Full-time Faculty

Geneviève Rail, Professor and Principal

Degrees

• Ph.D. Kinesiology
• M.Sc. Sciences de l’activité physique
• B.Sc. Sociologie

Short Biography

Geneviève Rail, Ph.D., received her B.A. (Sociologie, 1981) and M.Sc. (Sciences de l’activité physique, 1985) degrees from Université Laval and a doctoral degree (Kinesiology, 1990) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was supervised by sociologist and qualitative research specialist Norman Denzin. Geneviève has taught courses related to women’s bodies, physical activity and health within the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Health Sciences from 1991 to 2009. Now a full professor and Principal of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, she is well known as a feminist critic of body-related institutions (e.g., health industries and systems, big pharma, media, sport) and favors poststructuralist, postcolonial and queer approaches. Author of over 80 articles or book chapters, she has been a keynote speaker in over 40 national or international conferences. In the last 10 years, she has received major funding from Canadian and Australian research councils for research involving women from varying sexuality, race, ethnicity, dis/ability, and socio-economic milieus. Geneviève is particularly interested in the articulation of these women’s various identifications with the discursive constructions and embodied experiences of the body and health.

Research Interests

• Women’s bodies and health practices
• Socio-cultural study of the body, physical activity and health
• Feminist critique of health sciences, industries and systems
• Foucault, Deleuze, Butler, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, transnational feminism, queer theory

Recent Research Projects/Grants

• Rail, G., & Dumas, A. (2008-2011, SSHRC, $145,000). Young women’s discursive constructions of the body and health in the context of obesity discourses and biopedagogies.
• Rail, G. (2008-2009, Centre National de Formation en santé, $2,000). Colloque Femmes, corps et santé, ACFAS.
• Wright, J., Rail, G. et al. (2006-2007, International Studies and Alliances Committee, University of Wollongong, $9,344). Bio-pedagogies: Schooling, youth, the body and the “obesity epidemic.”
• Rail, G., Beausoleil, N., MacNeill, M., Burrows, L., & Wright, J. (2003-2007, SSHRC, $210,446). Youth’s constructions of health and fitness.
• Fortin, S., & Rail, G. (2003-2007, SSHRC, $132,384). Healthy dancing bodies: (De)construction, (re)construction.
• Wright, J., O’Flynn, G., MacDonald, D., Rail, G. (2003-2006, Australian Research Council, $210,000). Cross-cultural analysis of constructions of health and fitness in lives of young people.

Recent Publications

• MacNeill, M., &  Rail, G. (in press, 2010). The visions, voices and moves of young ‘Canadians’: Exploring diversity, subjectivity and cultural constructions of fitness and health. In J. Wright & D. Macdonald (Eds.), Living physical activity: Young people, physical activity and the everyday. London: Routledge.
• Rail, G., Holmes, D., & Murray, S.J. (2010). The Politics of Evidence on “Domestic Terrorists”: Obesity Discourses and their Effects. Social Theory and Health, 8(3).
• Jiwani, N., & Rail, G. (2010). Islam, Hijab and young Shia Muslim Canadian women’s discursive constructions of physical activity. Sociology of Sport Journal, 27(3).
• Corneau, S., Rail, G., & Holmes, D. (2010). Le pourquoi du spectacle: Motivations relatives à la consommation de pornographie chez les hommes gais. Canadian Journal of Communication, 35(2).
• Rail, G., Murray, S.J., & Holmes, D. (2010). Human rights and qualitative health inquiry: On biofascism and the importance of parrhesia. In N.K. Denzin & M.D. Giardina (Eds.), Qualitative inquiry and human rights (pp. 218-241). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
• Corneau, S., Rail, G., & Holmes, D. (2010). Entre libération et représentation réductrice La pornographie gaie masculine comme véhicule de stereotypes. MediaTropes, 2(2), 136-166.
• Ravel, B. & Rail, G. (2010). Strong women, fragile closets: The queering of women's sport. In S. Spickard Prettyman & B. Lampman (Eds.), Learning culture through sports: Exploring the role of sports in society (2nd ed.) (pp. 359-371). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education.
• Murray, S.J., Holmes, D. & Rail, G. (2009). On ethical failings. Journal of Research in Nursing, 14, 283-284.
• Corneau, S., & Rail, G. (2010). Après le spectacle: Les impacts psychosociaux de consommation de pornographie gaie masculine chez les hommes gais. Aporia, 2(1), 24-37.
• Rail, G., & Lafrance, M. (2009). Confessions of the flesh and biopedagogies: Discursive constructions of obesity on Nip/Tuck. Medical Humanities, 35, 76-79.
• Fortin, S. & Rail, G. (2009). Le Corps dansant des années folles: la fabrique d’un imaginaire. Corps, 7, 65-71.
• Rail, G. (2009). Psychose en matière de santé et colonisation du corps féminin. In S. Yaya (Eds.), Pouvoir médical et santé totalitaire: conséquences socio-anthropologiques et éthiques (pp. 251-266). Québec : Presses de l’Université Laval.
• Rail, G. (2009). Canadian youth’s discursive constructions of health in the context of obesity discourse. In J. Wright & V. Harwood (Eds.), Biopolitics and the 'obesity epidemic': Governing bodies (pp. 141-156). London: Routledge.
• Rail, G. (2009). Final Report of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research 2008 Summer Institute : Health within Official Language Minority Communities. Ottawa, Canada : Canadian Institutes of Health Research.  Also published in French : Rapport final de lI’Institut d’été 2008 des Instituts de recherche en santé du Canada : La santé au sein des communautés de langues officielles en situation minoritaire. Ottawa : Instituts  de recherche en santé du Canada. (33 pages)