‘It's actually very normal that I'm different’. How physically disabled youth discursively construct and position their body/self

In this paper, we explore how physically disabled youth who participate in mainstream education discursively construct and position themselves in relation to dominant discourses about sport and physicality that mark their bodies as ‘abnormal’ and ‘deviant’. We employ a feminist poststructuralist perspective to analyze the narratives about sport, physical education (PE), the body and self of four physically disabled Dutch youngsters. Our results indicate that although dominant societal discourses about sport and physicality construct disabled bodies as deviant, vulnerable and lacking and the disabled as ‘abnormal’, these youth constructed the self as ‘normal’. However, they did so in different ways. One of the interviewees used the alternative discourse ‘everyone is different, everyone is normal’ to position her disabled self as different and normal simultaneously. Hereby she resisted dominant notions about the abled body embedded in discourses about sport and physicality. This act of resistance enabled her to accept her disability as part of her self. Others normalized their disabled bodies by attempting to pass as able-bodied. They tried to minimize and/or hide their disability and in this manner reproduced ableist discourses about sport and physicality. Our interviewees also engaged in various performative acts of resistance. They challenged these dominant discourses by strategically using the possibilities a different/disabled self provided them. Overall the data indicate the important role that visible signifiers of disability played in the exclusionary practices that these disabled youth encountered and the subject positions they could claim. Since alternative constructions and positionings regarding the abled/normal body suggest ways in which the dominance of ableism may be disrupted, we conclude with an emphasis on the need for future research that explores such alternatives.     

Playing to win vs. playing for meaningful victories

John Laumakis has offered a thought-provoking, but ultimately unpersuasive argument in favor of playing to your opponent’s strength(s) (PTS) instead of playing to their weakness(es) (PTW). In the course of this reply, we hope to show (1) that the idea of PTS not only undermines the real goal of athletic competition, but it also (2) rests upon a confusion between matters of morality and the aims of sports, as well as (3) equivocations on the kind of ‘excellence’ one pursues, and the nature of the ‘challenge’ involved in sport. We also (4) plan to raise a serious objection against the logical consistency of PTS and (5) note its incompatibility with real-world game smarts and tactics. Finally, we (6) offer our own explanation for why ‘it is improbable that many coaches and athletes will shift their strategy from PTW to PTS.’     

Hard bodies: exploring historical and cultural factors in disabled people’s participation in exercise; applying critical disability theory

Abstract

The popularity of the Paralympics co-exists with persistent exclusion of disabled youth and adults in community sport and recreation programmes around the world. This study explored the experiences of disabled people in sport, fitness and dance, drawing upon a range of participants’ perspectives from Paralympic athletes and professional dancers, to those who’d never engaged in physical activities. We asked participants about the range of psycho-social factors that intervene between a disabled person and a workable, enjoyable fitness regimen. Insights emerged into factors that encourage enjoyable physical movement for some, and factors that discourage or prohibit this for others. Analytic tools of Critical Disability Theory were applied to penetrate stereotyped conceptualizations of disabled people, taking a long view into the history of disability discrimination and exclusion. An example is the concept and (English) word, ‘fitness’ used during the Eugenics Movement to dismiss the worth of disabled people. Along with other marginalized populations, the ‘unfit’ were systematically targeted with elimination. We addressed these archaic attitudes, in concert with the present era’s intrusions of architectural, programmatic and attitudinal barriers, which may become internalized as resistance to physical activities. Participants offered strategies to support others in the world of movement, along with encouragement to Disability Studies scholars to expand research in this arena.     

A Brief Legal History of Prize Fighting in Nineteenth Century America

This article examines the value for historians of sport of works of fiction in which sport is a central motif. The novel that is explored in this context is Eva Menasse's Vienna which offers a unique representation of Austrian soccer throughout a significant part of the twentieth century and thereby provides a vivid account of the more general relationship between soccer, society and identity. It is argued that the novel also allows us to reflect on the ways in which professional athletes view their world. Does Vienna add to the uninitiated's knowledge about the ‘facts’ of Austrian football in the period depicted? Perhaps not. Does it increase our understanding of the place of football in Austrian society at that time and, indeed, in the lives of individuals in many societies even during times of crisis? Here the answer is almost certainly an unequivocal ‘yes’.     

