Caroline Fusco Assistant Professor Faculty of Physical Education and Health 55 Harbord Street, RM 328 Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 2W6 416-946-7717 c.fusco@utoronto.ca

Degrees
PhD University of Toronto Community Health 2003
MSc University of Manitoba Physical Education 1995
Cert. in Educ. University of Ulster Physical Education 1986
BA University of Ulster Sports Studies 1985

Expertise
Sociology of physical activity and health
Geographies of children and youth's physical activity and health environments
Poststructuralist and feminist theories of the body, gender and sexuality
Ethics and social justice issues in sport and physical education
Qualitative research methods

The core objective of this research is to investigate the extent to which diversely-situated youth experience certain mechanisms (social and spatial) of inclusion and exclusion that impact on their sport and physical activity participation. I draw on qualitative methods such as interviewing, focus groups, photo-voice and spatial mapping techniques to engage youth in order to get at the reasons why youth like some recreational spaces and not others, and what anxieties and empowerments are created in spatial locations. These methods will produce a mapping device for policy makers who could then see activity spaces through the eyes of those who use them. So, youth’s perspectives of policies and spaces, which are implemented and designed on their behalf, will provide new ‘ways of seeing’ youth physical activity participation in urban environments. This project has clear implications for health promotion policy and practice and has the potential to develop and enhance innovative approaches to research with youth. More importantly, the findings will contribute to the growing evidence about the relevance of environment, place and urban form to the health and well-being of young Canadian urban populations.

Recent Journal Publications
Fusco, C. (in press) 'Healthification' and the promises of urban space: A textual analysis of representations of Place, Activity, Youth (PLAY-ing) in the city. International Review for the Sociology of Sport.

Gallagher, K., & Fusco C. (2006). I.D.ology and the technologies of public (school) space: An ethnographic inquiry into the neo-liberal tactics of social (re)production. Journal of Ethnography and Education, 1(3), 301-318.

Fusco, C. (2006). Inscribing healthification: Governance, risk, surveillance and the subjects and spaces of fitness and health. Journal of Health & Place, 12 (1), 65-78.

Fusco, C. (2006). Spatializing the (Im)Proper Subject: The Geographies of Abjection in Sport and Physical Activity Space. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 30(1), 5-28.

Fusco, C. (2005). Cultural Landscapes of purification: Sports spaces and discourses of whiteness. Sociology of Sport Journal, 22 (3), 283-310.

Book Chapters
Fusco, C. (forthcoming) Governing PLAY (Place, Activity, Youth): Power, rule, moral geographies and 'healthification' in neo-Liberal urban imaginaries. In David L. Andrews & Michael L. Silk (Eds.), Sport and Neo-Liberalism: Temple University Press.

Fusco, C. (forthcoming). ‘Naked Truths’: Ethnographic dilemmas of doing research on the body in social spaces. In Kathleen Gallagher (Ed.), The Methodological Dilemma: Critical, Creative, and Post-Positivist Approaches to Qualitative Research: Routledge.

Fusco, C. (2004). The space that (in)difference makes: (Re)Producing subjectivities in/through abjection – a locker room theoretical case study. In P. Vertinsky & J. Bale (Eds.), Sites of sport: Space, place, experience. London & New York: Routledge, 159-176.

Technical Writing and Reports
Fusco, C. (2007). Sexuality and sport. In G. Ritzer (Ed.), Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (Volume IX: SE-ST). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 4290-4293.

Recent Supervised Theses
Committee Member for:
Elizabeth Crawford (Master’s of Arts, Supervisor: Dr. Paul Ritvo, School of Kinesiology and Health Science, York University). Title: Adventure Learning and the Psychology of Challenge.
Tamar Meyer (Master’s of Arts MRP, Supervisor: Dr. Jacqeline Gibbons, Department of Sociology, York University). Title: Transexualism in Sport: Theoretical and Policy Contestations.

Other Research Advisory and Consulting Boards
Faculty Mentor. CIHR Strategic Training Program in Health Care, Technology, and Place, U of Toronto Affiliate Member, Centre for Urban Schooling, OISE/UT
Advisory Committee, Centre for Girls and Women in Health and Physical Activity Research
Friends of Community Schools: Triangle Program Community Council Member

Professional Affiliations and Memberships
Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance
Canadian Association of Geographers
Canadian Lesbian and Gay Studies Association
Canadian Society for Studies in Education
Canadian Women’s Studies Association
North American Society for the Sociology of Sport