Contact information
Office: B.C. Matthews Hall (BMH) 2309
Phone: 519-888-4567, ext. 40298
Research interests
My community- and arts-based research centres queer, fat, mad, and disability justice in the study of aging, fitness, and health. My ongoing program of work, including a recent project titled ReVisioning Fitness, is about untethering eugenic, colonial, and white supremacist (mythical) ideals of the body/mind from notions of “fitness” and “wellness.” I take a critical approach to so-called “inclusion” by centring and celebrating bodies of difference in the re-imagining of places of leisure, especially fitness spaces. I partner with public, nonprofit and for-profit stakeholders to bring difference-affirming research to action via film screenings (e.g., digital storytelling and mini-documentaries), revising health and wellness programming, and developing training modules. The goal of this work is a worldview shift on the meanings of "fitness" and "health" by (re)prioritizing community, relationality, joy, care, and restand making "fitness" an opportunity for body/mind reclamation.
Graduate supervision and student opportunities
I am currently accepting applications from graduate students with research interests related to:
- Fitness,exercise, and health
- Critical feminist theories
- Embodiment and bodyimage
- Critical aging
- Mental health and Mad studies
- Body reclamation
Teaching interests
- Aging and mental health
- Leisure as resistance
- Experiential education
- Land-based pedagogy
- Active learning
Education
BA, York University
MA, Brock University
PhD, Brock University
Postdoc, University of Guelph
Postdoc, McMaster University
Selected publications
See for full list of publications.
Bailey, K.A., Bessey, M., Lamarche, L., & Griffin, M. (Under review). Weight supremacy as white supremacy: An urgent call to discontinue the use of BMI in body image research. To be included in a special issue on Racism, White Supremacy, and Resistance in Body Image Research, inBody Image.
Griffin, M.,Bailey, K. A., & Mazrouei, S. (In press). Rethinking the ‘fit’ in fitness: Misfitting (loudly) to transform physical activity futures.Leisure Sciences.
Jiang, K.,Bailey, K. A., & Lamarche, L. (In press). An infinite project to nowhere: #Wellness on Instagram.Feminist Media Studies.
Bailey, K. A., Griffin, M., Lopez, K. J., Habib, S., Fayyaz, N., & Leighton, J. (2024)..Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise, & Health, 1-16.
Bailey, K. A., Bessey, M., Rice, C., Kelly, E., McHugh, T.-L. F., Punjani, S., Dube, B., Tshuma, P., Besse, K., Sookpaiboon, S., & quest, s. (2024). (B. Hamilton-Hinch & K.J. Lopez, guest eds),ܰ/Ǿ,48(2), 347-370.
Bailey, K. A., Bessey, M., Rice, C., Poplestone, L., & Gillett, J. (2023). .ܰ/Ǿ,1-26.
Bailey, K. A., Griffin, M., Lopez, K. J., Habib, S., Fayyaz, N., & Fudge Schormans, A. (2023). . Included in a special issue on Leisure, Inclusion and Belonging (D. Fortune & K. Gallant, guest eds),ܰ/Ǿ,47(4),659-680.
Bailey, K. A., Rice, C. Gualtieri, M., & Gillett, J. (2022). .Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise & Health,1-16.