Editors:
- Jim Denison (University of Alberta)
- Luke Jones (University of Hull)
This special issue is intended to advance Foucauldian thinking as a practical way forward to increase coaches’ effectiveness and enhance athletes’ performances. In the main, Foucault’s conceptual toolbox has been framed as abstract, theoretical and disconnected from practice. Moreover, Foucault’s work has often been linked to inappropriate arguments claiming that he denied individuals’ any ‘agency’ (not our word choice). Accordingly, we strongly believe that there is a need to illustrate within the field of coaching studies how Foucault’s body of work can be applied to coaches’ everyday practices, as well as how his understanding of power, knowledge and the self can serve to promote individual subjectivity and change through a process of on-‐going and continual problematization. Such a call is especially relevant today as sport and coaching become more and more defined and influenced by science and the rise of greater and more intense technologies designed to increase the control and management of athletes. Towards this end, we are looking for articles that use Foucauldian thinking to expand, enlarge and enrich coaches’ effectiveness. Above all, we are looking for articles that problematize and re-‐imagine various historical/entrenched, contemporary and current understandings and practices associated with what it means to coach effectively and/or to be a an effective coach—coaching’s dominant modernist logic—using any number of Foucault’s concepts.
Specifically, we invite contributions to this special issue that explore such topics and issues in coaching as (but not limited to):
- Body practices and athletes’ experiences;
- Coaching subjectivities;
- Coach development and learning;
- Coaching discourses and practices
- Coaching cultures and contexts;
- Coaching logics and philosophies;
- Performance enhancement/change interventions;
- Ethics and pedagogy.
Authors should follow the “Instructions for Authors”. Word limit is 8,000, including all back matter. Online submissions should be sent to http://www.edmgr.com/rspc/default.aspx, and questions should be sent to Dr. Jim Denison, jim.denison@ualberta.ca or Dr. Luke Jones l.k.jones@hull.ac.uk.
Due date for Papers: May 31, 2017