Ultramarathon runners’ perception of place: a photo-based analysis

ABSTRACT

Sport events that depend upon natural landscapes tend to draw athletes from urban centres to peripheral areas. In doing so these events function as tourist attractions but little is known about the way participating athletes understand these places. This study explores the ways that one type of sport traveller (i.e. ultramarathon runners) understands the host destination (Grande Cache, Canada) as a place of training and competition. A volunteer employed photography data collection method was used along with an inductive thematic analysis. Four themes emerged including place as: (a) landscape, (b) sport competition, (c) community, and (d) an introspective self-portrait. First, under the landscape theme runners saw place as sublime nature during the training camp (TC) and a terrain to be conquered during the race. Second, the sport competition theme reflected place as the event with the competition being the filter through which all other aspects of the setting were understood. Third, the setting was characterized as a place of community that fostered social connection and celebration. Finally, the introspective self-portrait theme focused on the runners themselves as they centred their identity within the setting. While landscape was a dominant theme during the TC visit, the sport competition and community themes became more salient during the competition weekend. The introspective self-portrait theme was strong during both visits. Study findings suggest that runners were attached to the setting through ‘place identity’ in addition to their dependence on it to facilitate the ultramarathon event.     

Negotiating violence: Mixed martial arts as a spectacle and sport

Drawing on qualitative interviews with Mixed martial arts (MMA) athletes and stakeholders, this study aims to investigate the relationship between, on the one hand, MMA as a spectacle and imaginary world, and on the other, the fighters’ experiences of violence, pain and ‘the real’. Analytically, we are influenced by the literature on the spectacle and on hyperreality. The results show that athletes’ negotiations concerning the sport largely connect to a particular way of approaching violence – culturally and in terms of physical experience. On the one hand, there is a desire to portray MMA as a civilized and regulated sport. The athletes develop different strategies by which to handle or renegotiate the physical force and violence in the cage. On the other hand, however, the fighters’ bodily control and management of their fear sometimes breaks down. When the spectacle of the octagon becomes ‘real’, the legitimacy of the sport is questioned.     

Board strategic balance: An emerging sport governance theory

Despite the important role governing boards play in organisational life our understanding of their strategic function is limited. This paper embarks on theory development to explain the notion of board strategic capability and to identify the factors and their relationships influencing strategic capability of sport boards. This little-used construct, we argue, can guide future governance research. In reflecting on the extant literature from the nonprofit, for-profit and sport governance domains, we derived six distinct and central factors of board strategic capability: increasing contribution of volunteer board members (‘will and skill’); board operational knowledge; board integrating regional entities into the governing role; board maintaining the monitoring and control function; board co-leading strategy development; and board co-leading integration of strategy into board processes. In considering the relationships between these six factors, we propose a theory of ‘board strategic balance’ that explains these influences in a holistic model. We conclude that the theory of board strategic capability is encapsulated by understanding how creating and maintaining equilibrium in these roles and functions is managed by sport boards.     

The Knowing In Playing

David Fairchild explains that sport is an evocative symbolic system that demonstrates the apparently ‘natural’ division of humans into two separate and dichotomous genders, and also demonstrates the apparently ‘genetically based’ hierarchy between the genders in terms of sporting results. Additionally, this hierarchy of performance translates into a hierarchy of authority, such that men occupy the most powerful positions in coaching, administration and the sports media. The initial section of this paper will follow on from Fairchild to suggest some changes that are necessary before women will gain semantic authority over their participation in sport. The paper will then suggest that the expansion of the discursive space in sport to include alternate standpoints produced by women [and other marginalised groups] can follow tactics employed by feminist standpoint theorists to expand discursive space in other fields. The final section of the paper will look at how a feminist politics in discursive sport will need to challenge what William Morgan has suggested is the recently acquired dominant position of ‘interpretative broad internalism’ in sport philosophy as one of the foundational underpinnings of internalism explains sport as a perfect practice. This underpinning has been used in substantive practice to undermine the knowledges of women athletes and commentators. This final section will look at some examples of translating private authorship into political authority for women in sport.     

Words On Play

In his article, ‘Recovering Humanity: Movement, Sport, and Nature’, Doug Anderson addresses the place of endurance sport, or more generally sport at large, as a potential catalyst for the good life. Anderson contrasts transcendental themes of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson with the pragmatic claims of William James and John Dewey, who focus on human possibility and growth. Our aim is to pursue the pragmatic line of thought championed by James and Dewey as a contrasting but not mutually exclusive motive to Anderson’s analysis. We contend that movement can provide humanizing possibilities even more pronounced for those subscribing to pragmatic themes (i.e., growth and the strenuous mood). We will use running and cycling to demonstrate how the strenuous mood enhances the possibility for this humanizing condition. Specifically, we argue that moving in a committed fashion allows us to deepen our relationship with the respective practice and thus opens the possibilities for ‘recovering our humanity’.     

