ABSTRACT
In this chapter we discuss two critical discursive approaches that share important features with physical cultural studies, including the mutually constitutive relationships between language and culture, the concern with power and ideology, and an orientation towards social justice. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) and cultural studies textual analysis (TA) each emerged from a range of theoretical and methodological traditions and practices, making them difficult to summarize easily. Yet both offer much for what Silk, Andrews and Thorpe (Introduction, this volume) describe as a fluid sensibility for critical scholarship on physical culture, (in)active embodiment and power relations. We begin with one caveat. Our collaboration is an uncommon one because, despite the shared focus on discourses and texts, a foundation influenced by Marxist and post-structuralist theories, and potentially beneficial intersections, researchers employing CDA and TA have tended to work in separate disciplinary silos.
