Co-creating knowledge on bicycling: a decolonial feminist participatory action research approach to arts-based methods

The colonising tendencies of Western research — in which Indigenous and racialised bodies are deliberately misrepresented — has justified the exploitation and violence towards these communities. Within the field of qualitative sport research, there is a need for research methodologies that relinquish power from the researcher, into the hands of the research communities. This paper aims to demonstrate the utility of a decolonial feminist participatory action research (PAR) approach to arts-based methods for sport research through an exploration of fieldwork with a Toronto-based bicycle organisation. A combination of data collection methods were used, including: 1) arts-based methods; 2) semi-structured interviews; and 3) reflexive journal notes. The results of this project demonstrated that a decolonial feminist PAR approach to arts-based methods can: 1) illuminate the non-human actors within art and bicycling; 2) help research colleagues critique systems of oppression; and 3) facilitate research colleague agency. Taken together, these findings demonstrate the importance of co-creating knowledge within sport scholarship to illuminate the diverse knowledges of those vulnerable to systemic oppression and erasure. This is a novel direction for challenging power relations within sport research and within sociological research more broadly.