Sport, Activism, and Ethics: Historiographical Perspectives

Athletes have long been activists, but the historical presentation and understanding of that activism is complex, constantly shifting, and wrought with contradictions and paradoxes. In this article, I call attention to facts and narratives around social justice, including how kinesiology and its subdisciplines embrace and afford opportunities to women and racial and ethnic minorities and casts them in their visions for the future. Neither raw statistics of (under- or over-) representation nor promises of a brighter future are likely to have any impact or contribute to understanding until they are presented in coherent narratives that include, or are preferably created by, affected voices. Only when kinesiology is producing a critical volume of these narratives can it truly claim to be contributing to social justice.