What is New About New Materialism for Sport Sociology? Reflections on Body, Movement, and Culture

The new material turn in social sciences and humanities has drawn attention to how the material interacts with the social in the world where both human and non-human actors produce power relations. To include the material objects and their environments within the social analysis, new materialists argue for a new onto-epistemology that departs from the humanist social constructionism. To explore what this might mean for sport sociologists, I discuss three themes characterizing the new materialism: the focus on processes of materiality, post-humanist tools needed to engage with the material processes, and post-qualitative research methodologies and ways of representation that include the material world. I advocate studying the body in motion as a unique focus for socio-cultural scholars of physical activity who can connect the material with the social into research that matters in the contemporary world.