An intersectional Foucauldian analysis of Canadian national sport organisations’ ‘equity, diversity, and inclusion’ (EDI) policies and the reinscribing of injustice

Abstract

ABSTRACT National Sport Organisations in Canada have increasingly been incentivised to create their own equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) policies within the framework of national inclusive sport mandates. However, many people from equity-denied groups – including this article’s authors – continue to experience erasure, denial, and ignorance when engaging within Canada’s sporting system, not despite such policies, but sometimes because of them. Our Re-creation Collective of passionate practitioners and scholars from various equity-denied groups analysed all (143) Canadian national-level EDI sport policies available online. From this analysis, we created a model that explains common ways that EDI policies can serve to reproduce the very exclusions they seek to address. Our first theme, Reproducing the Status Quo, includes subthemes Alleging Inclusivity, and Refusing Accountability. In our second theme, Reproducing the Excludable Other, we discuss the subthemes Erasing, Problematising, and Hedging. We end with a critical discussion and knowledge mobilisation links aimed towards building better EDI policies.