Becoming interested—the evolvement of research interest in case study research on sports

Abstract

This article challenge research political assumptions of research interests as context specific phenomena predefined by researchers and others in case study research on sports. By adopting a Deleuzian perspective of materiality, the aim is to overturn academic power dimensions as well as anthropocentric focuses and instead explore how research interests emerge in case-assemblages. This is a radical shift that re-theorizes the production of research interests as co-produced capacities in researching bodies. The analysis is done by mapping territorializing, deterritorializing, and reterritorializing affects as well as molar and molecular affects. We use these affects to explore how our research interest evolved in a case study on a swimming event. We conclude by extending this critical exploration to the production of research interests in general and the exaggerated belief that research interests are attributes of specific human bodies (researchers) that precede studies.