Notes on:
Pavlidis, A & Fullagar, S (2013) Narrating the
multiplicity of “derby grrrl”: Exploring
intersectionality and the dynamics of affect in
roller derby, Leisure Sciences, Volume 35, Issue 5
pp. 422-437 | DOI: 10.1080/01490400.2013.831286
Dave Harris
Women participating in roller derby have created a
new kind of leisure practice that challenges
gender norms, although not without tensions.
This is a qualitative study in Australia, showing
the intersection of identities, and paying
particular attention to the affective relations at
work.
Roller derby has been reclaimed by women as
empowering, involving 'desires for fierce
competition, creative expression and collective
pleasures' and 'intense affects such as pride,
passion, aggression, love, shame and loss'
(2). Yet there are tensions. The work
serves as a case study to examine the 'gendered
embodiment of women's leisure and sport
experiences, although with more emphasis on social
relations and affect as they intersect.
Particular 'identity markers and material
conditions related to age, ethnicity, gender,
sexuality, [dis]ability, and class' intersect.
Roller derby was once a masculine sporting
culture, involving 'strong, fit bodies and tough
competition', but it has now been feminized
introducing 'art, costumes, and music' as well
(3). It takes place between teams of
five. It is a contact sport although the
rules prevent serious injury. It is popular
in Australia. Women have to negotiate
particular power relations, and manage their
resistance from a number of different sites.
However there is no single reading, for example of
resistance or alternatives. Their own
narratives identify complexity.
The first resource turns on the 'concept of
intersectionality'. The second one looks at
cultural theories of affect and embodiment.
The idea is that experience is shaped by affects
such as 'shame, pride, pleasure' (4), and these in
turn are shaped by social relations of
identity. In particular bodies in sport lend
new significance to class and race, possibly in
ways that white middle class heteros would find
embarrassing. Roller derby is a source of
pride which focuses these intersections.
Sociology, feminist and cultural theory have
thought about affects in leisure and sport as
matters of socio-cultural rather than
psychological meanings. The affective turn
emphasizes multiple identities rather than an
essential self [one source is Deleuze and Guattari!].
Feminists are particularly interested in how
affect is performed through gender
relations. All this has revalued emotional
meaning, based on the early work by Butler on
gender as performative. Affect now means the
practice of emotions and embodied feelings in
social interactions and discourse. It is
sometimes used to challenge conventional notions
of feelings and psychology of biology, since the
emphasis is on relations and cultural
contexts. Leisure and sport are ideal sites
to study affects as they are embodied.
The post structuralist notion of intersectionality
was originally coined by Crenshaw addressing the
identities of black women and how they had been
made invisible in feminist writing. Gender
and race are the most frequently discussed
intersections, sometimes with class, although
other axes such as 'disability, place, culture,
religion, age and sexuality' are less
common. Intersections can involve both
oppression and privilege, and both are needed for
a critical understanding. Social change has
also affected the debate by noting '"fleeting and
fluid identities"', quoting Styhre and
Eriksson-Zetterquist (6).
Roller derby makes an ideal case study. It
tends to be largely white, as with most Australian
sports, and whiteness becomes a norm to identify
others. Whiteness involves privileges
including 'certain affects; cultural inclusion and
pride within a leisure space they feel entitled to
enjoy'. It is clear that inequality and
preferences are involved, possibly 'the form of
exclusion that can also be understood through
power relations', especially the affective issues
of feelings of not belonging or being shamed by
difference.
For the white participants, sexuality and gender
mark differences, and it would be wrong to
categorize them just as 'woman', 'a cultural
imaginary that assumes the masculine is default
for human identity' [citing Braidotti and
Irigaray]. There are parallels in the
binaries between heteros and homos, as queer
theorists have argued. This might be a
source of omission even for a post structuralist
feminist: feminist terminology is not intended to
eliminate other categories rather to consider how
some become stable or shift, pointing to 'power
relations between women'
Ethnography and semi structured interviews were
used, while poststructuralist feminism emphasizes
embodied meanings and the effects of
language. The authors were a student and
supervisor respectively. The first author
was a participant this provided access to a number
of meanings. Fullagar stayed as an outsider
and this helps reflexivity. However, she was
an insider to queer culture.
40 interviews were conducted, additional textual
material gathered from places such as blogs and
websites. Two narratives emerged from the
interviews were turning on the experiences
scholarly organizations of the sport, and feelings
about the transformative effects of the
sport. Writing the research is made visible
in order to expose different readings and
different links between theory and practice than
denying that some underlying realities been
accessed. They chose academic writing rather
than as something more like a screenplay or
poetry, however.
