Dilemmas of Gender and Global Sports Governance: An Invitation to Southern Theory

in Sociology of Sport Journal
Kathryn Henne*,1,2 and Madeleine Pape*,3
View More View Less
  • 1 University of Waterloo
  • | 2 Australian National University
  • | 3 University of Wisconsin-Madison
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.2017-0150
In Print:
Volume 35: Issue 3
Page Range:
216–225
Restricted access

Purchase article

USD  $24.95

Student 1 year online subscription

USD  $67.00

1 year online subscription

USD  $89.00

Student 2 year online subscription

USD  $126.00

2 year online subscription

USD  $169.00
Subscribe to this Journal

  • Purchase article

    USD  $24.95

  • Student 1 year online subscription

    USD  $67.00

  • 1 year online subscription

    USD  $89.00

  • Student 2 year online subscription

    USD  $126.00

  • 2 year online subscription

    USD  $169.00

Most research on global sports policy either negates or underappreciate perspectives from the Global South. This article incorporates Southern Theory to examine how Northern worldviews profoundly shape gender-specific sports policy. It highlights two dilemmas that emerge, using illustrative case studies. First, it considers questions of gender and regulation, as evidenced in the gender verification regimes of track-and-field. Then, it addresses the limits of gender and empowerment in relation to sport for development and peace initiatives’ engagement with the diverse experiences and perspectives in non-Western contexts, considering them in relation to programming for women in Pacific Island countries. The article concludes with a reflection on possible contributions of Southern theory to sport sociological scholarship.

Henne is with the Dept. of Sociology and Legal Studies, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, and also with the School of Regulation and Global Governance, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT. Pape is with the Dept. of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI.

Address author correspondence to Kathryn Henne at khenne@uwaterloo.ca.

Sociology of Sport Journal

Cover Sociology of Sport Journal

  • Adriaanese, J.A., & Schofield, T. (2013). Analyzing gender dynamics in sport governance: A new regimes-based approach. Sport Management Review, 16(4), 498–513. doi:10.1016/j.smr.2013.01.006

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Australian Government. (2011). Tonga netball strategy: Health communication strategy and phase 1 campaign workplace, 2011–14. Canberra, ACT: Australian Sports Outreach Program.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Australian Government. (2015). Australian sports diplomacy strategy, 2015–18, Retrievedfrom http://dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/Documents/aus-sports-diplomacy-strategy-2015-18.pdf.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Avishai, O., Gerber, L., & Randles, J. (2012). The feminist ethnographer’s dilemma: Reconciling progressive research agenda with fieldwork realities. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 42(4), 394–426. doi:10.1177/0891241612458955

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Basu, S. (2016). The Global South writes 1325 (too). International Political Science Review, 37(3), 362–374. doi:10.1177/0192512116642616

  • Bohuon, A. (2015). Gender verifications in sport: From an East/West antagonism to a North/South antagonism. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 32(7), 965–979. doi:10.1080/09523367.2015.1037746

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Bouchez, Y. (2016, August 19). Mauvais genre. Le Monde.

  • Briggs, C.L. (1986). Learning how to ask: A sociolinguistic appraisal of the role of the interview in social science research. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Carney, A., & Chawansky, M. (2016). Taking sex off the sidelines: Challenging heteronormativity within “Sport in Development” research. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 51(3), 284–298. doi:10.1177/1012690214521616

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Chase, C. (1998). Hermaphrodites with attitude: Mapping the emergence of intersex political activism. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 4(2), 189–211. doi:10.1215/10642684-4-2-189

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Chattier, P. (2013). Does schooling and work empower women in Fiji? Or have gender inequalities persisted and why? Global Chance, Peace & Security, 25(1), 61–76. doi:10.1080/14781158.2013.758097

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Claringbould, I., & Knoppers, A. (2008). Doing and undoing gender in sport governance. Sex Roles, 58(1–2), 81–92. doi:10.1007/s11199-007-9351-9

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Connell, R. (2009). Southern theory: The global dynamics of knowledge in social science. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

  • Connell, R. (2011). Sociology for the whole world. International Sociology, 26(3), 288–291. doi:10.1177/0268580911404452

  • Cooky, C., Dycus, R., & Dworkin, S.L. (2013). “What makes a woman a woman?” versus “our first lady of sport”: A comparative analysis of the United States and the South African media coverage of Caster Semenya. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 37(1), 31–56. doi:10.1177/0193723512447940

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Court of Arbitration for Sport. (2015). CAS 2014/A/3759 Dutee Chand v. Athletics Federation of India & The International Association of Athletics Federations. Interim Arbitral Award. Retrieved from. http://www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/award_internet.pdf

