Abstract
This chapter locates and explores the development of the author’s own scholarly practice within a larger history of feminist cultural studies associated with the University of Birmingham, UK. The chapter begins with a discussion of the history of the Birmingham School and the particular place of feminism within that history. It then moves to a review of three defining features of a feminist cultural studies approach—intersectionality, contextualization and politicization—illustrated with examples from past and present work in sport, leisure and physical education. The chapter concludes with some tentative observations about the place of cultural studies in these fields today.
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Notes
- 1.
The “Black” in “Black British Feminism ” has a very particular history, having been used by black and Asian women to name a ‘shared space of marginalization’ and a ‘political identity shaped by the shared experience of racialization and its consequences’ (Mirza, 1997, p. 3). It remains a contested space , however, given the capacity for “black” to take on a reductionist function and thus erase ethnic and religious differences among women (Mirza, 1997).
- 2.
The poet and critic Matthew Arnold is often used as an example of a cultural humanist scholar.
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King, S. (2018). Feminist Cultural Studies. In: Mansfield, L., Caudwell, J., Wheaton, B., Watson, B. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Feminism and Sport, Leisure and Physical Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53318-0_24
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