The annual Cluster for Research in Coaching (CRiC) Conference in Oslo, Norway, was an excellent experience – full of rich learning, connection-building, and thought-provoking presentations. Despite a varied programme, a recurring theme emerged: the use of the ‘posts’ as a lens through which to view sport coaching, and indeed, sport more broadly. I was familiar with the concept of poststructuralism and the related work of Michel Foucault, but I hadn’t yet grappled with postmodernism or posthumanism in any depth.
Broadly speaking, the ‘posts’ challenge traditional ways of thinking and doing. They offer critical frameworks for questioning norms in sport or what Foucault referred to as discourse. These approaches reject fixed meanings and view attempts to impose structure or rational, measurable systems on everyday practices as inherently controlling. Foucault warned that a technically rational, ordered society risks producing docile subjects – individuals who become blind to the influence of normalized behaviours and uncritical of the systems that govern their lives, eventually functioning as automatons.
Posthumanism suggests that we should move beyond viewing human beings as the central or most important concern. Instead, it encourages us to consider animals, technology, the environment, and other non-human entities as equally significant, focusing on how these interact to shape our ways of thinking and being.
So, what relevance does this have in sport? Our attempts to bring structure and control are everywhere. We track professional athletes’ every move, measure their sleep and what they eat, monitor their movement and regulate their effort in training. We employ multidisciplinary teams of experts to enhance (and control) every aspect of performance – from mindset and nutrition to physical conditioning and technique analysis. Yet, we know from both research and experience that achieving collaboration, compromise, and shared understanding in MDTs is persistently difficult; the aim of interdisciplinarity remains elusive and siloed activity is common.
As we deconstruct complexity in this way, in a quest for control, we risk losing our connection to context and reality. We mechanise and reduce unpredictability, fostering what Mark O’Sullivan in his presentation at the CRiC conference described as the illusion of professionalism. But at what cost? Who wants predictable sport or athletes who follow a script? Who wants sport that turns a blind eye to the grave political and environmental issues facing the world? Often, it is those who hold the purse strings, but it is for the rest of us to challenge the status quo. Instead, we marvel at the detail offered by sport science, champion the statistics supposedly behind performance, the marginal gains ascribed to technological advances and aspire to know the technique that will lead to success. The allure of quantifiable definitive knowledge is ever present, yet this too is often an illusion.
The ‘posts’ raise these important issues. They set the problem and encourage us to think differently. They urge us not to follow norms uncritically, but to engage with broader perspectives – this is vital. However, what the ‘posts’ don’t do is offer solutions. In fact, the very idea of ‘a solution’ sits uncomfortably when one recognises the entangled, messy nature of the real world. Despite the value of post perspectives, we must not remain in a state of perpetual reflection. We must not stagnate in the pessimistic enlightenment that the ‘posts’ provide. Rather, it is incumbent upon those of us who earn a living from thinking deeply about sport to tell stories of success, and to research the areas that challenge unhelpful discourse. Seeing the problem is seductive; suggesting better ways of doing things is less straightforward but requires our attention now more than ever.
P.F.Garner@bham.ac.uk