Holly Thorpe

Foucault, Technologies of Self, and the Media: Discourses of Femininity in Snowboarding Culture

This article draws on Foucaults concepts of discourse and technologies of self to analyze the relationship between young women and the media. More specifically, it sheds light on the various discursive constructions of femininity in the snowboarding media and examines the conditions under which female snowboarders learn to recognize and distinguish between different types of media discourses. It also examines the different ways in which women act on this knowledge, including the production of their own media forms. The article evaluates sexist discourses in the media and their effects on womens snowboarding experiences and considers women-only media forms as a foundation for wider social transformation. Ultimately, Foucaults unique conceptualization of power enables an account of the mundane and daily ways in which power is enacted and contested in snowboarding culture and allows an analysis that focuses on the female snowboarder as both an object and a subject of media power relations.

Bourdieu, Gender Reflexivity, and Physical Culture: A Case of Masculinities in the Snowboarding Field

This article contributes to recent debates between supporters of the concept of hegemonic masculinity, as exemplified by R. W. Connell, and a new generation of gender scholars, as to how best explain the dynamic and fluid relationships between men, and men and women, in the early 21st century. Here, the author concurs with many of Connell’s critics and proceeds by arguing that recent feminist extensions of Bourdieu’s original conceptual schema—field, capital, habitus, and practice—may help reveal more nuanced conceptualizations of masculinities, and male gender reflexivity, in contemporary sport and physical culture. This author examines the potential of such an approach via an analysis of masculinities in the snowboarding field. In so doing, this article not only offers fresh insights into the masculine identities and interactions in the snowboarding field but also contributes to recent debates about how best to explain different generations and cultural experiences of masculinities.

Jibbing the Gender Order: Females in the Snowboarding Culture[1]

This article analyses the female snowboarder phenomenon. It examines the snowboarding culture and considers the possible reconstruction of gender relations within. The research adopt a classical historical sociological approach drawing on theories of social and cultural change, sport and leisure, and youth cultures, documentary and visual analysis and participant observation. The article comprises three distinct components. Based on raw empirical data, the first two sections paint contrasting pictures of the female snowboarder, one of social progress, the other of social constraint. The focus then shifts to placing the empirical evidence in theoretical context. The final section is a theoretical debate between liberal feminism and radical feminism. The objective is to place the experiences of the female snowboarder into a broad social picture. The article concludes that liberal feminism in snowboarding has the potential to radically alter gender relations.

Snowboarding bodies in theory and practice.

Acknowledgements Introducing a Sociology of Snowboarding Bodies Remembering the Snowboarding Body Producing and Consuming the Snowboarding Body Representing the Boarding Body: Discourse, Power and the Snowboarding Media Cultural Boarding Bodies: Status, Style and Symbolic Capital Female Boarding Bodies: Betties, Babes and Bad-Asses Male Boarding Bodies: Pleasure, Pain and Performance Transnational Boarding Bodies: Travel, Tourism and Lifestyle Sport Migration Sensual Snowboarding Bodies in Affective Spaces Body Politics, Social Change and the Future of Physical Cultural Studies Bibliography Notes Index

‘Generation X Games’, Action Sports and the Olympic Movement: Understanding the Cultural Politics of Incorporation

An important and mounting issue for the contemporary Olympic Movement is how to remain relevant to younger generations. Cognizant of the diminishing numbers of youth viewers, and the growing success of the X Games – the ‘Olympics’ of action sport – the International Olympic Committee (IOC) set about adding a selection of youth-oriented action sports into the Olympic programme. In this article we offer the first in-depth discussion of the cultural politics of action sports Olympic incorporation via case studies of windsurfing, snowboarding, and bicycle motocross (BMX). Adopting a post-subcultural theoretical approach, our analysis reveals that the incorporation process, and forms of (sub)cultural contestation, is in each case unique, based on a complex and shifting set of intra- and inter-politics between key agents, namely the IOC and associated sporting bodies, media conglomerates, and the action sport cultures and industries. In so doing, our article illustrates some of the complex power struggles involved in modernizing the Olympic Games in the 21st century.

