By John Gleaves and Ask Vest Christiansen
It has been one year since Verner Møller handed over the keys to the INHDR to Ask Vest Christiansen and me. In that time, small changes have been made, our membership has grown, and our fifth conference, to be held August 15 and 16 in Aarhus, has taken shape. With keynote speakers booked and conference papers underway, the coming months offer time for vacations (for those in the Northern Hemisphere), research, and the inevitable doping revelations, all of which will be punctuated by the INHDR’s biannual gathering. Our focus on “What do we (really) know about doping?” has been well received and having seen the quality of abstracts, we anticipate exciting advances related both to methods and theories that help capture the complex doping phenomenon.
The diversity of abstracts, ranging from philosophy to sociology to methodologies rooted in the natural sciences, reveals a fundamental question about the nature of doping research. This question, which strikes at the heart of the INHDR, asks to what degree is the network bound to the humanities and to what degree does the network extend beyond its confines of traditional humanistic research? After a productive exchange with one of INHDR’s most original scholars, Werner Pitch, it is clear that although we have always been the International Network of Humanistic Doping Research, humanities-based scholars cannot exist unaware of the research conducted in the fields beyond their domains. For too long, many sociocultural sport scholars have dismissed the more empirical researchers for their failure to grasp the ethical, legal, historical, political, and cultural dimensions of doping. But the price for such dismissal remains ignorance over important quantitative information and methodological tools.
The INHDR has always appreciated the need for the humanities and the natural sciences to speak together. Keynote speakers have come from fields beyond the humanities and many of our members have coauthored with colleagues in fields as disparate as physiology, criminology and computer science. However, we grow ever more convinced that the doping question cannot be understood without significant research produced by colleagues from across academe. For that reason we envision an INHDR focused around sociocultural, humanities-based questions, but one always informed of and willing to listen to researchers from broader, eclectic, or even original methodological approaches to doping. We all stand on the shoulders of giants, but often forget that we are girded only by degrees of separation from giants whose names we may not know. It is that spirit that we will continue to look for ways our network can extend doping-related knowledge and remain the premier hub for scholarly inquiry on the topic.
In that senses, we must continue to consider our membership base as our greatest asset. As noted, the INHDR has grown steadily in the past twelve months. Our standards for membership have remained as they were, but as both the quality and quantity of international doping research continues to grow, talented candidates with interesting and sometimes novel approaches to the topic enter our ranks. However, this increase does not happen accidentally or by luck. It is always great when top-flight doping researchers reach out to join us. More often than not, however, our membership grows because one of our members actively invites scholars to join. This is the key to our success. Given the diverse nature of our research fields, and the complex nature of the doping topic, we need to continue to encourage exciting and talented colleagues to join our ranks as senior members and promising and enthusiastic post-graduate students to enter as junior members. Indeed, as Ask and I looked over the abstracts, it was among the graduate students where we found a few of the most innovative projects.
Yet we must also work to recruit a more representative membership from around the globe. We are excited to have our first member from Asia join this year, though we know a number of quality researchers from Asia have yet to join. Similarly, we still struggle to increase our presences in Africa and Latin America. Please consider as you attend conferences, meet scholars, read articles, and otherwise become aware of doping research that often a simple nudge and an invitation is all it takes. By growing our ranks, it not only helps all of us but also improves the quality of the research we produce.
On a final note: Jonas Havelund who has worked as INHDR's academic secretary over the last six years decided to leave Aarhus University on 30th April in favor of new challenges at the University of Southern Denmark. Jonas has always had a good sense for the network's history and for its members' various interests. He has been a force behind the scenes for the network as regards logistical, administrative and practical tasks in connection with our conferences. Likewise he deserves credit for the smooth transformation of the network's IT profile over the last 12 months. As a replacement for Jonas to help us on IT and the conference in August we have been lucky enough to recruit Carsten K. Martensen. Carsten will be sending emails, so please be aware that you may receive emails from the network with him as sender – they are not spam, simply a new name.