The aim was to explore into sections between
gender, class and sexuality, bearing in mind that
narratives themselves need to be examined to see
how they tell stories. Individuals have
multiple stories. Narratives themselves are
productive. They did not use themes, but
read narratives against other possibilities,
according to theoretical interests. Two
particular narratives have been chosen for this
article to show what the affects of intersecting
identities and 'diverse leisure meanings'
(9). The organizing question when analyzing
transcripts was to ask how the meaning of
participation was articulated, what sort of
identities were invoked, what contradictions
[intersections, tensions] existed within and
between narratives. Participants were aware
that research is a matter of story telling, and
they openly 'staked out a claim for their version
of the sport, and a certain kind of subjectivity
for themselves' (10).
In the first narrative, a woman of 30 was a
graphic designer employed in a government
department. She was white and hetero,
involved in roller derby for several years, and an
active sportswoman in other areas. She is in
one of the largest and strongest leagues and has
been a key in its success. She was
committed, originally single, then living with a
boyfriend which caused problems of balancing
commitments, as did work. She had been
marginalized in the past, rejected as a female
sportsperson by her father. Her hetero
relations had also been effected. She was
'competitive and serious'(11). She saw
nothing particularly unusual about contact sports
for women. She saw roller derby as
legitimate and creative, and thinks the injuries
are overreported. She did not see the need
to adopt particularly sexy costumes or images, and
was annoyed by media focus: she claimed a
functional purpose for things such as
fishnets. She did not see roller derby as
alternative: her league was coached by
professionals.
The authors agree that while most sports are
patriarchal, modernist and 'techno
capitalist'(12), roller derby does not support
these ideals. Nor is it mere entertainment,
like professional wrestling. This demeans
the women who take part and their athleticism, and
they dislike being thought of as 'soft...too
emotional, too feminine'. This is also the
basis for Ahmed seeing such connects humans as
showing the danger of working only with
'feelings'. The first participant wanted to
win and experience the pleasures of combining
strength and power. She found 'girlyness'
frustrating and shameful, even disgusting.
Emotions got in the way, including frustration
leading to tantrums. As a result, a
particular intersection produces a specific
affective practice - competition and wanting to
win have to be related to the sport as real, and
herself as a 'white female heterosexual athlete'.
Her status was privileged, university educated and
fairly well resourced. This permitted travel and
also the rejection of 'the queer, feminized and
playful aspects of roller derby'. She saw it
as empowering, and felt anger and shame at some
other displays by women, especially if it involves
something dangerous and sexual. She wanted
to preserve heterosexual femininity in a contact
sport. She saw success as an individual
matter rather than a collective effect of
patriarchy, so she was one of those young women
where individual success was achieved at the price
of letting feminism fade away [also cited by
McRobbie 2009, apparently].
Competition, aggression and power are usually seen
as masculine, something for women to have to
negotiate to compete while remaining hetero.
This participant has experienced shame at
being unfeminine, but she is willing to risk it in
order to play. Sometimes, women felt
pressured to show themselves as real, avoiding
aggression, strength and pain, and wanting to look
nice. This participant wants to play hard
but also stresses the rules and the
guidelines. She wants to separate sport from
sexuality, again a result of the particular
intersection of her categories. She does not
mention derby when she dates men, because they
assume that she is easy, or into S and M.
Ambivalence about roller derby remains, and
increased as competing commitments emerged.
Even when she met a man who would accept her
participation, she still wanted to separate her
life from her sport, indicating some shame
[actually, shame about being proud to be a roller
derby player].
The second participant was younger, white, and a
university student, who did not define her
sexuality. She was a rural dweller
[apparently, urban dwelling was another one of
those identities seen as important in the first
case]. She saw participation as helping her
assert herself. She seemed reflexive and
also detached from her responses in emotional
terms. By the second interview, however,
she'd got more involved in organizing the league
and was more impassioned. She identified
heterosexuality and gendered performance as a
component, noted that lots of people assumed the
sport was dominated by lesbians, but did not
attempt to separate out her specific derby
identity. She creatively played with
identity instead, finding her own image and
voice. She stressed openness and multiple
readings. She played by wearing a dress and
confusing her family about her orientations and
accusations of lesbianism—such reactions were part
of the appeal [as was the ability to dress up and
act out].
