ‘discrimination, hate and hostility’ against people that are Jewish and/or have the Jewish faith as part of their socio-cultural and religious identities.

Eighty-eight percent of respondents also agreed with the statement that ‘the Israeli State is oppressing the Palestinian people and breaking much international law’. Such understanding of which ethno-religious community is being persecuted in this conflict provides for most supporters the rationale for flying Palestinian flags at Celtic games.

For around three decades some, and occasionally many, Palestinian flags have flown amongst Celtic FC supporters. Other than at Celtic, recurrently, collectively, and conspicuously, the activism involved in exhibiting these flags does not happen amongst fans at any other elite football club in Britain. That this occurs at Celtic can only be understood in the context of the Irish-Catholic immigrant ethno-religious origins, nature, and socio-political culture of much of the historical and traditional Celtic support.

This research reveals and highlights Celtic supporters’ backing for the perceived plight of Palestinians, seen as being economically, socially, culturally, religiously, politically, and militarily oppressed by the State of Israel. These views are dominant within the group surveyed and by many other Celtic fans via their stated or unstated attitudes and actions in actively, passively backing, or at least not contesting, their fellow supporters flag flying. This was spectacularly demonstrated when in response to a UEFA fine for the club, because fans flew the Palestinian flag at a 2016 European Champions League match, many supporters responded by raising much more than the actual UEFA fine, which was donated to Palestinian charitable, cultural, and sports projects.

Revealingly, surveyed fans do not equate opposing the plight of the Palestinians as being against Jewish people or the Jewish faith. For them, standing up for Palestinians is not antisemitic. Based on support for fans flying the Palestinian flag, the thoughts and words expressed through answers to the survey, and further substantiated by other fan authored writings, Celtic supporters do not conflate antisemitism with criticism of the State of Israel. Indeed, they are more likely to actively express disassociation of one from the other. In the eyes of Celtic supporters, what they have clearly and profoundly opposed, and demonstrated this over at least the past three decades, is the eradication of tens of thousands of Palestinian lives, and millions of others rendered disabled, starving, landless, and homeless, in this desperate and despairing conflict.

Author Biographical Note:

Dr. Joseph M. Bradley is an Associate Tutor and researcher at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. He has authored, joint authored, and edited several books, and written numerous journal and newspaper articles on sports connections with ethnic, national and religious identities, prejudice and post-colonial relationships.

In 2024, the Rubik’s Cube, the puzzle invented by the Hungarian professor of architecture Ernő Rubik, celebrates its 50th anniversary. We would like to take this opportunity to discuss how important Rubik’s invention has been to humanity. It is estimated that approximately one in seven people in the world have at least attempted to solve the Rubik`s Cube. This amounts to over a billion people. Rubik himself writes in his biography, Cubed: The Puzzle of Us All, that the cube can bring out important qualities in each of us that are central to utilizing our creative potential, such as sharpening concentration, arousing curiosity, and activating the eagerness to discover solutions. The Rubik’s Cube has received attention in many different fields since its invention, including art, science, pedagogy, technology, politics, and philosophy. Not only that, the Rubik’s Cube has led to the creation of a new sport: speedcubing.

Speedcubing is about solving different types of cubes as quickly as possible. Like chess, speedcubing is usually considered more of a mental activity. While the International Olympic Committee (IOC) classifies chess as a sport, despite its relative lack of physical exertion, speedcubing has not been officially classified as a sport yet. At the same time, speedcubing requires physical skills, including hand-eye coordination, muscle memory, and fine motor skills. The fastest speedcubers recognize numerous patterns, know hundreds of algorithms, and are lightning fast with their fingers. The journalist and speedcuber Ian Scheffler suggests in his book, Cracking the Cube, that one can imagine chess being played at the speed of table tennis. Since 2004, the World Cube Association (WCA), the international governing body for speedcubing, has organized competitions worldwide, with over 1,000 cube competitions and Continental Championships annually and a World Championship every two years. Such factors lead us to suggest that speedcubing is quite similar to many other activities that are regarded as sport.

The Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sports published a report in 2023 that was based on a literature review in addition to surveys and interviews. The report showed that although organized sport is a good arena for inclusion, barriers to gender balance and equality can be a challenge, and racism, discrimination, and harassment occur in competitive sport, particularly towards LGBT+ people, people with a minority background, disabilities, and female athletes. Associate professor at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Kristin Vindhol Evensen, writes that the logic of competitive sport is based on categorization into gender, class, weight, age, and performance level, and thus implies resistance to, for example, physical difference, where physically imperfect people are presented as deviations from the norm. Here, the cube community has something unique to offer, as it stands for an inclusive, appreciative, and mutually supportive society consisting of people of all ages and shapes, without any form of division or prioritization of the fastest. Anyone who can solve the cube can participate, regardless of age, gender, culture, sexual orientation, nationality, or any disabilities. At cube competitions, a 55-year-old sits next to a 9-year-old, a girl from Germany next to a boy from Norway, a world record holder next to a beginner, a youth with autism next to another with social anxiety. Here, everyone is equal and no one is too old to participate or is excluded for other reasons.

In a survey we conducted among Norwegian speedcubers of all ages, the participants answered that they feel very much included and belonging to a supportive community that promotes coping, enjoyment of sport, acknowledgement, and respect for each other. All age groups described that through participation in cubing competitions, they became more aware that we are all unique and equally valuable even though we have different strengths. The community of cubing competitions made it possible for the participants to be themselves, dare to show their skills, and feel good about themselves.

There is no reason to believe that Norway is unique in this context. Filmmaker Sue Kim, the director of the documentary, The Speed ​​Cubers, aptly sums up the speedcubing community in an interview with Deadline: “It’s exactly as you see in the film, in that all the kids and adults are so incredibly kind and decent to each other, and the level of sportsmanship and just goodwill, I’ve never seen. I’ve never stumbled across a universe so decent and wholesome and pure.” The documentary shows the friendship between Feliks Zemdegs and Max Park, the world’s fastest cubers. Max was diagnosed with autism at a young age. The film shows his journey from being a small child with motor skill issues and little social interaction, to becoming a world champion who, along the way, both makes friends and learns to deal with stress, disappointment, social codes, and many stimuli around him.

While practitioners of other competitive sports often train several times a week with friends or teammates, speedcubers can be quite alone when cubing. In our survey, 2 out of 3 answered that they did not know anyone or only 1-2 others who cubed in their immediate environment. A large international survey came to an almost identical result. In our survey, all age groups confirmed that cube competitions give them the opportunity to get to know other people who share the same interest, and the competitions became an arena where they can build new friendships. We therefore assume that speedcubers try to take care of the community to a greater extent than some other sports because one is quite alone when speedcubing in everyday life. The social gathering at such competitions can thus become something that participants want to protect. As Sue Kim says in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, once you’re a part of that universe, you’re not going to do anything to damage it.

