Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management
309 Max Bell Centre
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2
Phone: 204-474-8412
Email: moss.norman@umanitoba.ca
Research Interests
Broadly speaking, my program of research has two main themes, with the sociological study of youth, physical activity and health, forming one theme, and the sociology of youth and rural recreation comprising the other. In gaining insight into the lived complexities of youth, health, physical activity and recreation, I use diverse and novel modes of qualitative inquiry, including focus groups, interviews, photovoice, life histories and archival elicitations.
My doctoral dissertation sought to investigate how young men (13-15 years) understood and experienced their bodies in relation to obesity-focused health messaging. For years now scholars have talked about the tortured relationship girls and women have with their bodies, but there has been comparatively less research on the body-based identities of boys and men. Recently, however, images of well-sculpted, muscular male bodies have exploded onto the popular cultural landscape and this, coupled with the intensification of health messaging focused on body weight, size and shape, has resulted in greater concerns for the health practices of boys and men. The relationship between discourses of obesity and identity was also central to one of my two post-doctoral postings where I examined similar research questions, this time with young women (18-24 years). My research interest in constructions of obesity has recently shifted towards how health professionals, including kinesiologists, physcians, nurses and dieticians, understand the relationship between health and body weight, and how these understandings influence the way they counsel clients on weight-based health messaging.
In the Department of Sociology at Memorial University of Newfoundland, I held a Community-University Research for Recovery Alliance (CURRA) postdoctoral fellowship. The broader CURRA project sought to forge an inter-disciplinary strategy for the recovery of fish stocks and fishing communities, of which the retention of youth was a significant component. Keeping youth in communities that have experienced significant social and ecological trauma, as have Newfoundland’s fishing communities, is no small task. My specific research focused on the role recreation played in mediating youths’ decisions to stay, leave or return to coastal communities.
Both thematic arms of my research program have relevance to the Manitoba context, and my current research interests have continued to evolve accordingly. Keeping with the theme of youth mobilities and recreation that was central to my postdoctoral work at Memorial University, I am embarking on a research project that examines how youth recreation experiences are shaped by the intersection of ‘race,’ gender and social class within the places and spaces of rural and urban Manitoba. Furthermore, I am part of several inter-disciplinary studies that are exploring best-practices for incorporating physical activity into health care and recreational contexts.
Education
2011 Post doctoral fellow, Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University
2010 Post doctoral fellow, Community-University Research for Recovery Alliance, Memorial University of Newfoundland
2009 Doctorate of Philosophy, Graduate Department of Exercise Sciences, University of Toronto
2000 Master of Arts, Human Kinetics, University of Ottawa
1997 Honours, Kinesiology and Health Sciences, York University
Recent Scholarly Activity
Norman, M. E., Rail, G. & Jette, S. (forthcoming). Screening the un-scene: De-constructing the (bio)politics of story telling in a Reality Makeover weight loss series. In D. McPhail, J. Ellison & W. Mitchinson (Eds.) Obesity in Canada: Historical and Critical Perspectives.
Norman, M. E., Rail, G. & Jette, S. (in press, 2014). Moving subjects, feeling bodies: Emotion and Subjectification in the Canadian Reality TV series Village on a Diet. The Fat Studies Journal: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight & Society.
Norman, M. E. & Power, N. (forthcoming). Stuck Between ‘the Rock’ and a Hard Place: Re-imagining Rural Newfoundland Feminine Subjectivities Beyond the Global Imaginary and Rural Crisis. Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography.
Norman, M. E. (2013). Dere’s not just one kind of fat’: Embodying the ‘skinny’-self through constructions of the fat masculine-Other. Men and Masculinities.
Moola, F., Norman, M. E., Petherick, L. & Stachan, S. (forthcoming). Writing and teaching across the lines of fault in psychology and sociology: A focus on obesity and physical inactivity in Kinesiology. Sport Sociology Journal.
Norman, M. E. & Moola, F. (in press). Bladerunner or boundary runner? Oscar Pistorius, cyborg transgressions, and strategies of containment. In J. M. Le Clair (Ed.) Disability in the global sport arena: A sporting chance. New York: Routledge.
Moola, F and Norman, M. E. (in press). Transcending “hoop dreams,” considering carnality/corporeality, intersections and crossroads and discursive possibilities. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health.
Moola, F. J. & Norman, M. E. (2011). “Down the rabbit hole: Enhancing the transition process for youth with cystic fibrosis and congenital heart disease by re-imagining the future and time. Child: Care, Health & Development, 37(6): 841-851.
Norman, M. E. (2011). Embodying the double-bind of masculinity: Young men and discourses of normalcy, health, heterosexuality and individualism. Men and Masculinities, 14(4): 430-449.
Norman, M. E., Power, N. & Dupre, K. (2011). Playing in the woods: Youth, leisure and the performance of gender relations in rural Newfoundland. Annals of Leisure Research, 14(2-3): 141-61.
Norman, M. E. & Moola, F. (2011). Bladerunner or boundary runner? Oscar Pistorius, cyborg transgressions, and strategies of containment. Sport and Society, 14(9): 1267-82.
Norman, M. E. (2007). The Obesity Epidemic. Science, Morality and Ideology [Book Review]. Body & Society, 13(4), 118-121.
Academic Presentations
Norman, M. E., Rail, G. & Jette, S. (2012). Screening the un-scene: De constructing the (bio)politics of story telling in a Canadian reality makeover weight loss series. Obesity in Canada: Critical and Historical Perspectives Workshop. Waterloo, ON.
Norman, M. E. (2012). Finding stability in contexts of uncertainty: Coastal Newfoundland youth’s stories of work, play and sense of place. Paper presented at Rebuilding Collapsed Fisheries and Threatened Communities International Symposium, Norris Point, NL.
Norman, M. E. (Sept. 2012). The entangled meanings of health: Qualitatively unpacking situated understandings of the ‘childhood obesity epidemic’. Manitoba Institute for Child Health (MICH) Research Roundtable Series.
