Michael D. Giardina

Disciplining Qualitative Research.

Qualitative research exists in a time of global uncertainty. Around the world, governments are attempting to regulate scientific inquiry by defining what counts as ‘good’ science. These regulatory activities raise fundamental, philosophical epistemological, political and pedagogical issues for scholarship and freedom of speech in the academy. This essay contests this methodological fundamentalism, and interrogates the politics of re‐emergent scientism, the place of qualitative research in mixed‐methods experimentalism, and the pragmatic criticisms of anti‐foundationalism. Furthermore, it outlines three models of scientifically based research (SBR), and discusses how each is operative within the current historical conjuncture. In the process, it advocates for a qualitative research paradigm that is committed to social justice and the promise of radical, progressive democracy.

Physical Cultural Studies and Embodied Research Acts

This article critically examines the emerging field of physical cultural studies, especially its contributions to our understandings of “the body” in and through its ongoing relationship with the research act. That is, a focus on the confluence of the embodied self and the [auto-]ethnographic self as it relates to the conduct of inquiry. It also addresses the politics of the body within a particular neoliberal condition, and the way the body and its health and well-being is leveraged as a pedagogical apparatus of neoliberalism. It concludes by arguing that we need to privilege bodily copresence within the theory, method, and practice of physical cultural studies.

Michel Foucault: Studies of Power and Sport

As a historian of the present, Michel Foucault sought to undermine modern vernaculars by disrupting the certainties that govern contemporary ways of thinking. Foucault’s interventions encourage us to detach from established knowledge, ask fresh questions, make new connections, and understand why it is important to do so. Given Foucault’s generative role in intellectual thought — evidenced most especially by extensive citation and frequent discussion of his work — serious scholars of sport cannot avoid Foucault’s formulations. Indeed, an increasing number of academics studying sport have turned to Foucault to “think through” sport’s relevance on the one hand, and for rethinking what is relevant to their work on the other. Correlatively, scholars who once imagined sport to be distinct and distant from their domain of study are, because of Foucauldian styles of thinking, now sensitive to sport’s significance to their own work.

Not in Our Name

Born out of anger and frustration with the Bush administration’s unilateral intervention in Iraq and the attendant mediated responses to such action that question the patriotism of peace activists and those who dare speak out against the draconian neoconservative agenda currently dominating American cultural politics, “Not in Our Name!” marks an ongoing conversation about and critical interrogation of the post-9/11 moment. Re/presented as a symbolic interactive messy performance text that crosses generations, races, and genders, the authors seek to police this crisis of global uncertainty and imagine radically free utopian spaces where the promise of progressive democratic values are not overrun by corrupt political ideologies masquerading under the guise of jingoistic patriotism, the “War on Terror” marketing slogan, and an “Us” versus “Them” mentality. The authors’ active words and voices of resistance and passion envision an end to this national nightmare and a dawning of a new day of hope.

Neoliberalism’s Last Lap? NASCAR Nation and the Cultural Politics of Sport

This article examines the ways in which cultural and political intermediaries have endeavored to systematically reorganize the spectacles of North American stock car racing to reinscribe and re-present the hegemonic order of free-market capitalism. To this end, the authors draw from a complex synthesis of economic, social, and cultural theory to interrogate the political and corporate dimensions of “NASCAR Nation.” More specifically, they offer a critical investigation of the dialectic relationship between the expanding regimes of capital accumulation brought forth by neoliberal economic policy, its political imperatives and operatives, and the cultural politics that actively shape consumer experiences within the sport. They likewise interpret how corporate capitalism acts as a prevailing fixture within these spectacular spaces and fan-spectator praxis. In sum, they argue that the commercial precepts of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) present a twisted contradiction, whereby NASCAR fans laud the same neoliberal market forces that both mesmerize their consumer sensibilities and simultaneously decimate their own postindustrial labor conditions.

