Researching Women and Sport pp 96-112 | Cite as
Working on the Body: Links Between Physical Activity and Social Power
Abstract
Revealing ‘insider’ information about the research process is an area in which feminist research has taken the lead, but such an approach, whilst demonstrating the rigorous nature of the research, can also put the researcher in a vulnerable position, as it reveals the research as it happened, with all its strengths and weaknesses. Stanley and Wise (1993), however, argue that feminist work ought to be open, even if that openness leaves you vulnerable to criticism. By mapping my biography onto the research story, I am seeking to ‘tell it like it was’ (and is) rather than providing a sanitised and depersonalised account. In so doing I am seeking to explore both the practical and theoretical problems encountered when researching the links between women’s involvement in physical activity and their social power.
Keywords
Physical Activity Physical Capital Social Power Social Location Physical CompetencePreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
- De Beauvoir, S. (1979) The Second Sex, London: Penguin.Google Scholar
- Bordo, S. (1990) ‘Reading the slender body’ in Jacobus, M., Keller, E. F. and Shuttleworth, S. (Eds) Body/Politics: Women and the Discourses of Science, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Bourdieu, P. (1992[1979]) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Butler, S. (1987) ‘Revising femininity? Review of Lady, Photographs of Lisa Lyon by Robert Mapplethorpe’ in Betterton, R. (Ed.) Looking On, London: Pandora.Google Scholar
- Connell, R. W. (1987) Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
- Deem, R. (1986) All Work and No Play, Milton Keynes: Open University Press.Google Scholar
- Green, E., Hebron, S. and Woodward, D. (1987) Leisure and Gender: A Study of Sheffield Women’s Leisure Experiences, London: Sports Council and ESRC.Google Scholar
- Haug, F. (Ed.) (1987) Female Sexualization: A Collective Work of Memory, London: Verso.Google Scholar
- Knights, D. and Wilmott, H. (1985) ‘Power and identity in theory and practice’, Sociological Review, 33, 1, pp. 22–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- McNay, L. (1992) Foucault and Feminism: Power, Gender and the Self, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
- Maynard, M. (1994) ‘Methods, practice and epistemology: the debate about feminism and research’ in Maynard, M. and Purvis, J. (Eds) Researching Women’s Lives from a Feminist Perspective, London: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
- Miller, L. and Penz, O. (1991) ‘Talking bodies: female body builders colonize a male preserve’, Quest, 43, pp. 148–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- The Observer, 20 August 1995.Google Scholar
- Ramazanoglu, C. (Ed.) (1993) Up Against Foucault: Explorations of Some Tensions Between Foucault and Feminism, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Shilling, C. (1991) ‘Educating the body: Physical capital and the production of social inequalities’, Sociology, 25, 4, pp. 653–672.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Shilling, C. (1993) The Body and Social Theory, London: Sage.Google Scholar
- Stanley, L. and Wise, S. (1993) Breaking Out Again: Feminist Ontology and Epistemology, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Theberge, N. (1987) ‘Sport and women’s empowerment’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 10, 4, pp. 387–393.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Theberge, N. (1991) ‘Reflections on the body in the Sociology of Sport’, Quest, 43, pp. 123–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Turner, B. (1984) The Body and Society: Explorations in Social Theory, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
- Weedon, C. (1989) Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory, Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
- Whitson, D. (1994) ‘The embodiment of gender: discipline, domination and empowerment’ in Birrell, S. and Cole, C. (Eds) Women, Sport and Culture, Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.Google Scholar