Another reason for the unique speedcubing community may be the environment’s large age range. Most participants are younger than age 15, where the focus is more on having fun. At the same time, young adult and adult speedcubers take responsibility for ensuring that the youngest can have positive experiences. Although speedcubing is a competitive sport, acknowledgment and friendship count more than competition and victory. In our survey, the participants answered that participation in cube competitions largely teaches them to acknowledge other participants rather than seeing them as opponents. Certain value carriers with good attitudes can then have a greater impact on the overall environment. The large age range can thus contribute to mutual regulation, where children affect the adult speedcubers with their playfulness and joy, while the adults take responsibility of protecting the community where everyone should have good experiences.

Admittedly, speedcubing is a competitive sport. Journalist Ian Scheffler writes in his book that the fastest speedcubers are highly competitive. At the same time, he also highlights the welcoming and supportive community the cube environment offers. For most, the goal is not to be the best, but to improve from the previous competition. Speedcubing can then be considered more like a competition against oneself to push one’s own time, while at the same time cheering rather than competing against each other.

Some of the most important features of sport are joy, coping, and well-being—not medals. In line with this, we think that the most important transfer value speedcubing has to other sports is to show how an active emphasis on joy, well-being, and development means that the performance culture does not become overpowering. Such an emphasis can help to create an environment where everyone takes care of each other, feels welcome, and is given the opportunity to develop at their own pace. Ensuring inclusion and preventing exclusion is an important societal mission to promote public health and maintain a functional society. We always have to ask ourselves: What kind of society do we want to live in and how can we contribute to it? Perhaps the speedcubing community can be an inspiration for how we meet and value each other, not only in sport, but also in everyday life in general.

This article is a shortened and slightly rewritten version of Speedcubing’s contribution to an inclusive society. Published with approval from the Norwegian Journal for Health Promotion and Drug Prevention Work.

Author Biographical Notes:

Jan Hammer is a Clinical Nurse Specialist with a master’s degree in mental healthcare from the University of South-Eastern Norway. He has previously worked as a mental health nurse at acute inpatient wards, and later as an R&D advisor and special advisor with experience in project management, research, implementation and evaluation. He lectures on topics related to mental healthcare and has written scientific articles, book chapters, and reports. Hammer was active in competitive sports at national and international levels in his youth and started speedcubing in autumn 2022.

Jan Tore Skjørshammer has his education from the University of Stavanger and University of Bergen within human resource management, social science, and law. He has been a Human Resource manager for more than 20 years. Skjørshammer started speedcubing in 2022.

Trond Kyrre Simensen is a police superintendent with a master’s degree in police science. He works as a lecturer at the Norwegian Police University College. His main topics are crime prevention and work ethics. He has been the co-writer of several book chapters and scientific articles. Simensen started speedcubing in 2024.

Traditional Indigenous canoes alongside dragon boats at the 2013 All Nations Canoe Gathering, on the unceded Sen̓áḵw waterways (False Creek, Vancouver, BC) (“Canoe-0104” photo by Rey Torres, granted special permission for non-commercial use)

The #LANDBACK campaign across Turtle Island is a movement organized to get Indigenous Lands back into Indigenous hands and governance. It is an active, sociopolitical, “Indigenous-led movement” that resists settler colonialism. In some ways, #LANDBACK also resists political and legal tools, such as the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius, used to justify claims of land “discovered” along water routes. While the former doctrine claims that a “discoverer” could take possession of land if it was deemed as “discovered,” British colonialists used terra nullius (land belonging to no one) to justify claiming, renaming, and settling, as they understood their relationship to “vacant land” as ownership.

The perception of land or Land differs depending on whether one uses a colonial definition or Indigenous understanding. In Pollution is Colonialism, Dr. Max Liboiron refers to small l-land as the colonial perspective that generalizes and universalizes land as property and resource. In this colonial perspective, Tuck and Yang explain that “human relationships to land are restricted” to those owning land. In contrast, capitalized L-Land is the “unique entity that is the combined living spirit of plants, animals, air, water, humans, histories, and events recognized by many Indigenous communities.” An understanding of identities, responsibilities, and “reciprocity” occurs when Land is seen in relation to humans.

Within the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (TRC) 94 Calls to Actions, four (45i, 46ii, 47, & 49) call upon Canadians to reject both doctrines and the ways they continue to show up within the spaces where they work, play, and live. Sport sociologists continue discussing the environmental and ecological impacts of sporting equipment and events, as well as how sport normalizes settler colonial ideas of space and place. Some, like Dr. Victoria Paraschak, have answered the TRC’s 5 sport calls to action (87, 88, 89, 90, & 91). While responding to such calls to action is valuable, sport scholars and athletes should also consider the ways in which terra nullius continues to operate within and around sports. However, there remains a specific group of sports missing in these conversations because we store our equipment on land spaces but our place of play or competition is not on the land. What about sports that compete on the water?

Unceded (Stolen) Waterways

While the tangibility of land allows us to see the impact of colonialism via buildings and colonial monuments, the fluid nature of water makes the ongoing effects of colonialism less visible. Dr. Virginia Marshall refers to the aqua nullius as the “myth” that water belonged to no one before “British colonial settlement” to justify their governance of waterways while also denying the existence of Indigenous people’s own water governance principles and knowledge. As Dr. Michelle Daigle explains, water is political and the “colonial capitalist dispossession of water also dispossess Indigenous peoples.” Preventing or limiting access to water erases culture, language, and knowledge passed down through traditional activities with water, such as fostering community ties, fishing, the art of building canoes, and dance. Given this ongoing injustice, how might watersport athletes, organizations, and governing bodies respond to the TRC’s Calls to Action?

Your Waveprint

I offer the concept waveprint to understand and reflect on the complexity of relationships and responsibilities we have above, on, below, and to Water. Guided by Dr. Liboiron’s capital L-Land, I use W-Water to define waveprint as the unnoticeable social, cultural, political, and biological imprint(s) to bodies of Water made by an individual, group, and/or human-made watercraft. While the concept of a carbon footprint can help us visualize environmental impacts, it was not designed to reflect the ongoing sociocultural impacts of settler colonialism. The waveprint, meanwhile, is an invitation to ask questions, such as how can watersports like rowing, kayaking, surfing, sailing, paddle boarding, and dragon boat racing be aware of their responsibilities to Water, marine life, and to Indigenous Peoples.

