Kristi Allain
BA (TRENT), MA (QUEEN'S), PHD (TRENT)
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Kristi Allain is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology. Her work examines physical culture and its complex relationships with national identities.
In her early work she examined how young men’s hockey produced, contested, and supported dominant Canadian national identity. Recently, she has assessed the intersections of Canadian identity, aging masculinities, and the sport of curling, focusing on gender, aging, and national identity from the perspectives of both the advantaged and the marginalized. By including these diverse actors, she illustrated the ways that national identity construction has material consequences for marginalized groups, working to erase them from popular celebrations. Through knowledge mobilization projects with sport and government stakeholders, the public, media, and others, she works to expand popular understandings of how power operates through the seemingly benign practices associated with popular culture.
Her upcoming work will examine the fields of institutional policy, media representation, and the experiences of old(er) adults and their families, to discover how their engagement or disengagement with sport and physical activity contests or reinforces dominant national identities. Her work asks, in the great game of national identity, who is in the starting lineup, and who is on the bench?
Kristi takes pride in her teaching, encouraging students to use insights learned in their sociology classes and apply them to their understanding and engagement with their own social worlds.