Recentring others – tracing the <i>its</i> of physical education and health

Purpose The aim of this paper is to explore how engaging in a diffractive methodology can enact a recentring of othered bodies and properties in Swedish physical education and health research. Design/methodology/approach The posthumanist framework of agential realism places relationality at the centre of inquiry and suggests a diffractive methodology as a suitable means for researching this relationality. In a diffractive analysis, different insights, such as texts, concepts or fragments from empirical material, are read through one another, and attention is paid to what and where intensities emerge and what bodies and properties become included or excluded. In this paper, an analysis of empirical material from physical education and health research is read through literature on diffractive methodology. Findings The results of the diffractive analysis show how phenomena such as language, colour and resistance have unexpected ways of co-constituting the analysis process. In the discussion, a diffractive methodology is suggested as a way for educational research practices to respond ethically to the material-discursive entanglements of research as a world-making practice. Originality/value This paper emphasises the importance of recentring others in educational research. It also contributes to a growing field of interest in focusing on entanglements in physical education and health research.