The TRC references access to clean and safe water as well as water access for ceremonies and cultural vitality of Indigenous communities; thus, the waveprint offers a broader way of understanding the relations between humans and Water. Just as ripples return to stillness after something connects with Water, the waveprint is also meant to be a returning promise to take action and care, as we begin to understand how aqua nullius operates through watersports.

The Waveprint of Watersports in Sen̓áḵw (False Creek, Vancouver, BC)

On September 17, 2013, the All Nations Canoe Gathering began Reconciliation week on the unceded waterways of Sen̓áḵw, where 60 traditional canoes, dragon boats, and other vessels welcomed Indigenous Peoples and Canadians to Coast Salish Lands. Indian Residential School survivors paddled in their canoes for recognition and honor as “the canoe movement signifies the resurgence of songs, dances, names, language and teachings.” However, you’re more likely to know about the activities of the paddling and rowing community including dragon boat, waka ama, va’a, surfski, sprint canoe and kayaks, and marathon canoes. These groups follow the rules set by the following governing structures, including the City of Vancouver, Vancouver Park Board, Vancouver Police Department Marine Unit, Vancouver Fire Rescue Services, Port of Vancouver, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Transport Canada, Coast Guard Canada, and Vancouver Coastal Health. They advise monitoring and reporting concerns “about safety, pollution, and mobility” such as abandoned boats, oil and sewage spills, and suspicions of “illicit activity” to protect the water.

But as Anishinabek Chief Water Commissioner, Autumn Peltier says, “whole ecosystems depend on water and the chain reaction effect [of our watersports too] will happen if water is not protected and slowly things will die.” Public reporting becomes a form of policing who can and cannot access the water, so that on Water sports and activities can continue in Sen̓áḵw. The objects that allow us to be on the water, such as faster and lighter boats made of fibre glass and equipment made out of carbon fibre, reflect above Water. As our sports’ equipment enters the water, we directly impact the marine ecosystem below Water. If False Creek’s June 20, 2024 sewage spill can lead the community to advocate for “safe [water] access for its thousands of users,” then they must also advocate for the same water access for Indigenous communities. Y(our) actions are interconnected to the relationships to Water #beyondthesport. As Stó:lō Nation’s knowledge keeper, Lee Maracle, wrote in Goodbye Snauq, “there is hope in irony.”

Y(our) Waveprint

We have to be honest and realize that most commercialized, modern day versions of watersports in Canada have a responsibility to the TRC’s calls to action. In 1992, Indigenous Meriam successfully overturned terra nullius in Australia. The Canadian Supreme Court denied the use of terra nullius but acknowledged use of discovery in 2012. Therefore, aqua nullius remains very present and active in watersports because all waterways are unceded. My hope is that the waveprint helps others reflect, have conversations, and act on y(our) responsibilities to Water beyond your boat, board, and sport. Here are some starting questions to ask yourself:

• Is your paddle environmentally sustainable and friendly?
• The next time you’re racing, think about the marine life underneath: do you know who’s there?
• Did your race/regatta have a Land acknowledgement? What could a Water acknowledgement look like if traditional canoes led watersports’ opening ceremonies?
• Most importantly, where, how, and can Indigenous communities access, foster culture, and govern their waterways in the same capacity watersports allow us to?

Indigenous Peoples are the Water’s first users, guardians, and knowledge keepers, and returning water governance of unceded waterways is also #LANDBACK.

Author Biographical Note:

Miruthula/மிருதுளா Queen Anbu is a South Asian master’s student whose people are known as the ones that return from the sea. Currently, she is completing her master’s from Queen’s University (situated on the traditional and ancestral homelands and waters of the Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, and Anishinaabek), on the lesser known part of dragon boat racing’s history in Canada are the stories connected to helping address the racial tensions faced by the Chinese-Canadian community, through the sport itself. Her MA thesis is a community storytelling project that (re)visits the cultural and social importance of dragon boat racing to Chinese-Canadians; amplifies their voices and contributions to dragon boat history and Canadian sport history; and informs future ways the sport can support the community in the face of post-Covid-19 anti-East Asian racism. Her research interests broadly focus on sport and social justice, settler colonialism, decoloniality, and anti-racism, with a specific focus on watersports, Indigenous sovereignty, and intercultural relations fostered through human-powered water vessels. You can follow her on X @frndlynghbrhdsc or Instagram @friendllyneighbourhoodscholar.

Skateboarding has boomed globally over the last decade, and researchers have been quick to examine how intersecting social markers like race, gender, and age can influence people’s participation in this action sport. Yet, little research has considered disabled people’s participation in skateboarding and adaptive action sports, such as wheelchair motocross (WCMX), despite increased uptake among disabled people. Considering this gap, I explored the emerging adaptive action sports of skateboarding and WCMX.

Adaptive skateboarding is a term used to encapsulate different forms of riding. While some riders make modifications to their sporting equipment or environments to facilitate independent participation for a disabled person, some riders make no modifications. Like skateboarding in general, adaptive skateboarding has grown in popularity. In fact, adaptive skateboarding events are now included in both the X Games and Dew Tour, and an adaptive skateboarding demo was recently showcased at the Street League Skateboarding international tournament series in Paris. In addition to these competitions, adaptive skateboarding programs, like the Skate Bats and Rad Skate School, have blossomed and illustrate a growth and interest in the sport and its potential.

WCMX fits loosely under the umbrella of adaptive skateboarding. In WCMX, participants perform tricks and stunts adapted from bicycle motocross (BMX) and skateboarding in customised wheelchairs. The sport was first development by Aaron “Wheelz” Fotheringham in the early 2000s and has since grown in popularity. While WCMX riders often compete alongside adaptive skateboarders, participants widely consider WCMX to be its own distinct sport, unique from skateboarding and BMX. In fact, separate WCMX World Championships exist, and a separate WCMX exhibition event was included at Dew Tour in 2022. Like adaptive skateboarding, WCMX programs like SIT‘N’SKATE and WCMX Great Britain have emerged in recent years.

The growth and popularity of both adaptive skateboarding and WCMX have even sparked conversations about these adaptive action sports being included in the Paralympic Games. Indeed, this inclusion could be monumental for the sports and disabled people. However, in my research, I was less concerned about the Paralympic potential of these sports and instead interested in learning about disabled riders’ experiences in these sports and the wider action sport community.

Using qualitative interviews, I spoke with 30 disabled riders from eight different nations. Twenty participants identified as adaptive skateboarders, nine identified as WCMX riders, and one identified as a wheelchair boarder (who attached their wheelchair to the top of an electric longboard). Impairments varied and included caudal regression syndrome, cerebral palsy, limb difference, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, spina bifida, spinal cord injuries, and visual impairments. Interviews gleaned insight into disabled riders’ experiences with these adaptive action sports while also drawing attention to some of the challenges they encountered. In what follows, I detail some of the key findings that developed from this work.