Alternative sport and affect: non-representational theory examined

This paper is our concerned response to the tendency in critical studies of physical culture and alternative sport to reduce experience to language, discourse, texts or representation. We consider the potential of British social theorist and cultural-geographer Nigel Thrifts ‘non-representational theory’ for shedding new light on the lived, affective and affecting experiences of participants in contemporary sport and physical cultures. In this paper we discuss Thrifts seven tenets of non-representational theory, offering numerous examples from the literature relating to an array of alternative sport cultures. We also introduce the constructs of ‘politics of affect’ and ‘politics of hope’, which combine, amalgamate and extend the seven tenets – and are the essence of Thrifts most recent work. These two politics hold great promise for revealing some of the complexities of the nexus(es) between power, power/knowledge, affect, experience, movement, consumption, representation and new forms of politics, in sport and physical culture, in the early twenty-first century. Here we are particularly interested in the implications of these constructs for understanding the developments of various social justice movements (e.g., health, educational, environmental, anti-violence) that have recently proliferated within alternative sport.

Transnational mobilities in action sport cultures

1. Transnational Mobilities and Action Sport Cultures: Conceptual, Theoretical and Methodological Considerations PART I: TRANSNATIONAL ACTION SPORT CULTURAL NETWORKS 2. Producing Transnational Networks: Action Sport Companies, Media and Events 3. Digital Media and the Transnational Imaginary: Virtual Memorialization of Global Action Sport Stars PART II: ACTION SPORTS MIGRATION AND TRANSNATIONAL MOBILITIES 4. Corporeal Mobilities in Action Sport Cultures: Tourists, Professionals and Seasonal Migrants 5. Pleasure, Play, and Everyday Politics in Transnational Action Sport Destinations 6. Transnational Action Sport Career Migration: Reflections from Home and Away PART III: ACTION SPORTS (IM)MOBILITIES IN DISRUPTED AND CONFLICTED SPACES 7. Action Sports and Natural Disaster Immobilities: Arrhythmic Experiences in Christchurch, New Zealand 8. The Emergence of Action Sports in the Middle East: Imagining New Mobilities with Parkour in Gaza 9. Transnational Connections and Transformation: Action Sport for Development and Peace Building

Action Sport NGOs in a Neo-Liberal Context: The Cases of Skateistan and Surf Aid International

Sport nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have flourished in the contemporary moment, particularly situated within neoliberal global politics. In this article we focus on the relatively recent proliferation of action sport-based social justice advocacy groups. Drawing on extant materials from our ongoing research on two action sport-related social justice movements—Skateistan and SurfAid International (SAI)—we illustrate some of the unique strategies employed by these organizations to survive, and indeed thrive, within a neo-liberally-dominated world. In so doing, we hope to raise new questions for critical scholars interested in studying sport-related NGOs into the 21st century.

Action sports for youth development: critical insights for the SDP community

This article identifies new trends in youth sport participation, particularly the growing popularity of non-competitive, informal, non-institutionalized ‘action sports’ (e.g., skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, parkour). Drawing upon an array of international examples and qualitative research including interviews and media analysis, it considers the potential of action sports for making a valuable contribution to the sport for development and peace (SDP) movement. More specifically, the author argues that those working in the field of sport for youth development would do well to critically consider the alternative value systems in action sports and to recognize youth agency and creativity in both developed and (re)developing nations. It concludes by offering policy implications and encouraging youth-focused SDP initiatives to move beyond the ‘deficit model’ and towards more collaborative projects that provide space for local voices and acknowledge youth agency.

Youth, action sports and political agency in the Middle East: lessons from a grassroots parkour group in Gaza.

In this paper we build upon recent scholarship on the globalization of youth culture and sport to examine the growing popularity of action sports in the Middle East. We focus on the development of the urban physical practice of parkour (also known as free running)—the act of running, jumping, leaping through an urban environment as fluidly, efficiently and creatively as possible—among Middle Eastern youth. Drawing upon interviews and media analysis of various print, digital and social media, we reveal how youth (particularly young men) in Gaza developed their own unique parkour group, despite various social, cultural, economic, physical and psychological obstacles. We explain the proactive approaches adopted by these young men to find appropriate training spaces, to develop the skills of local children and youth, and to support their peer groups. In particular, we describe how these young men are creatively engaging social media (e.g., YouTube, Facebook, Twitter) to gain inspiration from the transnational parkour community, and also for opening new dialogue and establishing informal cultural exchanges with parkour enthusiasts around the world. We conclude by offering some broader comments for the Sport for Development and Peace Building (SDP) movement, encouraging youth-focused SDP initiatives to move beyond the ‘deficit model’ and toward more collaborative projects that provide space for local voices and acknowledge youth agency.