Futures in sport coaching: new materialisms and the doing of agential realism

Allison Jeffrey, Pirkko Markula and Marianne Clark

Chapter 22 in Handbook of Sport Coaching Research, 2026, pp 262-273 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Sport scholarship has experienced an ontological turn towards more-than-human theoretical approaches including new materialisms, posthumanism, post-structuralism, and post-qualitative inquiry. These attempts towards a paradigmatic shift have resulted in a range of scholarship engaging varied theoretical frameworks that can inspire sport coaching scholars to consider the relations of human and non-human elements in sport contexts. The recent more-than-human turn draws inspiration from a range of frameworks that can offer potential for questioning assumptions in the coaching field and (re)imagining possibilities for practices informed by different ethico-onto-epistemological underpinnings. With this engagement come risks of paradigmatic slippage and historical amnesia. In this chapter, we focus on one more-than-human framework, new materialisms, and discuss the potential for impactful sport scholarship that engages Barad's agential realism with care. We end with insights on future directions for new materialist sport coaching scholarship and a proposed pilot study that diffracts understandings of work with varsity athletes.

Keywords: New materialisms; Barad; Sport coaching; Diffractive methodology; Ethico-onto-epistemology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035341634
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