What Can the Running Body Do? The Running Machine's Affective Possibilities and the Limits of Language

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2934430
AutoresJean Ketterling (0000-0001-6948-4507, Carleton University, autor de correspondencia), Bertrand Desjardins (0000-0002-8243-4317, Carleton University)
Año2025
Volumen49
Número6
Páginas568-592
Fecha de publicación2025-09-11
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Sport and Social Issues (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0193-7235 • E-ISSN: 1552-7638
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/01937235251370664
PMID41142374
OpenAlexW4414121026
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas68

While others have suggested that action sports offer avenues of escape from neoliberal imperatives like maximizing health and self-regulation, we argue that even the most mainstream of sports-amateur road running-holds similar potential. Using data from 20 "running reflections," we explore running's everyday affective intensities using Deleuzo-Guattarian theory. We conceptualize running as a machinic assemblage that shapes what the body can do in myriad ways. We argue that while the running machine produces neoliberal imperatives and the disciplined subjectivity of "runner," those almost inarticulable affects that runners struggle to express reveal deterritorial possibilities that challenge the stratification of running as a practice shaped by health and fitness discourse. Additionally, we show that it is important to cultivate methodologies and analytic strategies that excavate beneath the surface of participants' stratified language, because runners' tendency to default to wellness language-order-words-for the sake of effective communication in a world where neoliberal logics are most easily articulated and understood may elide other affective and embodied analytic possibilities in the form of a-grammatical deterritorializations

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