Kinesiology “at the Crossroads”: An Historian’s Perspective on Preparing for Alternative Futures

This article peers into kinesiology’s past to seek a better understanding of what is to come. I explore the constitution of kinesiology and its related professions and the spaces in which they developed by employing philosopher Walter Benjamin’s notion that “each epoch dreams the one to follow.” I then examine a constellation of emerging trends in higher education today that is once more leading to reorganizations, consolidations, and mergers of academic units that directly or indirectly impact the role of kinesiologists across North America (and to different extents elsewhere around the world). I conclude that an ongoing effort to attain balance may well be the needed impetus to achieve ongoing institutional strength and stability in kinesiology.