In general, disabled riders reported positive experiences participating in adaptive skateboarding and WCMX, noting how they felt included in the wider action sport community. Disabled riders noted how participation in the sports can not only enhance one’s physical and mental health but also provide a greater sense of community, belonging, and identity. Moreover, findings highlighted how participation in adaptive skateboarding and WCMX may be used to challenge the stigma and negative social perceptions about disability.

Against this potential, however, findings also highlighted how economic, material, and sociocultural forces may impact disabled riders’ participation in adaptive skateboarding, WCMX, and the wider action sport community. Though academics have touted skateboarding as being a “relatively cheap sport” to participate in, discussions with disabled riders illustrated a different narrative and outlined how both sports can be expensive, which presents participation barriers. Disabled skateboarders noted how the costs of skateboarding equipment (i.e., boards, shoes, and protective gear) and the constant need to replace this equipment can be costly and influence their participation. Financial constraints were even greater for WCMX riders who noted how WCMX chairs can cost between $6,000 and $15,000USD. Thus, significant economic constraints exist for those wanting to participate. Such economic barriers are particularly pressing when you consider that these costs are often not covered by insurance and that, on average, disabled people make less and are given fewer employment opportunities than those without disabilities.

Findings also illustrated how material barriers, such as inaccessible skatepark designs, can influence the extent to which disabled riders participate in certain sporting spaces. Though disabled riders recognised the difficulties of creating accessible skateparks “for all riders,” many acknowledged the importance of having accessible pathways to and from skateparks and the importance of having accessible amenities like washrooms, water fountains, and hangout areas in these built environments. According to participants, these pathways and amenities may not only allow greater access to disabled park users but may also allow greater access to disabled individuals from the community who may want to engage with these spaces.

Conversations with disabled riders also detailed how gender may influence riders’ participation in adaptive skateboarding, WCMX, and the wider action sport community. Disabled women riders noted how, although they felt supported by adaptive riders and able-bodied skateboarders, they tended to receive less recognition, support, and opportunities than disabled male riders. One reason for this lack of support, according to disabled women riders, could be the dominant gender ideologies that circulate in the skateboarding world that frame girls and women as “not as impressive,” “skilled,” or “willing to take risks” as boys and men. However, another reason for this gender discrepancy, according to participants, could be because most positions of power in the action sport landscape (i.e., owners, board members, judges, and media personnel) are occupied by able-bodied men, who may not have full understandings about disability or gender, which, in turn, could shape and fuel who is prioritised and given more opportunities within the skateboarding and action sport worlds.

As this work has highlighted, adaptive skateboarding and WCMX offer a huge untapped potential for disabled people, disability sport, and action sports. Regardless of whether adaptive skateboarding and WCMX enter the Paralympic Games, disabled people will continue to participate in adaptive action sports. Therefore, it is important for academics, participants, stakeholders, disability sport organisers, and those from the action sport industry to consider and actively address how to make these sports, their sporting spaces, and the wider action sport industry more inclusive and welcoming to all riders. While potential remedies could include increased funding, consultations with disabled people throughout the planning and design process of skateparks, or carving out space, opportunities, and leadership positions for disabled girls and women riders, there are numerous ways that these adaptive action sports can be made more inclusive to different riders and riding styles.

Author Biographical Note:

Nikolaus A. Dean is a postdoctoral research fellow in Te Kura Aronui School of Social Sciences at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, Aotearoa (New Zealand). Nikolaus’s research interests lie in the sociology of sport where he uses (digital) qualitative methods and critical social theories to explore topics related to disability, pain, injury, and risk in action sports. His current research is exploring the “push” for adaptive skateboarding and WCMX to join the Paralympic Games.

Funding:

This article draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

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“…you begin to see how it’s all connected and the importance that we give these opportunities for Indigenous youth and Indigenous girls to be our future” ~Ryan Francis

On lands claimed by Canada, the ongoing project of settler colonialism targets Indigenous lives, languages, ways of knowing, connections to territory, and more. Settler colonialism is the claiming of lands already occupied by Indigenous peoples for the purposes of building wealth. It involves destroying Indigenous institutions and ways of knowing, while building what Daniel Heath Justice calls a “new social order” that is geared toward eliminating Indigenous peoples as Indigenous peoples. The violences of settler colonialism in the Canadian context include, for example, the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and how anti-Indigenous racism is embedded in institutions such as child welfare, the justice system, and higher education. As Tuck and Yang highlight, the violence of settler colonial invasion “is not temporally contained in the arrival of the settler but is reasserted each day of occupation.”

One vital part of the destruction referred to above is that the settler state attacks Indigenous systems of gender and perpetuates Euro-Western gender structures. As Tricia McGuire-Adams asserts, “As a result of Indigenous women’s connection to land… [they] are seen as credible threats to ongoing settler entitlement to Indigenous territories and are actively targeted for silence, and even death.”

Sport and recreation constitute vital spaces of both settler colonial violence and, importantly, of Indigenous strength, resurgence, and world-building. In this entry, I center and value Indigenous strength, vitality, and resistance as I engage with the Indigenous Girls Hockey Program (IGHP) and Indigenous Girls Hockey Jamboree (IGHJ) as vital world-building projects in the face of gendered colonial violence. Ryan Francis, founder of both initiatives, is a Mi’kmaq hockey organizer and coach with experience as both a player and coach of competitive hockey, including formative experiences at the National Aboriginal Hockey Championships. Francis is also the creator of the Genevieve Francis Memorial Fund, initiated in honour of his late Grandmother to support opportunities for Indigenous girls and women to participate in sport and recreation and to draw awareness to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. I draw here on a life history interview with Francis to consider the importance of the IGHP and IGHJ.

In recent years, a body of literature on Indigenous hockey has flourished as researchers have taken up the ways mainstream hockey is structured by and reproduces the violences of settler colonialism and how Indigenous peoples, teams, organizations, and Nations have negotiated, resisted and refused these violences. Building on this work, I focus here on a vital grassroots initiative in the context of girls’ and women’s hockey in order to contribute to emerging conversations about the intertwining of settler colonialism, gender, and sport and physical culture.

