Fiona McLachlan

Being critical: an account of an early career academic working within and against neoliberalism

In 2014 I attended a symposium concerning Early Career Academics (ECAs) in the field of physical education and sport pedagogy. I was struck by the dominance of a particular theme at that symposium—that is, how to obtain a position and survive in academia. The aim of this paper is to use an inciting moment that occurred at this symposium as a means to confront some of the broader issues that I thought were at stake. Specifically I seek to interrogate the possible consequences of thinking about ECAs and academia in neoliberal terms, for the future of the field—a field that has a strong critical tradition. To this end I utilise autoethnographic techniques to connect the personal to the cultural and attempt to describe and analyse my story of becoming and being a critical scholar of sport, in a neoliberal context.

Gender Politics, the Olympic Games, and Road Cycling: A Case for Critical History

Abstract Sexism is an ongoing problem within the Olympic Games, and in broader society. Historians are well placed to analyze social change over time and have a role to play in transforming gendered meanings that contribute to cultural sexism. However, to have real political effects, historians need to pay greater attention to the contradictory, discontinuous, and complex aspects of gender history, and contextualize women’s experiences within the whole field of gender relations. In this paper, a critical historical approach inspired by Michel Foucault and Joan W. Scott is proposed as a means to achieve this goal. The case of road cycling is used as an example to illustrate how Olympic historians might approach a topic from this critical perspective.

The Silent Game: A Critical Reading of the History of Netball in Australia

Abstract Netball is commonly cited as being the national game for females in Australia. Yet the game’s popularity is not reflected in the field of sport history in the breadth or depth of analysis compared to other sports. There are only two major published academic articles pertaining to the origins and development of netball in Australia. In this paper, these articles are critically analyzed. The analysis reveals gaps, limitations, and inconsistencies in the history of netball in Australia. Despite what is said to be known about the history and historical significance of netball in Australia, many important questions remain.

Cohesive Narratives: Dissolving Aotearoa/New Zealand's Heroines of Water

In this paper, the biographical sporting narratives produced about a selection of New Zealands most successful women swimmers are interrogated and analyzed. It is argued that biographical narratives, ironically, pay insufficient attention to the complexity and fluidity of ‘character’. As such, it is suggested that the interrogation of fictional characters is a useful way of exploring the cultural conditions of possibility which shape the (re)production of sporting heroines. To this end, the narrative of a fictional swimmer, Alex, is compared and contrasted to the biographical sports narratives of New Zealand women swimmers, and the untapped political possibilities of a fictional sports heroine are discussed.

Reflecting on the Use of Feminist Theories in Sport Management Research

Benschop and Verloo (Feminist organization theories: Islands of treasure, 2016) argue that while feminist theories are primarily used in management and organization research when the central focus is on gender, they have applicability beyond social power relations. Similarly, we contend that explicit feminist theorizing is also not common in sport management journals and when feminist theories are used they are rarely employed outside research on diversity/gender. In this chapter we explore how scholarship in sport management employs feminist theorizing. We comment on the use of four strands of feminism ((neo-)liberal, socialist, social-constructionist and poststructural/queer) and offer suggestions as to how a more frequent use of these feminist perspectives could enrich sport management research not only in the study of diversity but also in general theorizing.