Role
Gavin Weedon is Associate Professor in Sociology of Sport, Health and the Body and Head of the Sport and Society Research Group in the Department of Sport Science. He teaches sociology across the Department’s undergraduate curriculum and leads a second-year elective module exploring intersections between health, bodies and society.
Career overview
I joined NTU in 2016 from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where I attained my PhD and worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the School of Kinesiology (the art and science of the moving body). Before this I studied at Southampton Solent University (BA Hons) and Loughborough University (MSc), where my research focussed on youth sport, labour migration, and globalisation. My doctoral studies at UBC comprised an interdisciplinary programme of political ecology, science and technology studies, and cultural studies. In 2019, I received the Young Researcher Award from the European Society for the Sociology of Sport for my work on body cultures of the Anthropocene. In 2022, I became a Fellow of the Independent Social Research Foundation to support my research on respiratory justice.
Research areas
My research explores how embodied practices are implicated in social, political and ecological issues, from youth labour migration in elite sport to survivalist physical cultures.
I am presently focused on two main projects. The first (with Samantha King, Queen’s University, Canada) charts the cultural ascendance of protein as the über nutrient of our times through a blend of cultural studies, political ecology, and critical theories of the body. This project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The second, supported by the Independent Social Research Foundation, posits breath and breathing as central to global social and environmental crises and as the corporeal basis for a politics of shared vulnerability.
Postgraduate Students
I welcome inquiries from prospective PhD students interested in critical, qualitative studies of sport, health and the body. Within those parameters, I am open to supervising a range of topics and issues including but not limited to those explored in my prior and ongoing research.
Publications
Peer-reviewed articles
Weedon, G. and Patchin, P. (2022). The Paleolithic Imagination: Race, Nature, and Science in Anthropocene Fitness Cultures. EPE: Nature and Space. 5(2): 719–739.
King, S., & Weedon, G. (2021). The Nature of the Body in Sport and Physical Culture: From Bodies and Environments to Ecological Embodiment. Sociology of Sport Journal, 38(2):131-139..
King, S. J. & Weedon, G. (2020). Embodiment is Ecological: The Metabolic Lives of Whey Protein Powder. Body & Society, 26(1): 82-106.
Weedon, G., and Wilson, B. (2020). Textbook Journalism? Objectivity, Education, and the Professionalization of Sports Reporting. Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism. 21(10): 1375-1400.
Weedon, G., Wilson, B., Yoon, L & Lawson, S. (2018). Where’s all the Good Sports Journalism? Sports Media Research, the Sociology of Sport, and the Question of Quality Sports Reporting. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. 53(6): 639-667.
Weedon, G. (2015). Camaraderie Reincorporated: Tough Mudder and the Extended Distribution of the Social.Journal of Sport and Social Issues. 39(6): 431-454.
Weedon, G. (2014). Military Resisters, War Resistance, and the Ethics of Exposure and Disclosure. Cultural Studies<=>Critical Methodologies. 14(5): 438-450.
Weedon, G. (2013). The Writing’s on the Firewall: Assessing the Promise of Open Access Publishing for a Public Sociology of Sport. Sociology of Sport Journal. 30(3): 359 – 379.
Weedon, G. (2012). ‘I Will. Protect this House:’ Under Armour, Corporate Nationalism and Post-9/11 Cultural Politics. Sociology of Sport Journal. 29(3): 265–282.
Weedon, G. (2012). ‘Glocal Boys’: Exploring Experiences of Acculturation amongst Migrant Youth Footballers in Premier League Academies. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. 47(2): 200–216.
Elliott, R. & Weedon, G. (2011). Foreign Players in the Premier Academy League: ‘Feet Drain’ or ‘Feet Exchange?’ International Review for the Sociology of Sport. 46(1): 61-75.