Forging a new research imagination regarding Chinese girls' physical activity

The aim of this chapter is twofold. First, it seeks to contribute to and enable the circulation of Chinese concepts as theoretical tools in current physical activity research on Chinese girls. Second, it offers insights into the meanings and challenges associated with the co-production of Chinese and Western knowledge in efforts to understand Chinese girls' physical activity. Following Chen (2010), this work seeks to decolonise the established cultural imaginary and the senses of the self and the Other that the encounter between colonialism and local cultures and practices generate. However, unlike post-colonial researchers who regard the West as the Other and have, thus, trapped themselves in a similar binary logic (Zhang et al., 2015b), this chapter aims to mobilise Chinese concepts and knowledge in an intellectual dialogue with the 'West'. In doing so, this chapter begins by exploring Chinese conceptualisations of the (gendered) body. Next, it focuses on Chinese 'complementary difference', which can provide a useful theoretical lens for eliminating the binary and the contradictions between the dominant and cultural 'other'. Last, it discusses the implications of the incorporation of Chinese conceptual resources into Euro-American- centred research for understanding Chinese girls' physical activity in school and university settings. This chapter aims to achieve a dialogical process that integrates Chinese concepts so as to complement existing theories in Western theory and, thus, widen the knowledge base.