Federal Government Involvement in Australian Disability Sport, 1981–2015

Abstract

Few historical accounts of Australian sport policy have explicitly profiled the federal government’s involvement in disability sport. In this paper, we draw on the concept of ableism as a lens to address this lacuna. In doing so, we profile the history of the Commonwealth government involvement in disability sport and explore how the policy of ‘mainstreaming’ has emerged through partnerships led by the Australian Paralympic Committee with National Sporting Originations (NSOs) and government. We highlight that whilst these changes have arguably made mainstream NSOs more aware of their legal obligations and have led to positive changes in the provision of opportunities for people with a disability through the development of ‘Paralympic pathways’, there is some evidence of potential caveats of ‘mainstreaming’. Specifically, we point to an emerging body of evidence which suggests that despite these policy measures, people with disabilities still report being marginalized and excluded from ‘mainstream’ sporting programmes. Therefore, we question if less governmental leadership is the right path given the limitations of the present policy framework. Additionally, we highlight how performance-based funding mechanisms such as ‘Winning Edge’ are narrowing who is eligible for funding and thus curtailing finite resources for only the most ‘abled’ of the disabled.     

Social entrepreneurship in a sport policy context

This article investigates social entrepreneurship in relation to government state policies in Sweden and to the Swedish sports movement. Social entrepreneurship within sport comprises three elements that need to be qualified: the social element, entrepreneurship and sport. We wish to offer both a specific and a wider definition of social entrepreneurship in sport; specific in the sense that we try to define the concept theoretically, and wider in that we place the concept in a societal context where we relate it to different sectors in society. The method can be described as ethnographically inspired case studies. Four cases are presented. Previous research and the cases have helped us to formulate theses concerning ‘sport’ and ‘profit’ as means for social entrepreneurship, ‘social’ being normatively defined in the public sector, and entrepreneurial activities being understood as acts, crossing boundaries between the different sectors of society, leading to conflicts.     

Bracketed morality and ethical ideologies of sport fans

Historically, scholarship on ethics in sport has focused almost exclusively on practices of athletes, coaches and leagues. In this study, we highlight a serious void in the existing empirical literature on morality – ethical ideology and intention – of sport fans. Applying ‘bracketed morality,’ sport fans sometimes enact or accept behaviours otherwise regarded as problematic in everyday situations – insulting athletes, cursing at officials, celebrating riotously and/or intimidating fans of rival teams. Only some fans actually sanction (oppose) these kinds of behaviours, suggesting that they are questionable but not necessarily problematic, and, thus, worthy of closer investigation. Here, with the aid of four scenarios, we find that sport fans’ ethical ideology influences ethical intention. We also find that this influence is mediated twofold by ethical perception of moral problems and trivialization of observed situations, with trivialization exhibiting greater influence. Hence, while ethical ideologies and perceptions are important, they may be bracketed in evaluations of sport-fan behaviours.     

Sport as a drama

Argument of this text is that: to develop aesthetics of sport, we should not begin with aesthetics as philosophy of art but with aesthetics of everyday life; to start with aesthetics of sport, we should not begin with beautiful of ‘pure aesthetics’ but with the dramatic; to analyze the dramatic in sport, we should not open the analysis with analogy between theater and sport, but with sport as a sort of performance; to get at the meaning of sport as a drama, we have to discuss different meanings ‘drama’ has in theory and everyday communication; to map the dramatic in sport as performance, we have to discuss some features of sport which determine its dramatics first, and its potential as spectacle later. To proceed with the argument, we have to take into account contemporary state of aesthetics, recent development of aesthetics of everyday life, and theory of performance, together with Bernard Suits’ definition of game, Gadamer’s idea of play, and Lévy-Strauss’ account on conjunctive and disjunctive ritual.     

