Group
Sport, Health and Society Research Group
Unit(s) of assessment: Sport and Exercise Sciences, Leisure and Tourism
Research theme(s): Health Innovation
Overview
Led by Dr Gavin Weedon, the Sport, Health and Society Research Group produces socially relevant scholarship exploring how sport, health and exercise are implicated in cultural, political, economic, and environmental issues, towards more just, sustainable and joyful experiences of sport and physical activity. The Group comprises a disciplinarily diverse range of expertise in sport, health and human movement, with sociology, psychology, history, anthropology and management all represented by its members. Areas of interest include:
- Sport, health and environmental problems
- Women, gender and inequality in sport
- Cultures of high-performance sport
- Leadership in sports organisations
- Sport media, journalism and digital culture
- Injury, health and athlete well-being
- Physical activity, coaching and education
Group members work with theoretical and methodological approaches drawn from across the humanities and social sciences, including materialist philosophies, critical race theory, various school of feminist thought, and interdisciplinary perspectives on health-environment relations.
Research Group Researchers
Dr Gavin Weedon
Associate Professor
School of Science & Technology
Ali Bowes
Senior Lecturer
School of Science & Technology
Anika Leslie-Walker
Senior Lecturer
School of Science & Technology
Seth I. Kirby
Senior Lecturer
School of Science & Technology
Jack Hardwicke
Senior Lecturer
School of Science & Technology
Pete Holmes
Senior Lecturer
School of Science & Technology
Dale Bottomley
Senior Lecturer
School of Science & Technology
Laura Healy
Associate Professor
School of Science & Technology
Mustafa Sarkar
Associate Professor
School of Science & Technology
Ella McLoughlin
Lecturer
School of Science and Technology
Dr. Fieke Rongen
Senior Lecturer
Department of Sport Science
Seema Patel
Associate Professor
Å·ÃÀ¾ÞÈé Law School
Cleveland Barnett
Associate Professor
School of Science & Technology
Postgraduate Students and Technical Staff involved with the Research Group
Sport, Health and Society Research Group is supported by our postgraduate students:
- Alex Harris
- Marit Hiemstra
- Molly Pocock
- Debi Forbes
- James Shepherd
- Dee Yeagers
- Glory Ejike
- Erin Pruett
- Charlotte Jackson
Research Projects
- The professionalisation of women’s rugby in the UK
- Elite women’s volleyball in France
- An exploration of how parents and coaches negotiate the issue of brain injuries in children’s impact sports
- Dealing with the social problem of brain injuries and neurodegeneration in performance sports
- The significance of urban greenspaces in everyday life
- Improving access to public spaces for physical activity
- Girls grassroots football in England and the intersection of race, ethnicity and gender
- Sensing and Communicating Consent in Guided Running- Understanding How Runners with Sight Loss and Sighted Guides Develop Positive, Productive and Pleasant Partnerships
Funding:
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada)
Protein: Economies and ecologiesl of a nutritional superstar
As a collaboration with Professor Samantha King (Queen’s University, CA), in this project Dr. Gavin Weedon explores how protein has come to assume centre stage in the nutritional imagination. Tracing the history of protein’s allure against the backdrop of escalating concern about animal agriculture-driven climate change and the concomitant explosion of the plant-based food industry, we argue that protein’s status has little to do with people’s actual dietary needs. We explore how protein has been put forward as the magical solution to a diverse range of problems, from malnutrition in the Global South in the form of culturally alien techno-foods, to pollution in industrial farming in the form of regenerated whey waste, to muscle loss in seniors in the form of drugs and other prescriptions for longevity, to the crisis of contemporary white manhood in the form of bodybuilding supplements, and to the climate emergency in the form of alternative meats. We contend that protein is best understood not as a purely biological substance nor a neutral nutritional category but as a powerful, shapeshifting, socio-natural agent enlisted in diffuse webs of social, economic, and ecological forces. This project is the subject of several scholarly articles and chapters as well as a forthcoming monograph with Duke University Press.
Independent Social Research Foundation
Respiratory justice: Breathing in global social and environmental crises and the politics of shared vulnerability
In this project, Dr. Gavin Weedon develops a conceptualisation of breath and breathing as connecting key twenty-first century crises of climate, health, and racial injustice. By tracing breath’s rhythms and recurrences across an array of places, organisms, policies, and social movements, the project charts new connections in social and political theory through the corporeal experience of everyday life. Diverse cases in breathlessness, such as the development of “BP Syndrome” after the Gulf Coast oil spill, and nascent social and legal movements towards the ‘Right to Breathe’, make up the project.
Publications:
Weedon, G. (2025). Political ecologies of sport and physical culture. In M. D. Giardina, M. K. Donnelly, & D. J. Waldman (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research in sport and physical culture. (291-309) Sage.
Martin, I and Bowes, A. (2024). The cost of football: motherhood, coaching and work-family conflict Managing Sport and Leisure, (aop).
Leslie-Walker, A., Taylor, K., & Jones Russell, E. (2024). “Inclusivity for who?” An analysis of ‘race’ and female fandom at the 2022 UEFA European Women’s Championships. Å·ÃÀ¾ÞÈé Review for the Sociology of Sport, 59(3): 459-475.
Taylor, K., & Leslie-Walker, A. (2024). ‘We shouldn’t have to ask’: exploring the realities of minority ethnic women football spectators. European Sport Management Quarterly, (aop).
Hardwicke, J., Hurst, H. T., & Matthews, C. R. (2024). “Getting back on the bike”: Risk, injury, and sport-related concussion in competitive road cycling. Sociology of Sport Journal, 1 (aop).
Hardwicke, J., Al-Hashmi, R., Forbes, D., Paechter, C., Pocock, M., Taylor, K., ... & Matthews, C. R. (2024). Is gender equality in brain damage ‘progress’ for women and sport? Å·ÃÀ¾ÞÈé Review for the Sociology of Sport, 59(6): 941-953.
Hardwicke, J., Roberts, C. J., Anderson, E., & Magrath, R. (2024). Drafting behind LGB: Transgender athletes in the sport of cycling. Å·ÃÀ¾ÞÈé Review for the Sociology of Sport, 59(1), 58-81.
Hardwicke, J., Hill, K. M., & Ryan, D. J. (2024). Finding your way: exploring urban park users’ engagement with a wayfinding intervention through intercept go-along interviews. Cities & Health, 1-14.
Weedon, G. (2023). Seeking Techno-Spiritual Salvation in the Digital Condition. Learning Machines: Artificial Intelligence and Humanities Knowledge, ISRF Bulletin Issue 28, 21-30.
Hardwicke, J., Hill, K. M., & Ryan, D. J. (2024) The Significance of Urban Greenspaces in Everyday Life. The Å·ÃÀ¾ÞÈé Review of Sociology, (aop).