This chapter has mapped three theoretical frames—the cyborg, agential realism, and assemblage—to illustrate how scholars of sport have (and have not) incorporated them. This conclusion reflects on their possible utility for further incorporation and experimentation within studies of sport. First, though, I revisit some key contributions of feminist techno- science and expressed concerns about new materialism.
Although specific insights and contributions vary, feminist technosci- ence has advanced semiotic-material analysis. Its critical attention to materiality has revealed a distinct “more-than-human orientation”—an ontological repositioning that emphasizes embodied encounters as inter- twined with the actions of objects, technologies, organisms (human and non-human) and other worldly conditions often discounted by human- centered studies (Fullagar 2017, p. 253). This shift in awareness has not meant a uniform, or even united, set of perspectives on the modes through which to interrogate materiality or incorporate feminist insights.
I have discussed the adaptations of intra-action and assemblage as a case in point: whereas intra-action advocates for a notion of co-constitution that rejects agency as an individual (or humanistic) trait, assemblage has been employed in different ways, some of which retain a focus on bio- politics. Although distinct, both concepts facilitate engagement with dynamics that exceed traditional analyses of gender, reflecting the shift in feminism toward broader questions of power through the interrogation of “epistemological and ontological assumptions” (Foster 2016, p. 129).
It is not surprising, then, that these concepts, as well as other ideas from
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feminist technoscience, such as the cyborg, have been incorporated to study questions that are explicitly feminist in nature.
Using feminist materialist approaches to make sense of biocultural dynamics has already, according to some scholars (e.g., Thorpe 2016), prompted reconsiderations of “both theoretical and empirical resources, and representational styles” (p. 10). In this chapter, I have noted some tradeoffs, including the possible political ramifications of giving compa- rable value to human and non-human agency (Esmonde and Jette 2018) and the potential for material essentialism (Puar 2017). According to Mieke Bal (2002), these kinds of questions and concerns are not unique to debates about new materialism: traveling concepts often confront obstacles. They have “solved major problems,” but also have posed signifi- cant challenges, especially when they highlight disciplinary conflicts, dis- crepancies, or overlooked issues (Bal 2002, p. 4). This process of refutation and reassessment is arguably productive for feminist studies of sport in that it presents an opportunity to critically approach what traveling con- cepts offer as compared to ideas that (figuratively speaking) may have more road wear in the field. For the remainder of this conclusion, I con- sider these potential tensions and the uncertainties they provoke in a constructive light.
In fields dedicated to the sociocultural study of human movement, encounters with frameworks that reject foundational notions of human- centered agency, such as agential realism, or depart from the central focus on the body, such as assemblage, can be disruptive on multiple levels.
Esmonde and Jette (2018, p. 44) acknowledge “expressed concerns about the ways that new materialisms create a falsely coherent and passé history of theory” in which “particular ways of knowing (often, subjugated ways of knowing) come to be dismissed as over so as to make way for the brave new theories.” An uncritical embrace of materiality thus might not only reveal a disregard or neglect of other feminist approaches, but it also might contribute to the wider marginalization of those earlier ideas and their contributions.
Feminist scholars of sport are well equipped to engage the risks and possibilities of so-called “new” ideas around materiality in the context of sport. Feminist cultural studies of sport in particular have a “reflexive tradition” that pursues a “commitment both to exploring social differ-
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ence and injustice and to contesting the relations of power that organize knowledge and disciplinary formations” (Adams et al. 2016, p. 76). Its insights align with recent reminders to value “the generative possibilities of an unbounded, eclectic scholarship that refuses to be over-disciplined or overdetermined by institutionally-privileged authorizing moves” and remains “cognizant of past contributions, while working toward a genera- tive realm of ‘productive conflict’” (p. 77).
In this spirit, we might, then, ask what are the generative offerings of materialist approaches? In the preceding pages, I have drawn attention to their contributions to the study of technosocial relationships in two ways:
first, by addressing how agential realism productively reconsiders agency beyond human actors, and, second, by discussing assemblage as an alter- native mode of interrogating material-semiotic relations between things and concepts without privileging matter, identities, or bodies. Taken together, they suggest that one answer to the question of generative offer- ings may not be about materialist approaches bringing about a height- ened awareness of materialization. Instead, it may be rooted in reflexive reconsiderations of feminist sensibilities toward materiality, which can productively challenge, as well as reiterate, recognized traditions in stud- ies of sport.
