Discursive Analysis of Sport and the Environment
Project Description
This project uses critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine how key concepts surrounding sport and sustainability are understood and communicated in sport. Focusing on sport-related podcast platforms, the research explores how these concepts are shaped by, and sometimes detached from, broader structural forces such as capitalism, neoliberalism, and coloniality. By critically analyzing these narratives, the project seeks to understand how dominant ways of speaking about sport and sustainability can both inform and limit more meaningful approaches in practice.
Project Information
Project Lead: Emma McMain (University of Arkansas) and Alex Gang
Research Team:
- Eunah Jo (CSSTE – Graduate)
Funding Agencies: College of Education, Sport, and Human Sciences Faculty Research Grant
Period: 2024 – Current
Project Goals
- Conceptualizing Leadership in Sport Sustainability: To examine how leadership is defined and represented within sport sustainability discourse, and how these narratives shape expectations around responsibility, action, and change.
- Linking Sustainability to Structural Forces: To analyze how discussions of sustainability engage with broader systems and ideologies, including capitalism, neoliberalism, and coloniality, and to identify where these connections are acknowledged or overlooked.
- Critically Assessing Sustainability in Sport: To evaluate what sustainability comes to mean in sport discourse, including how the concept may be simplified, redefined, or diluted, and to suggest more critical and grounded ways of understanding sustainability in practice.