The IGHP and IGHJ are two related initiatives offered in Mi’kma’ki, on lands claimed by Nova Scotia (IGHP) and the Maritime Provinces of Canada (IGHJ). A key aim of both programs is to marshal “the power of being able to experience hockey with your peers” (Francis), something rarely available to Indigenous girls and women, especially. Both initiatives are hockey-centered and both – and particularly the IGHJ – build in specific programming (e.g., ceremony, Mi’kmaq crafts, language acquisition initiatives) to (re)forge connections between Mi’kmaq girls and their lands, language, and culture, vital acts of world-building. It is a program guided, in Francis’ words, by the ethos to “do hockey different.” Francis expands on this idea, noting: “This can’t just be a program that gets Indigenous women and girls in mainstream hockey. It’s gotta be something that lets them navigate their journey of hockey on their terms, it’s gotta be responsive to what that needs to be.”

The IGHP has been offered in four different Mi’kmaq Nations. As Francis has explained it, this is not a program that organizers simply take into these Nations. Rather, organizers ascertain the key needs and barriers at both the community and participant levels, then work to remove those barriers to participation. As Francis explains, this centers “the diversity of Indigenous people from person to person, …recognizing that barriers from one participant might not be a barrier for another, but removing it entirely allows the program to be fully accessible (which requires trust in the community to not take advantage of the program, which mainstream sport really struggles with).”

In addition, the program explicitly works to build capacity among Indigenous girls and women, recruiting them to be on-ice leaders in the program, focusing, in Francis’ words, “on the reduction of potential barriers [its] leadership might face. Things like providing equipment if needed, honorariums (a very rare practice in privileged volunteer-driven mainstream sport) all contribute to further validation/commitment to our leaders that they indeed do belong in this space.”

What the work of Francis’ team powerfully illustrates is a refusal of the dominant logics of hockey and of youth sport generally. In a moment in which we see leagues and elite sport schools charging extraordinary fees and promising improved odds of “making it” at the college and professional levels, youth sport is often accessible only to those with sufficient financial and social capital. In this context, Francis and the other leaders of the IGHP and IGHJ are, indeed, doing hockey differently.

Doing hockey differently is a radical act in settler Canada. Heralded as “Canada’s game,” ice hockey (men’s elite hockey in particular) is celebrated as the most Canadian of pastimes, and becomes part of the process Moss Norman and colleagues identify, wherein hockey serves as a “site of Canadian nation-making, where ongoing embodied acts of settler occupation in the game serve to naturalize settler belonging on, and entitlement to, the land.” The IGHP, then, both refuses the particular articulations of belonging so deeply embedded in mainstream hockey spaces and acts as a vital space in which organizers support and foster belonging, connections to culture and language, and generative forms of embodiment and subjectivity for Mi’kmaq girls and young women. Together, these initiatives are working toward answering the provocative question posed by Dallas Hunt: “If futures are not circumscribed by the parameters of settler colonialism, where, in fact, will we go?”

Author Biographical Note:

Jason (Jay) Laurendeau is a white, cisgender, settler scholar in the Department of Sociology at the University of Lethbridge, in Lethbridge, Alberta, located on lands of the Siksikaitsitapii people, who are part of the Blackfoot Confederacy. His research interests lie at the intersections of sport and physical culture, gender, settler colonialism, and childhood. He is the author of Sport, Physical Activity, and Anti-Colonial Autoethnography: Stories and Ways of Being.

Most brands, especially those that generate more than $100 million in annual revenue, don’t begin with a story about vomit. Yet, according to CrossFit, Inc. founder and former CEO Greg Glassman, the “eureka moment” of his now astronomically popular fitness program began just like that—with a teenage Glassman, having subjected himself to a grueling combination of barbell push presses and pull-ups, barfing on his garage floor. At the center of CrossFit’s origin story and its subsequent success is the human body at its most beautiful, its most playful, and its most grotesque. Indeed, in a previous article in Engaging Sports, Matt Crockett and Ted Butryn compellingly argue how CrossFit expresses a collective anxiety surrounding how our bodies atrophy in increasingly sedentary workplaces.

Other studies have examined the cultural and discursive dimensions of CrossFit in a similar vein—how Glassman’s business model, exercise regime, and community speak to the particular character of our times. Especially suggestive analyses describe CrossFit’s focus on individualism, competition, and self-sufficiency. These studies characterize the sport and its community as exemplary of what political theorist Wendy Brown refers to as the biopolitical imperative of “responsibilization,” whereby individuals are impelled to maintain and advance their own human capital via activities involving hygiene, self-care, and education. We are all entrepreneurial beings, hoping to maximize our human capital vis-à-vis market imperatives.

Yet, still understudied is one of CrossFit’s most palpable elements—its willingness to laugh at itself: the laughable team names, the multicolored socks, and the endless complaints about workouts. Given that humor, whimsy, and ironic self-awareness are central elements to our historical moment (a period evocatively labeled by some as “late capitalism”), it is surprising that such factors have been largely ignored in research on CrossFit. Dating to roughly the year 2000, Glassman’s now famous exercise routine has been around for almost a quarter of a century. But the emotions, celebrations, and jokes associated with CrossFit largely remain overlooked.

As an avid CrossFitter but also a scholar, my perspective on the sport is somewhat unique: informed by literary criticism, cultural studies, and critical theory. Specifically, I propose that Mikael Bahktin’s concept of the carnivalesque, as it is detailed in Rabelais and His World, serves as an ambitious and accurate toolkit with which to understand CrossFit. Born in Russia, Bahktin (1895-1975) was a philosopher and literary theorist who has had wide-ranging influence on various forms of cultural analyses—especially academic disciplines like communication studies, linguistics, and sociology. In Rableis and His World, Bakhtin forwards a notion of the “carnival” as joyfully ribald, profoundly democratic and ultimately, transformative. During a celebration, time stops, identities are upended, and social hierarchies are, at least for a fleeting moment, overturned. Like CrossFit, these carnivals are meant to include everyone. Bahktin explains:

Carnival does not know footlights, in the sense that it does not acknowledge any distinction between actors and spectators…Carnival is not a spectacle seen by the people; they live in it, and everyone participates because its very idea embraces all the people. While carnival lasts, there is no other life outside it.

As an activity that promotes an extraordinary care for the self, CrossFit strikes a balance between agony and ecstasy, body and spirit—even soul and vomit. The culture associated with the sport challenges us to accept personal responsibility for the condition of our minds and our bodies—our health status and particularly in opposition to an inadequate healthcare system.

In this way, CrossFit aims to balance the earnestness of responsibilization with the ludic self-awareness of our ironic times. How can we crack a smile even while confronting serious health concerns, and finding ourselves abysmally alone in the world? As an early client of Glassman’s described the experience, CrossFit is “agony coupled with laughter.” Bahktin himself couldn’t have said it better.