Embracing the Social in Social Media An Analysis of the Social Media Marketing Strategies of the Los Angeles Kings

This article addresses the rise of social media in professional sport and the varying ways in which sport organizations have interacted with consumers in the social media environment. We examine one particularly interesting case: The innovative social media marketing practices of the Los Angeles Kings hockey organization, most especially through its twitter account @LAKings. Through the use of digital ethnography, we analyze and interpret official statements produced within the context of the Kings marketing and consumer strategies. We argue that the Los Angeles Kings’ social media strategy illustrates the potential collaborative efforts of an organization and its consumers in a social media space. This “coexistence” between brand and consumer provides the organization an opportunity to encourage relationship development and brand community.

Training the Body for Healthism: Reifying Vitality In and Through the Clinical Gaze of the Neoliberal Fitness Club

After purchasing her fitness club membership, the White, middle-aged woman scheduled her ‘‘complimentary fitness assessment,’’ a proposed valuable amenity accessible to new members who financially committed to sign up for a club membership. During the first assessment with a personal training sales staff member held a few days later—in which the new member is prompted to discuss her or his reason(s) for joining the club and the goals he or she wants to achieve—the woman passed out. After the woman was stable, she informed the staff member that she had a medical condition which caused her to faint spontaneously. The assessment was cut short for the day. However, the Training General Manager (TGM), a considerably younger man, eagerly took advantage of the opportunity to take over her fitness assessment the next time the woman was available to attend the club and finish the evaluation. Upon this member’s return, the TGM assisted her through a strength training workout session, which was the last component of the fitness assessment. The TGM instructed her through a circuit workout in which most of the exercises were performed with the heavy stationary strength training machines. Throughout her workout, he repeatedly urged her to invest in a packaged personal training membership. Nevertheless, she declined. After arriving at the club the following day, this new member requested brief assistance from the TGM to operate the same exercise machines he had demonstrated how to use during her second assessment session. She expressed apprehension in using the same machines because she was not familiar with maneuvering this workout equipment properly. The TGM refused to provide any guidance and justified his indifference for the new member’s trepidation or safety by condemning her rejection to purchase personal training from him. Yet, he was the very same club representative who instructed her to use those workout machines the previous day, positioning the specific strength training routine as an invaluable exigency ‘‘for her health.’’ She requested just a quick run-through of how to use the machines appropriately to avoid injury (evading any mention of the medical condition she informed us about a few days before). Again, he refused to provide guidance and walked away from the woman, claiming that he did not have the time to discuss this matter since he was The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 37:21–40, 2015 Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1071-4413 print=1556-3022 online DOI: 10.1080/10714413.2015.988505

Celebrating Humanity: Olympic Marketing and the Homogenization of Multiculturalism

This paper critically analyzes the International Olympic Committees 2000 global marketing campaign titled “Celebrate Humanity”. Released prior to the 2000 Summer Games, this campaign capitalized on recent cultural trends by focusing on multicultural inclusivity and the idea that sport could contribute to world peace. Using this campaign as our case study, we demonstrate the possibilities for both local consumption and interpretation of a global campaign within the specific cultural context of the United States.

(Post?)qualitative inquiry in sport, exercise, and health: notes on a methodologically contested present

Abstract In this article, I address some of the emerging debates surrounding the ontological turn in qualitative inquiry. To do so, I highlight recent conversations in the field related to evidence, knowledge and research practices. Framing these conversations as part of a broader ‘methodologically contested present’ within qualitative inquiry, I attend to the ways in which qualitative researchers in the field of sport, exercise and health-related disciplines are pushing these conversations forward. As well, I highlight key questions and the ramifications thereof for engaging with what has been termed ‘post-qualitative inquiry’. I conclude by offering several points of departure for situating the philosophy of inquiry at the centre of any debate concerning research methods and methodologies.

Acts of activism ↔ politics of possibility: Toward a new performative cultural politics

This article examines the context of political life in the United States during the Barack Obama administration, especially as related to right-wing assaults on a progressive political agenda. It also presents an argument for a new performative cultural politics; that is, an interventionist project informed by and committed to acts of activism in the pursuit of a politics of possibility. It concludes by outlining the prevailing lines of inquiry organizing such a project of the critical imagination: that of theory, politics, and performance.