Making moves: involved fathers experiences of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside family walking program

Abstract

ABSTRACT The relationship between physical activity and fatherhood in communities in which people experience marginalisation is not well understood in qualitative research. This is particularly the case in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) of Vancouver, Canada, where there are few services to meet the unique needs of fathers. To address these gaps, we developed Make a Move (MaM): A six-week family walking group pilot program for mothers, fathers, and their children who were living or accessing services in DTES. Informed by a community-based participatory research approach and intersectional poststructuralism, we conducted semi-structured interviews with nine fathers pre- and post-program to understand how their lived experiences as involved fathers in DTES shaped their participation in MAM. Our analysis revealed the ways that the men challenged dominant discourses related to masculinity, physical activity, and fathering, especially within the context of occupying marginalised and subordinate masculinities.