CrossFitters expend their sweat, tears (and sometimes, even blood) in order to transcend the humdrum of everyday life. Workouts delineate a fleeting moment when we can leave behind our stultifying workplace lives. Like Bakhtin’s carnival, CrossFit, too, is understood as deeply democratic and barrier-breaking: it challenges both elite athletes and underdogs so that we may transform ourselves into something uniquely human. The most “advanced” or high-tech equipment found in so-called “globo-gyms” (namely, Universal Fitness equipment) is rarely used. Rather, CrossFitters seek excellence via everyday items lying around the house. As CrossFit legend Rich Froning Jr. explained in his 2013 autobiography, “One of the beauties of CrossFit—and one of the big reasons for its incredible surge in popularity—is that anyone can watch a video of CrossFit athletes doing a workout and then go do the same thing.” The fact that CrossFit has been so successful and has such devoted followers, too, adds to both its equalitarian and ritualistic character. As an anonymous CrossFitter explained in the 2009 Crossfit documentary Every Second Counts: “Fitters tend to only associate with other CrossFitters. Now, is it a good cult? It’s a fitness cult—it’s making you better. Is it a cult? Yeah, it is.” As ritual acts, Bakhtin’s carnivals remind us that structures can be questioned and (perhaps) even toppled. His ambitious toolkit (again, the carnivalesque) challenges us to make fun of institutions—to understand their transitoriness and vulnerability. Appropriately, in his biographical documentary The Fittest Man on Earth, five-time CrossFit Games champion Mat Fraser recounts the first time he stepped inside a CrossFit gym, with its “chaos going on, with the loud music.” Previously, as he describes it, he had only exercised in traditional weightlifting gyms (think Gold’s Gym) where the heaviest lifts demanded solemnity and seriousness on the part of gymgoers.

Like Bakhtin’s carnivalesque, CrossFit suggests the power of metamorphosis, while risking a type of death—when former selves are sloughed off and a new being is born. Every workout thus constitutes a celebration of life. Bakhtin asserts that the carnival is characterized by “a naked posing of ultimate questions on life and death.” Furthermore, for the Russian philosopher, death is not a negation of life but part of life as a whole—an indispensable component, the condition of life’s constant renewal and rejuvenation. Even death, Bakhtin explains, “becomes pregnant” within the carnival.

For both CrossFitters and Bakhtin, these birth-death processes happen through a type of initial degradation. As CrossFit’s founder, Glassman, tells it, his workouts were developed to leave gym goers “flat on [their] back, staring up at the sky, wondering what the hell happened.” Like Bahktin, CrossFit—with its focus on the squat as a staple movement—charges us to consider the lower stratum of the body, the belly, and the buttocks. To degrade something does not imply merely hurling it into the garbage, but also rescuing it from oblivion. In CrossFit-speak, this might be understood as a deep dive into the travails of a “butt-wink” in hopes of acing the perfect squat. Indeed, as claimed by George Bataille—a fellow philosopher and, tellingly, a contemporary of Bahktin’s—the body’s lower half, the bowels, and the viscera are all deeply associated with death. These nether regions are also central to CrossFit.

In order to gain life, CrossFitters risk death. As the community has known and debated for a long time, the programmatic breakdown of the body during exercises may even cause rhabdomyolysis. In an appropriately sarcastic (even rogueish?) way, CrossFit has embraced a buff, vomiting clown named “Uncle Rhabdo” as an unofficial mascot.

Recently, gyms have stepped away from being associated with zany, protein spilling cartoon jesters. Yet, as a CrossFitter myself, I wouldn’t count on tomorrow’s WOD—that is, the “Workout of the Day”—being any less challenging, less Bahktinian, or less low-minded. In an almost wholly non-ironic way, I believe that nothing tests my body more than getting up at 4:45 AM to lift odd objects. As I have proposed here, I also surmise that CrossFit explains much about how playful and focused on the body our historical moment really is.

Author Biographical Note:

Dr. Kevin M. Anzzolin, Lecturer of Spanish, arrived at Christopher Newport University in 2021, where he teaches a wide range of classes. His scholarship, mostly focused on Mexican cultural studies, can be found here, and his monograph on Mexican journalism will be published in 2024. He has been an avid albeit amateur CrossFitter since 2018.

Ignorance is an activity, it isn’t simply not knowing but a form of knowing supported by the socio-political system. –Lisa Slater

It is well documented that youth sport teaches young people life lessons – about themselves, the importance of teamwork, etc. In this short reflexive essay (drawn from a larger book project), I consider another kind of education at work in youths’ encounters with sport in settler states – countries founded upon the theft of land from Indigenous peoples: it teaches young settlers, in particular, about their place in the world, their “right” to live on stolen lands.

Here, I take up selected fragments of my childhood and youth, interrogating how my encounters with sport (as both a participant and a consumer) shaped my understandings of myself and my belonging on lands claimed by Canada. I consider, in the words of social scientist Lisa Slater, some of the “dimly lit memories” that provide clues to my developing sense of self.

1986 (Or ’85. Or ’90. Or it doesn’t matter when.)

I sit on the hard bleachers of McMahon stadium, bouncing my legs as fast as I can to try to generate warmth while we watch a Calgary Stampeders Canadian Football League game. As Dad and I drink hot chocolate from a thermos, the “Stamps” score a TD, and a horse and rider run the length of the field in celebration. I scream in joy, looking around at the thousands of mostly white boys and men doing the same. My “home team” is playing their perpetual rivals, now called the Edmonton Elk.

A snippet like this could just as easily have come from an NHL hockey game between the Calgary Flames and the team from Chicago. On one hand, then, I encountered tropes of Indigeneity such as Indigenous team names and mascots in these hyper-masculine professional sport settings, normalizing this as part of my childhood, teaching me what kind of person I should (want to) be. On the other, attending these games – or fervently following the Flames, in particular, especially as part of the “battle of Alberta” in the heydays of both the Flames and the Edmonton Oilers – produced a sense of belonging, tying me to this place, making it feel very much like home. It was my home, but was also produced as such in ongoing and banal ways.

Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s

I am playing a sport; I don’t even remember which one. Judging by the coaches I encountered in my high school years, I’d guess football. The coach is trying to get our attention: “Boys. Pow-wow over here!” He blathers on, something about putting in the work if we want to make it to the “top of the totem pole.”

1988

I am caught up in the excitement of Calgary hosting the Olympic Winter Games. I covet the Sun Ice jackets volunteers and others sport, follow the saga of Eddie the Eagle, attend a couple of medal ceremonies at Olympic Plaza downtown, getting choked up when I see Canadians atop the medal podium as “O Canada” plays over the loudspeakers. I collect pins, and consume many events, both in person and via the televised broadcasts.

