Building community or perpetuating inclusionism? The representation of “inclusion” on fitness facility websites

Abstract

ABSTRACT Despite mandates for inclusion, fitness spaces are often unwelcoming for bodies of difference. The disconnect between the formal rules (e.g. policies) of inclusion and people’s ongoing lived experiences of exclusion is what disability scholars call inclusionism. We used Google Maps to search for ‘inclusive gyms’ in our medium-sized city in Canada and curated a list of 47 facility websites. Using a collaborative reflexive thematic analysis, our objective was to explore how inclusion was mobilized on these websites. In our findings, we discuss the theme of ‘continuum of community building’, whereby we observed ‘community’ ranged from capitalizing on the idea of community to more social justice-leaning commitments. Then we describe our themes of ‘inclusion and accessibility rhetoric’ (e.g. lack of comprehensive accessibility statements) and ‘inclusion as preclusion’ (i.e. consistent omission of disability and fatness). To conclude, we interrogate the ways inclusionism is demonstrated and push for bottom-up approaches to inclusion/access.