Inside the locker room: a qualitative study of coaches’ anti-doping knowledge,beliefs and attitudes

It is widely assumed that coaches have an effect on athletes’ doping behaviours; however, the means by which this influence can be manifested are only superficially understood. The present study seeks to understand how coaches see their role in directly and indirectly influencing the doping attitudes and behaviours of athletes. Fourteen elite-level coaches participated in focus group discussions. Coaches displayed a low level of knowledge of banned methods and practices. While it was acknowledged that doping was prevalent in sport, coaches believed that doping was not a problem in their own sport, since doping does not aid in the development or implementation of sporting ‘skills’. While the findings suggest that coaches support the revised WADA Code, with increased sanctions for coaches, the findings also highlight how coaches may indirectly and inadvertently condone doping. This may be through inaction or the apparent endorsement of pro-doping expectancies.     

Mary Garber's Coverage of Black Sports in the US Segregated South, 1944–1964

This paper addresses the gap in literature that ignores sport as practiced, managed or communicated by women by focusing on sportswriter Mary Garber, and the meanings engendered through her coverage of black high school and collegiate athletics in the Twin City Sentinel of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, during the mid-1940s through early 1960s. She received numerous prestigious awards during a career that spanned seven decades, but limited historical treatises examine this influential figure. Few scholars have attempted to understand the history of women in this male-dominated field or the sociocultural forces and obstacles that contextualise and hinder their contributions. It is a sad irony that Garber was atypical for her time, and remains so in the contemporary climate. Therefore, one major objective of this paper is to create a discourse through Garber's body of work that will help to eradicate the gender inequalities of women in sport media. In contrast with representations of women and racial minorities in mainstream sport media, this paper demonstrates that Garber addressed pertinent social concerns and supplemented dominant ideological content with more inclusive depictions of the population she covered by resisting white, masculine, heteronormative assumptions about which sports and athletes merit attention.1 ^1. I use ‘black’, ‘African-American’ and ‘white’ throughout the paper not to reinforce false notions of race as an innate biological trait, but to refer to the ways ‘race’ has been socially constructed with real, material effects.     

[Transgender] young men: gendered subjectivities and the physically active body

In this paper, I discuss [transgender] young men's social, physical and embodied experiences of sport. These discussions draw from interview research with two young people who prefer to self-identify as ‘male’ and not as ‘trans men’, although they do make use of this term. Finn and Ed volunteered to take part in the research following my request for volunteers at a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth group. Their narratives provide valuable testimonies on transgender and transgender and sport: more specifically, their experiences of school sport, their embodied subjectivities, transitioning and sport participation. The focus on transgender and sport also highlights the taken-for-granted assumption that a coherent LGBT collective exists and that transgender is a fixed, definable and agreed-upon category. The paper, therefore, has two aims. First, it intends to privilege and document the views of two young people who identify with a group that is often marginalised. Their narratives raise significant questions in relation to transgender and sport participation in educational and recreational settings. Second, the paper seeks to expose the methodological and ontological complexities surrounding ‘LGBT’ and ‘transgender’ and place these debates within sport and educational studies.     

‘Race’ talk! Tensions and contradictions in sport and PE

Background: The universal sport discourses of meritocracy and equality are so engrained that few challenge them. The most cursory interest in sport, Physical Education (PE), and society will reveal that the lived reality is quite different. Racial disparities in the leadership and administration of sport are commonplace worldwide; yet, from research into ‘race’ in sport and PE, awareness of these issues is widespread, where many know that racism takes place it is generally claimed to be somewhere else or someone else. For many, this racism is part of the game and something to manipulate to steal an advantage; for others, it is trivial. This paper explores the contradictions and tensions of the author’s experience of how sport and PE students talk about ‘race’ and racism. ‘Race’ talk is considered here in the context of passive everyday ‘race’ talk, dominant discourses in sporting cultures, and colour blindness.

Theoretical framework: Drawing on Guinier and Torres’ [2003. The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy. London: Harvard University Press] ideas of resistance through political race consciousness and Bonilla-Silva’s [2010. Racism Without Racists: Colour-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. Plymouth: Rowan and Littlefield] notion of colour blindness, the semantics of ‘race’ and racialisation in sport and PE are interrogated through the prism of critical race theory (CRT). CRT is used here to centre ‘race’ and racialised relations where disciplines have consciously or otherwise excluded them. Importantly, the centring of ‘race’ by critical race scholars has advanced a strategic and pragmatic engagement with this slippery concept that recognises its paradoxical but symbolic location in society.

Discussion: Before exploring ‘race’ talk in the classroom, using images from the sport media as a pedagogical tool, the paper considers how ‘race’ is recreated and renewed. The paper then turns to explore how the effortless turn to everyday ‘race’ talk in the classroom can be viewed as an opportunity to disrupt racialised assumptions with the potential to implicate those that passively do so. Further, the diagnostic, aspirational, and activist goals of political race consciousness are established as vehicles for a positive sociological experience in the classroom.