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Dreger, A.D., & Herndon, A.M. (2009). Progress and politics in the intersex rights movement: Feminist theory in action. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 15(2), 199–224. doi:10.1215/10642684-2008-134

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Eskes, T.B., Duncan, M.C., & Miller, E.M. (1998). The discourse of empowerment: Foucault, Marcuse, and women’s fitness texts. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 22(3), 317–344. doi:10.1177/019372398022003006

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Fausto-Sterling, A. (1995). Gender, race and nation: The comparative anatomy of ‘hottentot’ women in Europe, 1815–1817. In J. Terry & J. Urla (Eds.), Deviant bodies: Critical perspectives on difference in science and popular culture (pp. 19–48). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Fenichel, P, Paris, F., Philibert, P., Hiéronimus, S., Gaspari, L., Kurzenne, J.Y., … Sultan, C. (2013). Molecular diagnosis of 5α-reductase deficiency in 4 elite young female athletes through hormonal screening for hyperandrogenism. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 98(6), 1055–1059. PubMed ID: 23633205 doi:10.1210/jc.2012-3893

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Foucault, M. (2007). Security, territory, population: Lectures at the College De France, 1977–78. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillian.

  • Friel, S., Chiang, T., Cho, Y., Guo, Y., Hashimoto, H., Jayasinghe, S., … Rao, M. (2011). Freedom to lead a life we have reason to value? A spotlight on health inequity in the Asia Pacific region. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health, 23(2), 246–263. PubMed ID: 21398299 doi:10.1177/1010539511402053

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2006). The end of capitalism (as we knew it): A feminist critique of political economy (2nd ed.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Grabham, E. (2012). Bodily integrity and the surgical management of intersex. Body & Society, 18(2), 1–26. doi:10.1177/1357034X12440825

  • Hall, L.K. (2009). Navigating our own “Sea of Islands”: Remapping a theoretical space for Hawaiian women and Indigenous feminism. Wicazo Sa Review, 24(2), 15–38. doi:10.1353/wic.0.0038

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Hau’ofa, E. (1983). Tales of the Tikongs. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press.

  • Hayhurst, L.M.C. (2011). Corporatizing sport, gender, and development: Postcolonial IR feminisms, transnational private governance, and global corporate social engagement. Third World Quarterly, 32(3), 531–549. doi:10.1080/01436597.2011.573944

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Hayhurst, L.M.C., & Giles, A. (2013). Private and moral authority, self-determination, and the domestic transfer objective: Foundations for understanding sport for development and peace in Aboriginal communities in Canada. Sociology of Sport Journal, 30(4), 504–519. doi:10.1123/ssj.30.4.504

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Hayhurst, L.M.C., MacNeill, M., & Frisby, W. (2011). A postcolonial feminist approach to gender, development and EduSport. In B. Houlihan & M. Green (Eds.), Handbook of sport development (pp. 353–365). London, UK: Routledge.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Henne, K. (2014). The “science” of fair play in sport: Gender and the politics of testing. Signs, 39(3), 787–812. doi:10.1086/674208

  • Henne, K. (2017). Indicator culture in sport for development and peace: A transnational analysis of governance networks. Third World Thematics, 2(1), 69–86. doi:10.1080/23802014.2017.1353892

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Hester, J.D. (2004). Intersex(es) and informed consent: How physicians’ rhetoric constrains choice. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 25(1), 21–49. PubMed ID: 15180094 doi:10.1023/B:META.0000025069.46031.0e

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • International Association of Athletics Federations. (2011). IAAF regulations governing eligibility of females with hyperandrogenism to compete in women’s Competition. Monaco, Europe: IAAF.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Jolly, M. (1996). Woman ikat raet long human raet o no? Women’s rights, human rights, and domestic violence in Vanuatu. Feminist Review, 52(1), 169–190. doi:10.1057/fr.1996.14

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Jolly, M., Lee, H., Lepani, K., Naupa, A., & Rooney, M. (2015). Falling through the net? Gender and social protection in the Pacific. UN Women. Progress of the World’s Women, 2015–16. Retrieved from http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2015/9/dps-gender-and-social-protection-in-the-pacific

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Jolly M., & Mcintyre M. (Eds.). (1989). Family and gender in the Pacific: Domestic contradictions and colonial impact. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Jordan-Young, R., & Karkazis, K. (2012). Some of their parts: “Gender verification” and elite sports. Anthropology News, 53, S1–S41.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Kabeer, N. (2005). Gender equality and women’s empowerment: A critical analysis of the third millennium development goal 1. Gender & Development, 13(1), 13–24. doi:10.1080/13552070512331332273