She saw the sport as fun, but it also involved
'feelings of belonging and love'(16), experiencing
the players as a unique community. In this
way, the sport became 'a site of femininity, in
its multiplicity, and strength and
toughness'. This helped marginalize feelings
of shame or rejection by men, and allowed her to
express aggression and competitiveness.
Instead of coldness, these feelings were
experienced as a different emotional orientation,
as Ahmed suggests, a matter of collective pride,
being part of the community 'where female
sexuality is configured differently' (17).
Participation brings constant happiness,
'produced through the oncoming practice of roller
derby', its complexities, and its exhilaration and
freedom. Developing skills sometimes
provided frustration as well [all sounds like the
necessary conditions for flow]. She talked about
the tensions in the league around sexuality.
Some of the women were gay and this caused
friction in case the whole league became seen as
gay.
This narrative shows different intersections of
identity with different effects, enabling her to
develop aspects of identity that were marginalized
elsewhere. Overall, the negotiations
'between pride and shame, joy and disappointment,
winning and losing, heterosexuality and
homosexuality' were played out in different ways
(18). This shows that identities are fluid,
emerging within changing networks [which include
technologies and artefacts, although these have
not been discussed so far]. The same
interactions appear as well in 'globalized, highly
mediated leisurescapes'.
Roller derby may not be an oppositional
subculture, with sustained challenge to gender
inequality, but it may have 'more nuanced
opportunities for social change', because it
provides 'a diverse leisure space' by women.
It certainly challenges the usual notions 'that
position women as meek, fragile and defined in
relation to men'. It acts like the Gay Games
to make sport more inclusive and cooperative and
permit more diverse sexualities and genders.
The two narrative showed different possibilities,
pride on the track and shame off it for one, the
possibility to enact alternative sexualities for
the other, separateness from queer derby culture
and revelling in it.
Wearing discusses leisure spaces as heterotopia in
Foucault's terms, open spaces for struggle and
resistance. Yet there is no simple subject
engaged, rather social practices with complex
intersections, experience of subjectification
[glossed here as positive 'self-formation',
19]. Women perform and regulate their own
narratives and identities. Women are
positioned differently in these spaces [with
different amounts of cultural capital], and this
can produce tension among groups, at least the
emphasis moves away from 'static, social
structures', fixed categories and identities.
Intersecting categories can produce
'"compensating, overshadowing, saturating, hiding
and drowning one another" [citing Staunaes, 20],
and can reinforce or counteract each other.
Practices engaged in in sport to privilege some
subjectivities over others - for example, both
participants were white women, missing the effects
of racial background, yet even they produce
'subtle and nuanced intersections of identity' and
differences. Roller derby is not either
resistant or subversive, but exhibits diverse
narratives and subject positions.
Discussions of affect should also be seen as more
relational [specifically argued against Massumi
who sees it as autonomous] and embodied, always
involving self and others and shared judgements
[especially in team games]. Sports also take
place 'amidst everyday negotiations' about
gender. Intersectionality is particularly
useful when discussing subjects in leisure or
sport spaces. Becoming and belonging is
never just linear or stable, and this produces
'challenges for league organizers', (22) and
managers, and this needs to be addressed in the
literature, and by researchers [pleas for a 'whole
life' approach] [a new reason for asking for
socio demographic variables in research?].
It is not just a commitment to the politics of
diversity, since that ignores systematic
inequalities, even among women, and there are some
shared elements such as desire and pride in these
cases.
Looking at affect has helped understand the
'multiplicity of leisure subjectivities'. It
also helps 'inform a feminist imaginary for
leisure' [with a reference to Irigaray], which in
turn might help us 'imagine a more inclusive, just
society'. Affect complicates static and
singular interpretations [with a strange quote by
McRobbie on a series of interpellations producing
a range of entanglements for young women, as they
enjoy both freedom and success].
'Educational achievement, age, ability and
geography' also produce multiple
configurations. [So where do we stop - why
no religious affiliation, or occupation?].
Examining narratives highlights desire for freedom
and success.
Roller derby 'is an everyday site', a place where
pleasure and pride can be celebrated
publicly. Pleasure is gained by rigorous
training and exercise and dressing up and enjoying
music, or belonging to a sporting community.
Sometimes the women create their own derby
communities. There are some standard aspects
of the communities, however, possibly induced by
monoculturalism. The possible future affects
of greater structuring of the sport will need to
be considered.
McRobbie,
A. (2007). Top girls? Cultural
Studies,
21(4), 718-737
key concepts page
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