For Foster (2016, p. 129), feminist technoscience’s appreciation of diverse materialities is fruitful precisely because it enables scrutiny of
“affiliative kinship” among various objects and organisms across different domains. This affinity complements earlier articulations of feminist stud- ies of sport. As C.L. Cole (1993, p. 93) argued over 25 years ago, such an agenda should prioritize “rethinking the categories of and relationships among sport, gender, sexuality, nature, the body, race, class, difference, science, power, representation, subjectivity, oppression” and “how the sport apparatus works in relation to and at the intersection of multiple technologies,” doing so “in ways that always exceed institutional bound- aries.” Thus, while some scholars express apprehension about how the
“material turn” may undermine past critical contributions, Cole’s words point to another possibility: that the wider recognition and embrace of materialist sensibilities can reaffirm earlier commitments of feminist studies of sport. Of course, doing so requires first recognizing these tradi- tions rather than erasing them.
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At least two productive synergies become evident when considering connections and tensions across feminist studies of sport. On the one hand, feminist technoscience offers tools for thinking through the anthro- pocentric tendencies that accompany Sport Studies’ focus on embodied human movement and their implications. On the other, feminist studies of sport provide myriad analyses that are attentive to discursive and embodied interrelationships etched and shaped by hierarchical relation- ships and social categories of difference. In doing so, they offer a reminder to STS scholars not to lose sight of interlocking inequalities—a criticism levied at both STS (e.g., Moser 2006) and feminist new materialism (see Puar 2017, pp. 20–21). As such, existing studies of sport offer examples to which STS scholars might look for guidance on how to retain valuable poststructural insights when interrogating material conditions.
While recognizing the value of cautious engagement, we would be remiss not to explore the possibilities of feminist technoscience studies of sport, especially given the acceptance of cyborg bodies and recognition of other technosocial bonds that coalesce through sport and physical activ- ity. Forging a more explicit commitment to feminist technoscience stud- ies of sport need not reject the past contributions of feminist studies of sport; instead, it has the potential to reinforce their generative commit- ments. Furthermore, it may aid in reviving feminist elements sometimes lost in the adaptation of feminist technoscience approaches when employed to study issues that lack overtly gendered contours.
Notes
1. Ahmed (2008) characterizes new materialism’s “caricature of poststructur- alism as matter-phobic” as both unfair (p. 34) and “motivated, as if the moment of ‘rejection’ is needed to authorize a new terrain” (p. 33). For more information about the debates around materialism, readers should consult a series of articles published in European Journal of Women’s Studies, which span 2008 through the present.
2. Some important feminist technoscience theories—such as “situated knowledges” (Haraway 1991, p. 183), “strong objectivity” (Harding 1991, p. 138), and “agential realism” (Barad 2007, p. 132)—have wide
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appeal within and beyond STS (Subramaniam 2009, p. 960). Situated knowledge, for example, reflects a recognition that robust knowledge can- not come from a bird’s eye view of phenomena; rather, it emerges from
“partial, locatable accounts of the world that are both accurate and explic- itly embedded within the contexts of its own production” (Haraway 1988, pp. 575–599). Proponents of strong objectivity contend that persons and groups who occupy marginalized positions are more likely to be attentive to dimensions of social dynamics and systems often overlooked by more privileged observers; thus, in order to strengthen objectivity, their per- spectives must feature centrally in knowledge production (Harding 1991).
3. While scholars of feminist technoscience acknowledge that this shift may pose challenges for political organizing and might endanger institutional gains made by earlier feminist efforts (see Subramaniam 2009; Foster 2016), Foster (2016) draws attention to the limited benefits secured through liberal feminist agendas as they failed to consider structural inequalities and the erasure of colonial legacies that disproportionately affect different groups of people.
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