scholarly journals Sport, masculinity and gender relations

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (Special Issue 1) ◽  
pp. 12-21
Author(s):  
ARNALDO SPALLACCI

The ideological and cultural approach towards sport has changed over time and must be linked with the changes in gender relations especially in the Western society. Therefore, the present paper brings to attention the relationship between men and exercise and discusses sport as an important practice for the cultural and physical construction of masculinity. The paper is a narrative analysis of the concept of sport and its socio-cultural significance over time, all presented in the context of gender relations. The analysis is based on information from European documents regarding sport and on statistical data at European level regarding the engagement of men and women in physical activities, with special attention paid to the case of Italy. Over time, the construction of masculinity has been subjected to many changes especially in Western Europe. Mainly, the transition was from the traditional dominant male figure, to the “new man”, interested in health and self-care. The social significance of sport has changed and participation in physical activity is no longer seen as a typical masculine practice being widely open to women as well. In this context, gender relations changed and masculinity now implies new dimensions.

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Betsy Rymes ◽  
Gareth Smail

AbstractThis paper examines the different ways that professional experts and everyday language users engage in scaling practices to claim authority when they talk about multilingual practices and the social significance they assign to them. Specifically, we compare sociolinguists’ use of the term translanguaging to describe multilingual and multimodal practices to the diverse observations of amateur online commentators, or citizen sociolinguists. Our analysis focuses on commentary on cross-linguistic communicative practices in Wales, or “things Welsh people say.” We ultimately argue that by calling practices “translanguaging” and defaulting to scaled-up interpretations of multilingual communication, sociolinguists are increasingly missing out on analyses of how the social meaning of (cross)linguistic practices accrues and evolves within specific communities over time. By contrast, the fine-grained perceptions of “citizen sociolinguists” as they discuss their own communicative practices in context may have something unique and underexamined to offer us as researchers of communicative diversity.


10.1068/a3452 ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (10) ◽  
pp. 1765-1784 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orna Blumen ◽  
Iris Zamir

The concepts of segregation and social distance have long been used to explain the social environment of stratified residential space. However, the social significance of occupation, though acknowledged, has rarely been applied spatially. In this study, we employed these three concepts to examine the social environment of the entire metropolitan employment space as defined by job location. Smallest space analysis was used to identify and compare the sociospatial segregation produced by workers' occupational distribution in employment and residential spheres. This empirical study focused on metropolitan Tel Aviv, Israel's largest urban area, using the latest available national census. Our findings show that the social milieu of employment differed from that of residence: blue-collar workers were segregated from white-collar workers; managers, clerks, and salespersons formed the core group; and gender and ethnic divisions characterised the sociospatial realm of employment. Overall, most employees changed their social environment when they went to work. The study indicates that spatial segregation, within each sphere and between the two spheres, is intrinsic to the capitalist – patriarchal order.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Denise Lawrence

People migrate globally in search of better lives, and migration often produces political, sociocultural, and economic turbulence. This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of two Caribbean barrel children, whose mothers sought employment in Canada and abandoned or left their children in the care of family members. Data consisted of two daughters’ stories daughters, which illustrate the complexities of the barrel-children phenomena. A narrative approach was used to collect the data, and theoretical frameworks guiding the study included Bowlby’s attachment theory, Black feminism, and the intersectionality of race, class, and gender. Data analysis involved structural and narrative analysis. The study found that, in contrast to the literature, the two participants had positive experiences as barrel children and in reuniting with their parents in Toronto. The study highlights the importance of grandmothers in caring for children left behind and even after reunification with parents in Canada. The Black community, along with Black teachers, also play key roles in helping barrel children integrate into Canadian society and face challenges such as racism. Keywords: Barrel children, Canada, Caribbean immigrants, Children left behind, Parental separation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Denise Lawrence

People migrate globally in search of better lives, and migration often produces political, sociocultural, and economic turbulence. This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of two Caribbean barrel children, whose mothers sought employment in Canada and abandoned or left their children in the care of family members. Data consisted of two daughters’ stories daughters, which illustrate the complexities of the barrel-children phenomena. A narrative approach was used to collect the data, and theoretical frameworks guiding the study included Bowlby’s attachment theory, Black feminism, and the intersectionality of race, class, and gender. Data analysis involved structural and narrative analysis. The study found that, in contrast to the literature, the two participants had positive experiences as barrel children and in reuniting with their parents in Toronto. The study highlights the importance of grandmothers in caring for children left behind and even after reunification with parents in Canada. The Black community, along with Black teachers, also play key roles in helping barrel children integrate into Canadian society and face challenges such as racism. Keywords: Barrel children, Canada, Caribbean immigrants, Children left behind, Parental separation.


2002 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 182-184
Author(s):  
Tony Langlois

Rai is a form of popular music most closely associated with the city of Oran (Waharan) in the northwestern corner of Algeria. Marc Schade-Poulson's book considers the social significance of the genre in its place of origin and, in particular, its role in describing the complex gender relations prevailing there.


