Decolonising Physical Literacy for Human and Planetary Well-Being

Futures Forum – 7th May 2025 – with Kathryn Riley.

The focus on physical literacy in physical education is a welcome corrective to more traditional approaches to movement pedagogies, yet mainstream concepts of physical literacy remain unduly narrow, as rooted in colonial logics that continue to separate humans from the Earth while locating dominant categories of the human in hierarchical positions of power. This presentation explores the research project, Decolonising Physical Literacy,
designed to disrupt universalising models and modes of physical literacy set in dominant Western constructs and foster culturally relevant and meaningful physical literacy that supports the holistic health and wellbeing of Indigenous, or specifically, Red River Métis teachers and learners, in Winnipeg, Canada. Bringing Western and Métis embodiments of physical literacy into entangled/differentiated relationships, physical literacy is
(re)conceptualised through movement with Land; and thus, strengthens physical education pedagogies to more adequately address social (human) and ecological (Earth) flourishing in the context of global social and ecological injustices and threats.

Watch the recording here:

CRF Futures Forum – Kathryn Riley 28th May 2025