As historian Christine O’Bonsawin articulates, the Calgary Olympics employed “Indigenous imagery” in numerous dimensions of the organization of the Games, marshalling the caché of the Calgary Stampede to garner international attention and construct the Games as of this place. Organizers, she notes:

utilized the international prestige of the Calgary Stampede and based their cultural programming around the Stampede’s symbolic use of the Mountie, the cowboy and the Indian… For example, the composition of the Olympic medals displayed winter sporting equipment protruding from a ceremonial headdress, an enormous teepee at McMahon Stadium supporting the Olympic cauldron, and the Calgary Stampede Board’s suggestion that an ‘Indian attack and wagon-burning’ be a part of the opening ceremony (this was ultimately rejected).

The Olympics, then, mobilized and marketed “Indigenous imagery” while, at the very same moments, hailing me – producing me – as Canadian, as rightfully belonging on these lands. Think here of the anthem, for instance, the notion of “home and native land.” (Also consider Jully Black’s recent act subverting these lyrics.)

Conclusion

Part of the ideological “[sleight] of hand” of settler colonialism is the illusion that it is a process that is finished as opposed to one that requires constant nurturing and reproduction. Similarly, my at-homeness as a settler was and is not simply a given, but one that was and is nourished in innumerable spaces and ways, not least through my encounters with sport as a youth. We are born into these positions, but we also encounter everyday teaching moments that shape our understandings of and relation to ongoing histories on these lands. Only if we recognize these teaching moments can we interrogate and, perhaps, refuse them as we come to understand, in the words of cultural studies scholar Mark Rifkin, “that the very terrain [we] inhabit as given has never ceased to be a site of political struggle.”

Author biographical note:

Jason (Jay) Laurendeau is a white, cisgender, settler scholar in the Department of Sociology at the University of Lethbridge, in Lethbridge, Alberta, located on lands of the Siksikaitsitapii people, who are part of the Blackfoot Confederacy. His research interests lie at the intersections of sport and physical culture, gender, settler colonialism, and childhood. He is the author of Sport, Physical Activity, and Anti-Colonial Autoethnography: Stories and Ways of Being.

On March 6, 2023, video game company Electronic Arts (EA) announced the introduction of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) to their FIFA franchise. This inclusion, just like with the WNBA in EA’s NBA Live franchise, was initially celebrated as a step forward to gender equality in sport and the video game industry. However, this celebration faced pushback from many athletes about the (un)likeness of their digitized counterparts and how the game rates certain athletes’ performances. Subsequently, athletes’ public outcry drew pushback on social media, with some users urging NWSL athletes to stop making this a gender issue, arguing that it is just a technical problem because men, too, have been misrepresented in video games. In this article, we provide a different perspective on the misrepresentation of female athletes. Instead of saying “yes, the misrepresentation is about gender inequality,” or “no, it is merely a technical issue,” we want to argue, “yes, the misrepresentation may be due to technological limitations, but how these athletes are misrepresented can be a gender issue that hinders the good intention of advocating for equality.”

“Realities” in Sports-Themed Video Games

Though contemporary sports-themed video games (STVG) often use technology such as full-body scans to produce their contents, the resulting images are never simply duplications of reality. Rather, physical reality is translated and coded into a digital existence—a process called remediation. There are two parts to the remediation process: immediacy and hypermediacy. Immediacy makes mediation appear invisible and aims to make gamers feel like they are actually present in the game. For example, in a remediated basketball game, the sounds of crowds cheering, the basketball bouncing while dribbling, and shoes squeaking on the arena floor all contribute to a sense of immediacy; hearing these sounds when playing a simulated basketball game makes us feel like we are actually at the game. The use of face and body scanning to bring more authentic likenesses and kinetic movements of real-life athletes to STVG is another example of immediacy. This technology makes the gaming experience of playing with/against/as known athletes seem more lifelike and believable. Hypermediacy, on the other hand, gives visibility back to the mediation process and reminds us that the reality we are experiencing through the gaming platform is indeed simulated. For example, performing athletic movements by pressing buttons and arrows makes us aware that we are not actually experiencing those movements. Another example of hypermediacy is the omnipresent EA logo at the corner of the screen that constantly reminds gamers that they are the authors of this “reality.”

Seeing video game content through this remediation process can help us understand that critiques of “misrepresentation” are rooted in demand and expectation for immediacy in STVG. If we cannot really see the digitized Sydney Leroux as the real Sydney Leroux, how can we feel like we are actually playing an NWSL game? However, we can also read this misrepresentation as a manifestation of hypermediacy. It reminds us that we are not actually playing in an NWSL game, we are playing a video game (of NWSL). It also reminds us of the current technological limitations on authentically simulating athletic bodies in digital form for video games. So instead of asking why misrepresentations happen, perhaps the more important question, when faced with these limitations, is how are these bodies reimagined in digital platforms?

There are two parts to this question. First, in what ways are athletes misrepresented? In other words, how are they different from their physical counterparts? Second, based on what discourses or social norms are these misrepresented digitized bodies designed? Exploring these questions helps us understand the implications that misrepresentation of female athletes in STVG may have for inclusion and gender equality.

The WNBA in NBA Live 18/19

Let’s use an example of misrepresentations of WNBA athletes in EA’s STVG franchise to show how we can begin answering these questions. Since 2017, EA’s representation of the WNBA has been ambitious. In that year, they made a move to include the full roster of all WNBA teams in NBA Live 18 and continued this approach with its successor, NBA Live 19. As researchers who study sport, we observed several notable misrepresentations in the visual appearances and kinetic capacity of the athletes while playing the WNBA components of these two games.

In both Live 18 and Live 19, the digitized selves of some well-known athletes are fairly recognizable. Details of their physical appearances, such as hairstyles, hair and skin colour, and noticeable features like tattoos are replicated relatively accurately. However, any resemblance that does appear in the games is mostly limited to features above the neck, whereas the bodies seem to be created without much reference to individual athletes. For example, the athletes’ muscles are smoothed out. We also observed a fairly universal body shape: an hourglass shape where the bust is amplified and the waist narrowed.

We then compared representations of kinetics capacity—in other words, the overall flow and movement of the simulated athletes’ bodies—across the WNBA and NBA portions of the game, and found that the simulated WNBA athletes could only move slowly before crossing the halfcourt line. In contrast, the simulated athletes in the NBA mode were able to sprint across the court.