Africa ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjam de Bruijn

AbstractIn pastoral Fulbe society in central Mali women had and in some degree still have an important social and economic role, concentrated on a milk economy organised through a special female-headed, women-centred unit called by the Fulbe fayannde, or ‘hearthhold’. In a society of semi-nomadic pastoralists who live most of the year in small social units, social relations and networks are very important, perhaps even crucial to the success of their main survival strategy, which is transhumant cattle-keeping. In the literature on the Fulbe this social unit has received relatively little attention. An analysis from the perspective of the ‘hearthhold’ sheds new light on property and gender relations in Fulbe society in general.Drought has had an enormous impact on the situation of the Jallube studied in this article. Economic change—a switch to agriculture and production for the market—has brought about a shift of focus for the men. Economically, milk is no longer essential for them, and hence the fayannde loses its importance; socially, too, the role of the fayannde, as symbolised by milk, is changing. For women the erosion of the fayannde is serious: an analysis of marriage gifts shows how important the fayannde is not only to the social organisation of the Jallube but also to their economic viability. In times of stress this importance may be greater for women than for men. The decline of the fayannde may lead to a transformation of gender relations, the marriage ceremony and women's social security—changes that the return of the rains or the re-establishment of herds may not reverse.


2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 114-117
Author(s):  
Amr G. E. Sabet

This book examines the “plight” of women and gender relations in an attemptto give voice to an excluded and marginalized group in the closed and conservativesociety of Saudi Arabia (pp. 1, 2). Al-Rashid problematizes the“woman question,” designating it as both a state and a social problem that defiesconsensus regarding its causes and solutions, where giving voice becomesthe first step toward reclaiming denied rights. She contextualizes her study bylooking at the historical roots and “interconnection between gender, politics,and religion that shapes and perpetuates the persistent exclusion of Saudiwomen” (p. 3). By so doing, Al-Rashid essentially depicts the roots of this“extreme form of gender inequality” as structural and related to the complexrelationship between the Saudi state and the Wahhabi religious establishment.This relationship, which takes the form of religious nationalism, provided fora narrow definition and interpretation of just who was entitled to belong to the pious community. Narrow interpretations of rituals and jurisprudence, aswell as how gender relations are to be conducted or acquire validity, both createdand exacerbated the social and religious boundaries within Saudi societyand between it and other Muslim cultural interpretations ...


Author(s):  
Susan M. Deeds

In the wake of the silver discoveries that fueled New Spain’s early growth, Spain deployed diverse strategies to incorporate the northern borderlands of Nueva Vizcaya. This article elaborates how natives responded to these efforts from the late sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, and how a multiracial society evolved in the process. Decentering the mission as the primary agent of change, the article examines a larger dynamic of cultural and biological mixing across missions, haciendas, presidios and towns in which ethnic identities, subsistence patterns, cultural beliefs, and gender relations changed over time in conditions of violence and migration. Social and spatial mingling across ethnic groups was rife with possibilities for the subversion of the social separation and compliance that rulers tried to impose. In labyrinths of mestizaje, women and men—Indians, Europeans, Africans, and their progeny—quarreled, battled, procreated, and interacted in work, trade, leisure, sickness, witchcraft and spiritual activity.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-156
Author(s):  
Paweł Kornacki

Abstract This article looks at salient interpersonal uses and meanings of two prominent Tok Pisin social relations nouns ‐ wantok ('friend', 'same language speaker') and lain ('group', 'family', 'clan') ‐ which it is proposed exemplify key cultural Melanesian concepts in some anthropological literature of the area. Whereas certain aspects of language use in Tok Pisin were identified as potentially divisive and socially harmful, some scholars endeavoured to identify a group of concepts indicative of culturally specific Melanesian values. For example, the words wantok and lain were claimed to jointly represent 'the value of the clan' across Melanesian societies, while embodying and supporting a distinct world-view of the Melanesian peoples. This article studies two Tok Pisin texts which focus on the cultural significance of concepts of wantok and lain in their rural/traditional environment. While the first text offers a native speaker's insight into the social significance of the cultural expression wantok sistem ('system favouring friends'), the other one details the roles of lain in the passage of a bride-price ceremony. Given that both texts presuppose the cultural background of rural Tok Pisin, a brief look at some characteristic usage of the two words in electronic media suggests that certain aspects of traditional uses and meanings of these words may be extended and employed to conceptualize new social and political phenomena.


2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippa Velija ◽  
Lucinda Hughes

This purpose of this article is to contribute to the existing research on the gendered nature of equestrian sports by discussing how power relations continue to position females on the margins of National Hunt (NH) racing. In the UK, NH racing is the most male-dominated form of racing; at the time of writing, 100 males hold a professional jockey licence, compared to just 4 females. In this article we draw on figurational sociology, specifically the concepts of the civilised body, interdependence and habitus to offer a critical analysis of the gendered experiences of eight amateur and professional female jockeys. The experiences of female jockeys cannot be understood without considering their networks of interdependencies with trainers, owners, male jockeys, breeders and the wider racing industry. We argue that early involvement in the figuration through family ties supports the development of a gendered racing habitus that influences the social identities of female jockeys who normalise their own limitations. Civilised female bodies are positioned in the figuration as weaker than males and needing protection from potentially risky horses. We argue that because safe horses are chosen by trainers and owners, these limit the opportunities and number of rides for female jockeys, these (gendered) decisions obscure issues of power that enable male jockeys to dominate in the NH figuration.


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