Physical leisure for any-body: imagining inclusive possibilities through body mapping

For decades, the fitness industry has been critiqued for valorizing narrow white-able-lean centric body ideals – against which all bodies are evaluated or deemed nonnormative. Our Canadian-based study resists these standards by centring nonnormative embodiments. Given the centrality of the body in our research, we used body mapping, an arts-based method, to elicit participant stories that visually reflected their experiences and meanings of physical leisure, defined broadly as physical activities done during leisure time. Six participants who self-described as queer, fat, disabled, trans, and/or neurodivergent each completed online body mapping workshops and created body maps. Narrative themes presented in our findings are titled, “Yes, and … ” (embracing the coexistence of opposing truths); “radical defiance” (offering alternative difference-affirming ways to reclaim bodies and movement); and “reclaiming joy” (participants’ demand for more joy in exercise). Through body mapping, participants visually articulated their experiences, rooting self-trust in the gut and their embodied realities. We also explore the possibilities and limits of body mapping in understanding how nonnormative bodies can imagine inclusion in physical leisure, emphasizing the need for intentional, accessible approaches. Our study highlights the potential of visual methods in reimagining and re-mapping bodies, particularly those marked by social and other demarcations of difference.