In the wake of canada’s violent eugenic legacies: An urgency to ReVision Fitness

Bailey, K. A., Bessey, M., Rice, C., Kelly, E., McHugh, T.-L. F., Punjani, S., Dube, B., Tshuma, P., Besse, K., Sookpaiboon, S., & Quest, S. (2023). In the wake of canada’s violent eugenic legacies: An urgency to ReVision Fitness. Leisure/Loisir. https://doi.org/10.1080/14927713.2023.2291033

Abstract

Eugenics is often misunderstood as a historical set of practices that mobilized outside of Canada and ended after World War II. Less is known about canada’s influence on and participation in the practices/ideologies/movement, and even less about how contemporary fitness practices continue to be tethered to eugenics. ReVisioning Fitness aims to counter/refuse eugenic-infused fitness regimes designed to eliminate ‘unfit’ people, by centring the lived experiences of trans, non-binary, queer, Black, racialized, disabled, and fat/thick/thicc/curvy people. We created three-to-five-minute multimedia videos that express our fitness-related experiences and inventiveness. We explore the concept of ‘inclusionism’ and critiques of current anti-racism rhetoric and reflect on our videos across three themes: complexities of racism and other markers of difference; politics of rest in leisure; and unsettling white supremacy in fitness. We call on fitness stakeholders to examine our/their implicatedness in upholding eugenic underpinnings of fitness as a call to action to refuse anti-life agendas.