Carly Adams

‘Jumping like a girl’: discursive silences, exclusionary practices and the controversy over women's ski jumping

This paper considers the recent International Olympic Committee (IOC) decision to deny women the opportunity to compete in ski jumping at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. Drawing on a feminist Foucauldian framework, we suggest that the Olympics is a discourse that constructs excellence and fairness as ‘within the true’, with the IOC protesting that this recent decision is not about gender, but about the upholding of Olympic ideals. We interrogate three conspicuous absences in this discourse, each of which troubles the IOCs claim that this decision is not evidence of gender discrimination. In particular, we contextualize this decision within the risk discourses upon which the IOC has historically drawn on denying womens participation in particular Olympic events, arguing that the discursive silence around the issue of risk points to ‘old wine in new bottles’ as the IOC dresses up the same paternalistic practices in new garb. We conclude with a consideration of these discursive structures as more than simply oppressive of women. Instead, they may also be understood as indicative of the ‘problem’ posed by women, especially those who threaten the gender binary that pervades many sporting structures. Finally, these structures signal opportunities for resistance and subversion as women act to shed light on the discursive silences upon which structures of domination rest.

“Together we can make it better”: Collective action and governance in a girls’ ice hockey association

This paper, drawing on collective action literature and situated within the women’s sport movement, offers a case study of a separate girls’ minor hockey association that formed in Ontario in the mid-1990s. The analysis explores the process of establishing a girls’ hockey association that is separate from the boys’ minor hockey umbrella. Two fundamental collective action themes emerged from the data. First, the data revealed the founders of the separate association acted according to both affective and rational motives. Second, the founders utilized different strategies, namely advocacy and social action, to form the association. These findings support an integrated perspective towards community change as it pertains to female hockey governance, and introduces a novel stream of inquiry into this area of female sport – one that connects collective action, governance, and organizational dynamics.

‘It’s just girls’ hockey’: Troubling progress narratives in girls’ and women’s sport:

The current historical moment abounds with social ideologies suggesting that girls’ and women’s sport has come a long way. Narratives of achievement, success and the gains that have ostensibly been made over the last three decades hold up these ideologies. In this interview-based study, we consider girls’ minor hockey in Southern Alberta, Canada to examine whether and how historically entrenched inequalities are being challenged, eradicated and/or maintained. To do this, we consider how gender systems are simultaneously resisted and reproduced in girls’ minor hockey in this region thus, positioning it outside the ‘triumphant feminist tale’. In so doing, we highlight the importance of critically considering progress narratives of growth and success in girls’ and women’s sport.

Ghostly (Dis)Appearances: Sport, Gender and Feminisms in Canada

Abstract Since the 1970s there have been extraordinary changes and growth in Canadian sport in terms of access, opportunity and recognition. Yet, the gains and successes of girls and women’s sport are often written, told and retold as uncomplicated success stories, as progress, with the battles fought and the complex negotiations of the past eerily absent. In this chapter, we turn to the work of feminist poststructuralist Avery Gordon to consider gender, feminisms and sport in the Canadian context. We do this by putting various moments in time in conversation with one another and considering our current moment in light of what has come before but is often forgotten, overlooked or even suppressed. We argue that the need for feminist praxis remains significant in Canadian sport and it is imperative that we continue to shed light on ghostly (dis)appearances in narratives of sport in Canada.

The logic of memory: “Paroxysms of tears and joy” for the London Olympics and the Bhopal disaster

We seek to engage in this article the current debate in memory studies regarding the definition and nature of the phenomenon of collective memory. Using the controversy over Dow Chemical Corporation’s sponsorship of the London Olympic stadium in 2012 as an example, we theorize memory as inherently logical—that is, as necessary to the maintenance of the overarching logics that govern the political and economic forms of a given society. We suggest that physical memory, or memory manifested in material, spatial objects such as architecture, plays an important role in both inciting remembrance and encouraging forgetfulness. We also make a case for distinguishing between three facets of memory: memory as a collective phenomenon, memory as an individual phenomenon, and the interface between the two where shifts in the processes of remembering and forgetting are made possible. In making this case, we synthesize theories of collective memory with a theory of political critique.