Human Studies / Sciences humaines

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Browsing Human Studies / Sciences humaines by Subject "arts-based method"

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    The intersecting social identities of Canadian national team female boxers
    (2018-08-21) Ge, Yang
    Understanding athletes as whole person through the lens of social identities is an emerging line of inquiry in both the academic and practical fields, within sport psychology (Schinke & McGannon, 2015). Social identities can be represented as socially constructed and group-based conceptions that people are categorized within multiple social groups, such as gender, race, sexuality, class, education, age, ethnicity, and disability, which constituting each person as who they are and how they relate to the outside world (Blodgett, Schinke, McGannon & Fisher, 2014). In the previous research, researchers portrayed athletes only through the role-based athletic identity (Ronkainen, Kavoura, & Ryba, 2016). Utilizing social constructionism, in the current dissertation, identities were conceptualized as multifaceted, fluid, performative, and contextually contingent products of cultural narratives and discourses (Schinke & McGannon, 2015), saturated with power, making individuals privileged in certain cultural discourses while subordinated in others (Collins, 2000). To develop an understanding of complexity and multiplicity of athletes, I integrated an intersectionality framework to investigate how do athletes engage in the sport team with multiple aspects of selves within the Canadian National Female Boxing Team. The research questions were structured as: (1) How do the national female boxers construct multiple social identities in boxing? (2) What social identities are privileged and what are subordinated on the Canadian National Boxing Team? (3) What are the implications of the various culturally constructed social identities and associated meanings for female boxers’ sport experience and wellbeing? Ten national female boxers participated in this research. Art-based method and conversational interview were employed to facilitate rich storied accounts around social identities iv (Smith, 1999). Interpretive thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2016) and creative nonfiction inquiry (Smith & McGannon, 2015) were used to organize the data around research questions. Based on the stories and experiences athletes shared, nine social identities were identified as salient and meaningful to athletes’ sport experience on the National Team context, where the patriarchal, whiteness-centered; and pragmatic discourses inform the identity inequality issues on the team. The identities were coalesced into three groups (gender-sexuality-physicality, race and ethnicity- languagereligion, and socioeconomic status-weight categories- the athletic level) for analysis. Seven vignettes were presented to show the different social realities that athletes constructed pertaining to these social identities. Following the CSP agenda, the current project aims to empower marginalized identities and to build up a culturally inclusive sport environment. Five conclusions were generated around the intersectionality of athletes’ social identities, with the practical implications, recommendations, and interventions were presented correspondingly.
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    The relocation experiences of aboriginal athletes pursuing sport in euro-canadian contexts: visual and narrative stories of acculturation
    (Laurentian University of Sudbury, 2015-05-27) Blodgett, Amy T.
    Researchers have documented the importance of sport in the lives of Aboriginal people, emphasizing how it can improve health and wellness and reaffirm core cultural values and connections (Lavallee, 2007; Reading, 2009). However, there is a lack of knowledge about the experiences of Aboriginal people who are engaging in sport, as well as cultural issues that affect their participation. Addressing this dearth of information, the current project was aimed at exploring the relocation experiences of Aboriginal athletes (14 to 26 years old) who had relocated off reserves in Northeastern Ontario to pursue sport opportunities within “mainstream” (Euro-Canadian) communities. The project was developed with Aboriginal community members and was driven forward as a form of cultural sport psychology, aimed at challenging the culturally excluding processes of traditional sport psychology (Ryba, Stambulova, Si, & Schinke, 2013). Mandala drawings (circle drawings) and conversational interviews were employed as part of a decolonizing methodology that centralized local Aboriginal ways of knowing, and that enabled in-depth experiential accounts of relocation to be shared (Smith, 1999). A local Indigenous version of an inductive thematic analysis was used to organize the data around three overarching themes: (1) the benefits of relocation, (2) the challenges of relocation, and (3) strategies for helping relocation. The results provide novel insights into how the sport experiences of relocated Aboriginal athletes are shaped by the dynamics of acculturation (i.e., second-culture learning). Through the participants’ accounts, it is revealed how relocated athletes have to dynamically (re)construct a sense of identity and belonging from shifting positions in and between dual (Aboriginal and Euro-Canadian) cultural contexts. Moving towards action, this knowledge can now be used to facilitate more inclusive sport contexts that embrace (rather than iv marginalize) the cultural identities of Aboriginal participants. Local community change efforts have already been initiated within the Aboriginal community through the engagement of the athletes’ mandalas as visual stories. In an effort to encourage future CSP research that is meaningful within the lives of marginalized sport participants, some final implications are drawn from the research.