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Intersections of Gender and National Identity in Sport: A Cultural Sociological Overview
Author(s) -
Broch Trygve B.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
sociology compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 31
ISSN - 1751-9020
DOI - 10.1111/soc4.12385
Subject(s) - sociology , meaning (existential) , gender studies , nationalism , identity (music) , patriarchy , national identity , sociology of sport , intersectionality , epistemology , aesthetics , law , political science , politics , philosophy
Sport is a global phenomenon that is assigned different meanings in different countries. This article reviews how we can understand the intersections of national identity and gender in sport. Two diverging analytic pathways reveal themselves. On the one hand, we have an intersectional approach, wherein national identity and gender are understood to be formed by universal notions of nationalism and patriarchy, respectively. On the other, we have a cultural analysis by which specific national‐identity repertoires are understood to form local gendered meaning. These two analytic pathways are exposed by comparing selected sport studies with developments in cultural sociology. I find that intersectional sport studies draw attention away from cultural sociologists' aim to uncover variation in global and local meaning‐making. Cultural sociology can thus help take apart the universalities argued for in many sport studies and explicate variations across national representations of gendered identities.