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Kanemasu, Y., & Molnar, G. (2017). Double-trouble: Negotiating gender and sexuality in post-colonial women’s rugby in Fiji. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 52(4), 430–446. doi:10.1177/1012690215602680

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Karkazis, K., & Jordan-Young, R. (2018). The powers of testosterone: Obscuring race and regional bias in the regulation of women athletes. Feminist Formations, 30(2), in press.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Leicester, J. (2016, August 15). Inside an Olympian’s testosterone ordeal. The Big Story. Retrieved from http://bigstory.ap.org/article/38fe98c9a6fb44b7a133a2bffbdafc9c/only-ap-inside-olympians-testosterone-ordeal

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Lepani, K. (2012). Islands of love, islands of risk: Culture and HIV in the Trobriands. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.

  • Magubane, Z. (2014). Spectacles and scholarship: Caster Semenya, intersex studies, and the problem of race in feminist theory. Signs, 39(3), 761–785. doi:10.1086/674301

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Manuela, S., & Sibley, C.G. (2012). The Pacific identity and wellbeing scale (PIWBS): A culturally-appropriate self-report measure for Pacific peoples in New Zealand. Social Indicators Research, 112(1), 83–103. doi:10.1007/s11205-012-0041-9

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • McClintock, A. (1995). Imperial leather: Race, gender, and sexuality in the colonial contest. New York, NY: Routledge.

  • Murray, S. (2008). The ‘fat’ female body. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillian.

  • Nyong’o, T. (2010). The unforgivable transgression of being Caster Semenya. Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, 20(1), 95–100. doi:10.1080/07407701003589501

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Palmer, C. (2013). Global sports policy. London, UK: Sage.

  • Pape, M. (2017). The fairest of them all: Gender-determining institutions and the science of sex testing. In M.T. Segal & V. Demos (Eds.), Advances in gender research: Gender panic, gender policy (pp. 177–202). Emerald Books.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Pieper, L.P. (2016). Sex testing: Gender policing in women’s sports. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

  • Reardon, J. (2006). Creating participatory subjects: Science, race, and democracy in a genomic age. In S. Frickel & K. Moore (Eds.), The new political sociology of science: Institutions, networks, and power (pp. 351–377). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Richardson, L., & St. Pierre, E.A. (2008). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N.K. Denzin & Y.S. Lincoln (Eds.), Collecting and interpreting qualitative materials (3rd ed., pp. 473–500). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Santos, B.S. (2012). Public sphere and epistemologies of the South. Africa Development, 37(1), 43–67.

  • Scanlon, J. (2014). Fighting women’s health problems in the Pacific. Sportanddev.org Newsletter. Retrieved from https://www.sportanddev.org/en/article/news/fighting-womens-health-problems-pacific

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Scott, J.W. (1988). Deconstructing equality-versus-difference: Or, the uses of poststructuralist theory for feminism. Feminist Studies, 14(1), 32–50. doi:10.2307/3177997

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Sherry, E., Schulenkorf, N., Nicholson, M., & Hoyle, R. (2014). Tonga Netball Association Pacific Netball partnerships phase one evaluation. Melbourne, VIC: Centre for Sport and Social Impact, LaTrobe University.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Silk, M.L. (2005). Sporting ethnography: Philosophy, methodology, and reflection. In D.L. Andrews, D.S. Mason, & M.L. Silk, (Eds.), Qualitative methods in sports studies (pp. 65–103). Oxford, UK: Berg.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Spivak, G.C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 271–311). Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Swartz, S. (2005). Can the clinical subject speak? Some thoughts on subaltern psychology. Theory & Psychology, 15(4), 505–525. doi:10.1177/0959354305054749

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Sykes, H. (2017). The sexual and gender politics of sport mega-events: Roving colonialism. London, UK: Routledge.

  • Teaiwa, T.K. (2008). Globalizing and gendered forces: The contemporary militarization of Pacific/Oceania. In K.E. Ferguson & M. Mironesco (Eds.), Gender and globalization in Asia and the Pacific: Method, practice, theory (pp. 318–334). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Underhill-Sem, Y. (2012). Contract scholars, friendly philanthropists, and feminist Activists: New development subjects in the Pacific. Third World Quarterly, 33(6), 1095–1112. doi:10.1080/01436597.2012.681499

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Wells, C., & Darnell, S. (2014). Caster Semenya, gender verification and the politics of fairness in an online track & field community. Sociology of Sport Journal, 31(1), 44–65. doi:10.1123/ssj.2012-0173

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
All Time Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 1853 553 30
Full Text Views 129 38 7
PDF Downloads 87 45 5