Abstract
Sports organisations play a key role in shaping society. They in turn both shape and are shaped by various factors (Cunningham, 2010). Despite an overt agenda encouraging social inclusion and cohesion in local communities, exclusionary practices remain commonplace in sports organisations as well as sport more generally. This exclusion is well documented, with many sports maintaining dominant and restrictive gender norms that influence who is included, excluded, or marginalised. Against this backdrop this paper examines how layered sociocultural norms regarding sport, sexuality and gender, impact workplace interactions and team dynamics within a regional sports organisation in New Zealand. Analysis of naturally occurring workplace interactions, supplemented by ethnographic observations and follow up interviews, illustrates how team members draw on the wider sociocultural norms of sport when interacting. These norms are arguably rooted in cisheteronormative and cisheteropatriarchal ideologies. Consequently, everyday discourses produced by members of the team perpetuate binaries between male and female, with many team members aligning with masculine norms. By studying language use within the team over a prolonged period, we gain insight into how interactional norms evolve as organisational priorities change (i.e. a greater focus on inclusive practices). While discursive strategies, such as humour, are used by members of the team to challenge gendered discourses, the hegemonic and hierarchical positioning of masculinities continues to pervade their practices. By examining the impact of layered norms (from micro interactional to macro-level societal norms), we can better understand how, and possibly why, inequalities and hierarchies in organised sport persist.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Sporting Cultures and Identities
KEYWORDS
Gender and Sexuality, Identity, Sports Culture, Organised Sport, Workplace Discourse