Historically, the hourglass body shape (narrow waist and amplified breasts) has been common for female characters in video games. Although WNBA players’ digitized athletic bodies are not depicted as unrealistically and disproportionately as characters like Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft, it is revealing to see that the default female athletic body still corresponds to the stereotypical gendered and sexualized image of the female body. While the inclusion of the WNBA in a major STVG franchise was celebrated as a great step toward gender equality, the subtle undertone of normative, gendered discourse nevertheless persists. Against the backdrop of this gender discourse, we can understand the logic behind the smoothed-out muscles of these simulated women, even though they are elite athletes in a contact sport (how can they not have muscles?!). We can also see the circulation of gender discourse in the kinetic (mis)representations, where digitized WNBA players cannot sprint before passing the halfcourt line. This is not due to technological limitations, but rather to the game developer’s choice to cap WNBA players’ athleticism.

In a study analyzing fictional female characters in video games across 31 years, a group of media scholars found a correlation between the sexualization of women and the video game genres. Genres that usually aim toward a primarily male consumer market (such as fighting and action games) contain more gendered and sexualized female characters. Further, the researchers suggested that the sexualization of women in games could make women uncomfortable and deter them from playing. Along this line of thinking, we suggest that these milestones of inclusion in games like FIFA and NBA Live may fail to expand their target audience, and again, reinforce the stereotypical idea that women don’t play/belong in video games. This is why the misrepresentation of NWLS athletes is a gender issue, and why it matters.

Author Biographical Notes:

Judy Liao is an Associate Professor in Sport Study at Augustana Faculty, University of Alberta. Her research interests include gender and sport and diaspora sporting experiences and history in Canada. She is a big fan of the WNBA and has several publications on these excellent athletes.

Emily MacMillan worked as a research assistant for this STVG project while she studied at the University of Alberta. She has a BA degree in physical education and Indigenous study. Currently, she works as a Communications and Engagement Associate at First Peoples’ Cultural Council in BC, Canada, while also taking a Metis Women’s Leadership Program.

RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) is a reality television show where drag queens—performers, who are typically but not always men, that dress up as glamourous and often overstated women—contend for the title of “America’s Next Drag Superstar” and a $100,000 cash prize. In each episode, the queens compete in challenges that involve activities such as acting, sewing, dancing, comedy, and singing. The two queens who do the worst in the challenge that week compete in a lip-sync “smackdown” to a song chosen by RuPaul—the creator, co-producer and main judge of the show, who also is a drag queen—with the loser being eliminated from the show. The competition continues like this weekly until only four contestants remain, at which point they participate in a final challenge for the crown. The popularity of RPDR is evidenced by the fact it has spawned a variety of spin-offs in multiple countries.

Why Am I Writing About RPDR on a Sports Site?

RPDR is a pressure-filled competition with high stakes. The judges ask the contestants on the show to perform, labour, and risk their bodies in ways similar to athletes. The sport-like nature of RPDR is displayed prominently when we consider how the drag queens on the show are encouraged to play through pain and injury.

Athletes risk their bodies and play through injury because of a culture of risk in sport, where the sporting community (athletes, coaches, fans, management) rewards athletes who take risks and alienates those who do not. For instance, when athletes put their bodies at risk by making an impressive tackle on the field or hit on the ice, the fans erupt in cheer. The sporting community views injury as a masculinizing experience, where they tend to respect and idealize the athletes willing to play through injury and risk their bodies. In contrast, the sporting community will alienate and ridicule athletes who are unwilling to participate in this culture of risk. For instance, a study by researchers at McGill University who interviewed retired National Hockey League athletes who had left hockey due to concussions, reported that athletes were alienated and ridiculed by coaches and teammates for speaking up about their injuries or sitting out after a concussion. Given these cultural norms associated with sport, we see athletes risk their bodies and play through injury to maintain and assert the masculinity that the sporting community idealizes and values and to avoid alienation and ridicule. Notably, a similar dynamic exists on RPDR.

Risk and Injury on RPDR

On RPDR, the community (judges, contestants, fans) similarly idealizes and values the drag queens willing to risk their bodies and play through injury, while alienating and ridiculing those unwilling to do so. For example, on season 9 episode 2 of RPDR there is a cheerleading competition where the queens partake in a competitive cheer routine, which included tumbling, group choreography, and stunting. Notably, two major injuries take place on this episode. First, competitor Eureka O’Hara goes into a jumping split and tears her ACL, yet continues to get up and perform. In the voiceover of this moment, the audience hears Eureka say, “I feel my knee pop, but there’s no way I was stopping.” While RuPaul eliminated Eureka three weeks later because of the injury, Eureka is applauded for competing through pain: RuPaul invites her to come back the following season to compete, her fellow queens leave the stage in tears to say goodbye to Eureka after her elimination, and she has a significant fan-following on Instagram (584,000 followers). In this way, Eureka’s willingness to play through pain is rewarded and idealized by the drag race community.

The second injury on the cheerleading episode, meanwhile, happens to competitor Charlie Hides—when lifting up a fellow queen during practice, Charlie breaks her rib. The following week, Charlie made the decision to not “give it her all” during her lip-sync because of this cracked rib. Charlie is ridiculed by her fellow queens and RuPaul because she, unlike Eureka, refused to play through her injury. During a reunion episode, Trinity the Tuck compares Charlie to Eureka, highlighting the value of playing through pain in the competition: “I don’t like this bitch up here [pointing to Eureka], but she injured herself, and if she could do what she did after her knee injury, there’s no excuse for you [Charlie].” RuPaul also speaks directly to Charlie, “When someone doesn’t give it their all, I’m disappointed.” As this example illustrates, just like with athletes, the contestants on RPDR are expected to “give it their all,” which includes risking their bodies and playing through injury.

Scholars have often noted that drag is an opportunity for gay men to assert the masculinity typically denied to them in traditional sporting spaces. By playing through injury and risking their bodies for the competition, we see RPDR transform into a sporting space where contestants are able to assert traditional notions of masculinity in a queer space. Often, we hear discourses about athletes that claim the risk and injury are worth the reward (money, fame, contracts). A similar dynamic exists for the drag queens on RPDR, who receive international fame and fortune if they do well on the show and become a fan favorite. However, the problem is that this culture of risk is affective and circulates through sporting bodies and drag queen bodies. Drag is a beautiful art form and an opportunity for gender expression, but there is danger when a culture of risk teaches young queer generations that they need to risk their bodies and compete through injury to succeed.

Author Biographical Note:

Niya St. Amant is a Ph.D. Candidate at Queens University. Her research interests focus on risk and injury in sport, typically focusing on concussions and hockey. The full version of her article, where she expands on these notions by conducting a media analysis of season 9 of RPDR, is published online ahead of print in the Sociology of Sport Journal. You can follow her on Twitter @niyastamant.