Decolonization in Sport: Reimagining Embodiment from an Anthropocosmic Perspective

Abstract

The study of the body in sport remains dominated by Western scholars examining Western bodies and using Western conceptualizations of the body. Sports venues and agencies are complex locations for the production (and reproduction) of Whiteness, because they deal with bodily practises that include material, social, and linguistic performances. Though mainstream sociology of the body research is founded within dualisms, often privileging one side of a binary opposition at the expense of another, a thread within Chinese philosophies cut across such dualistic categories. This chapter first outlines research in sport in various postcolonial contexts based on unsettling Whiteness with a decolonization perspective. It then points to an anthropocosmic perspective that departs from Western approaches that have informed a Euro-American centric tradition of embodiment research. It highlights the revelations in an anthropocosmic approach can bring to challenge dominant Western notions of performance culture predicated upon binary oppositions and more broadly the privilege of the body over mind and emotions. Thinking about decolonization and embodiment with an anthropocosmic perspective, this chapter points to the future directions to rethink sport and bodily education and research.