Posthumanism, Disability and Physical Education

Citation

Sidebottom K & Bancroft K (2026) Posthumanism, Disability and Physical Education. In: Maher AJ, Haegele JA & Coates J (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Qualitative Methods for Researching Disability in Physical Education. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003452942

Abstract
Post-qualitative approaches to research are gaining in popularity as contemporary crises such as climate change, mental ill-health and mass migration call for complex approaches to entangled global problems. One such approach - critical posthumanism - has emerged as a response to the fixity of classical, modernist, and humanist conceptions of the human. Refusing to subscribe to the ‘Vitruvian Man’ normative ideals of what it means to be human (white, male, European, able-bodied and so on), posthuman methodologies turn to difference; where difference is not seen as deficit, or pathologised, but as a generative and transformative opportunity to re-imagine the way we live, work and educate. Despite the inevitable focus on the ‘physical’, physical education (PE) – as with other subjects in English education – has become subject to the increasing promotion in teaching and learning of the mind over body; this Cartesian dualism reinforces school as a ‘logic system’ in which the body serves the brain and the corporeal is merely a closed system that must function effectively in accordance with contemporary, normative paradigms of fitness and wellbeing. This chapter aims to explore what PE disability research could look like when seen through a posthuman lens. It outlines contemporary conceptual approaches which will encourage researchers to take new perspectives when exploring disability in PE.