Conclusion: The work concludes with a consideration of the uses and dangers of passive ‘race’ talk and the value of a political race consciousness in sport and PE. Part of the explanation for the perpetuation of ‘race’ talk and the relative lack of concern with its impact on education and wider society is focused on how the sovereignty of sport and PE trumps wider social concerns of ‘race’ and racism because of at least four factors: (1) the liberal left discourses of sporting utopianism, (2) the ‘race’ logic that pervades sport, based upon the perceived equal access and fairness of sport as it coalesces with the (3) ‘incontrovertible facts’ of black and white superiority (and inferiority) in certain sports, ergo the racial justifications for patterns of activity in sport and PE, and (4) the racist logic of the Right perpetuated through a biological reductionism in sport and PE discourses.     

Urban sportscapes: An environmental deterministic perspective on the management of youth sport participation

This paper examines sport participation from an environmental perspective by considering the dynamic role of the sportscape (built-form and supporting infrastructure) in enabling, facilitating and promoting youth sport participation. Complementing recent work by Wicker et al. (2013), we conduct a case study of the ‘geography of sport’ in the Greater Toronto Area. In the process we introduce the concept of facility ‘gravitas’ to capture the attractiveness or ‘magnetism’ of sportscape entities and thereby acknowledge the multifaceted sets of environmental factors (including the bricks-and-mortar of facilities and the supporting mechanisms such as transportation, coaches and clubs) that influence sport participation. The results demonstrate that the geography of sport is not only about where sport venue built-forms are located, but also what types of sport infrastructure are available. To develop a better understanding of sport participation it is important to assess the capacity and quality of the sportscape along with other supporting structures and facilitators. The paper points to the implications for managers and policy makers from this perspective.     

About inclusive participation in sport: cultural desirability and technical obstacles

Abstract

What does it mean full participation of people with disabilities in ‘sports for all’? Beyond the right of access, the right of sharing can enrich the quality of participation in sport, overcoming segregation. But how can be guaranteed an ‘inclusive participation’ that avoids the double risk of ‘normalizing’ integration or ‘charitable’ integration? Beyond 'being among the others' or even 'doing with the others', people with disabilities should also have the possibility to ‘be valued by the others’ through the real recognition of their participation in this shared sport experience. This is not only a cultural shift, but also a technical challenge, especially to fill the persistent gap between the inclusive rhetoric and the inclusive practices really available to the people. We will explore then the key issue of the technicality of inclusive participation in sport, showing the interest of applying the principles of design for all to the architecture of sports rules.     

Moral thinking,sports rules and education1

The purpose of this study is to resolve ‘moral conflict’ in sport and to present a better approach with respect to right actions for sports participants. While acknowledging that there are many positive values or principles (e.g. Olympism) in sport, some ‘moral conflict’ in sport might still arise and therefore cannot be easily resolved. By introducing Hare's two levels of moral thinking (i.e. intuitive level and critical level), I first clarify the question ‘Why do moral conflicts appear?’ That moral conflicts may arise normally is because people or philosophers tend to think that moral principles ought to be simple and general. In the general situation, it would be fine to follow these kinds of principles when there is no conflicting situation. But in a particular context, there might be a problem. It would be impossible to resolve a conflicting problem if we do not think critically. Second, I suggest that ‘keep the rules’ can be seen as a prima facie principle or duty for sports participants. However, this prima facie principle may not be sufficient or appropriate to resolve the problem of conflict by using the intuitive thinking, since one might face a conflict between ‘keep the rules’ and ‘not to keep the rules’ and s/he cannot select in between. Thus, critical thinking is needed. Third, I try to differentiate critical thinking from intuitive thinking. Critical thinking aims not only to select the best set of prima facie principles for use in intuitive thinking, but also to resolve conflicts between them. So, if we are able to think critically, a prima facie duty sometimes can be overridden by other more important duties (sound and ethical) in a particular situation. However, as not all sports participants are capable enough to think critically, moral education regarding how to develop athletes' ‘critical thinking’ in sport is needed. It may be recommended that virtue ethics play an important role in sport not just through initiating participants into rule‐following but also in cultivating certain dispositions and educating their desires. As it is, what we also need is a good sports education system which can enlighten people toward a better understanding of sport and its values.