This year marked the 50th anniversary of one of the most iconic images of the 20th Century and the history of sport—the “Black Power” Salute by U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. With athlete activism and protests as relevant as ever, we wanted to capitalize on an opportunity to examine teammates’ reactions to Smith and Carlos’ silent protest. To do so, we collected and analyzed interviews with 59 members of the 1968 U.S. Olympic Team. Our results, recently published in the Journal of Sport Management, highlight a range of perspectives and provide insight about the context and legacy of the demonstration.

As a reminder of the backdrop against which Smith and Carlos staged their protest, after winning gold and bronze, respectively, in the 200-meter final the two men wore black socks without shoes to the medal podium and proceeded to audaciously extend black-gloved fists over their bowed heads during the national anthem in protest of state-sanctioned policies that discriminated against Black Americans. Smith and Carlos were quickly dismissed from the U.S. Olympic team for their non-compliance and endured many professional and personal hardships as a result of their activism. However, decades later, the image of the two Olympians with their fists raised has become an iconic representation of the civil rights movement.

For our study, we used an institutional theory framework to identify processes, practices, and ideas that normalize and reinforce the social order of an institution. In this case, we analyzed how Smith and Carlos’ protest negotiated with the primary institution of the Olympics. After examining each interview, we identified four principle themes with respect to teammates’ reactions: (1) competition; (2) politics; (3) entertainment; and (4) nationalism.

Competition referred to the Olympians who believed that the sacred spirit of competition should supersede all else. These teammates of Smith and Carlos consistently stated that the Olympics were the wrong forum to stage a protest because it inappropriately took attention away from other athletes who had trained just as rigorously to reach the highest level of their sport. These teammates discussed how, after a lifetime of training, their own competitive success was paramount and they could not lose focus due to political issues being raised at the Games. This prioritization of competition resulted in disagreement with Smith and Carlos, who were seen as improperly placing protest ahead of competitive success. Comments in this category often suggested that politics are profane and tarnish the Olympics, which should remain sacred.

The second theme, politics, related to the Olympians’ perspectives as to whether politics belonged in the Olympic Games. Within this theme, the U.S. team members expressed two diametrically opposed viewpoints. The first perspective was that the Olympics should be apolitical. Just as some Olympians believed the Olympics were the wrong forum to stage a protest because doing so violated the sacred spirit of competition, some also believed the Olympics were the wrong forum because the Games should be free of politics. To this end, one of the Olympians expressed, “I’m not against that salute, but I think it was the wrong venue to do it. I think the Olympics should be politically free from political movement.” The apolitical perspective was expressed by the majority of U.S. team members who referenced politics in connection with the Olympic Games. There was a small contingent of U.S. Olympians, however, who held a counter-perspective, namely that the Olympic Games are inherently political. As one Olympian explained, “There’s probably nothing more political in all of the world than the Olympic Games…You can’t bring that many cultures and peoples together without people having political agendas. It is what it is and it’s always going to be more political than more people would like.”

The theme of entertainment, meanwhile, represented how some members of the U.S. team viewed the Olympics as a cherished spectacle or celebration that was wrongly interrupted by the salute. Other team members viewed the protest as overblown or sensationalized by the media, which resulted in Smith and Carlos’ salute being a bigger story than it should have been and distracting from other noteworthy and entertaining performances. For example, one Olympian described, “So they would have these press conferences with the medal winners and all [the media] would want to talk about was, “What do you think about what [Smith and Carlos] did?” You wanted to talk about what it feels like to win the gold medal…They [journalists] didn’t want to talk about that.”

Finally, nationalism signified how important it was to members of the U.S. team to represent the United States, regardless of sociodemographic background or political viewpoints. This theme overlapped with the politics theme in that Olympic team members viewed personal politics as subservient to representing the United States, with one team member commenting it didn’t matter if one was “Black, green, brown, Jewish, Protestant, (or) Catholic.” Rather, being proud to be an American who was able to represent his or her country on an international stage was what was most important. Further, seven Olympians noted that there was a proper response to winning a medal, with one Olympian stating, “if I could have won a medal and put my hand up in the air that I’m proud to be an American and on the team.” In particular, four members of the team lauded the actions of George Foreman when he proudly waived the U.S. flag after winning a gold medal in boxing. Thus, nationalistic loyalty superseded the importance or legitimacy of Smith and Carlos’ protest.

The Olympians’ mostly negative views of the protest helped upheld the primary institution, the Olympics, as such opinions reinforced the status quo. In this case, the status quo involved not staging any form of protest at the Olympics, which would violate Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter. For many of the 1968 Olympians, it was conceivable that they did not want to jeopardize their status on the team, which may be a consideration for current athletes as well. One notable finding of our study was that the protests were viewed as a threat for the majority of the U.S. team members regardless of which of the four categories their responses fit into. Further, it is important to note that there was no clear contrast when breaking down team members’ perspectives by various characteristics (e.g., race, gender, sport). It is also important to note that there were some team members who voiced a level of support for Smith and Carlos. However, it was difficult to quantify this support, because statements of support were often qualified within one of the four themes. For example, one Olympian stated, “I was in favor of the black movement by Lee Evans, John Carlos, and Tommie Smith and empathized with them, but I believe that the Olympics should be politically free.” Similarly, another commented, “I respect them for standing up for what they really believed in, but I’m not convinced it was the most appropriate way of doing it.”

While the context of our study was an event that occurred 50 years ago, the implications are still relevant today. Consider, for example, the athlete protests that have taken center stage recently. Many prominent athletes, such as LeBron James, Megan Rapinoe, and Colin Kaepernick, have refused to “stick to sports” and instead highlighted social inequalities with the platform they have as athletes. It is likely that protests through sport will continually resurface as sociopolitical contexts evolve. Such protests should not be haphazardly dismissed or penalized. If athletes are the most important stakeholder of a sport organization and their well-being is a principal consideration, it would be sensible for those organizations to recognize the sociopolitical concerns and needs of the athletes. Otherwise, there may be a significant disconnect between athletes and sport organizations, as there was between Smith and Carlos and U.S. Olympic officials.

Dr. Brennan K. Berg is an associate professor of sport commerce in the Kemmons Wilson School of Hospitality and Resort Management at The University of Memphis.

Dr. Kwame J.A. Agyemang is an associate professor of sport management at Louisiana State University.

Dr. Rhema D. Fuller is an assistant professor of sport commerce in the Kemmons Wilson School of Hospitality and Resort Management at The University of Memphis.

One of the most interesting sociological phenomena to occur at the 2018 FIFA men’s World Cup was the diverse, multi-ethnic and migrant composition of many playing squads. Teams representing former colonizers (e.g., France and Belgium), settler-colonial nations (e.g., Australia), and former colonized territories (e.g., Algeria), all illustrated how histories and legacies of empire continue to shape patterns of citizenship, belonging, and representation in the (post)colonial sporting landscape.

When documenting these soccer trends, media and academic analyses frequently rely on the nation-state as the empirical unit of analysis and interpretive frame. This can obscure social, cultural, and political entanglements that occur on other spatial scales. In contrast, what can we learn about the current configurations of sport and (post)empire – that is, the echoes of colonialism that continue today – if we think about particular sporting localities and institutions as well as nations?

Such questions comprise the focus of my research on the present localized and spatialized associations of soccer, race, migration, and the British Empire. When an opportunity recently arose to examine these issues by way of a noteworthy sporting event, I endeavored to simply “follow the ball”. In other words, I employed what C. Wright Mills termed a “sociological imagination”, using my personal experience to uncover and connect the wider social issues and contexts to which this occasion related.

Following the ball: Everton versus Gor Mahia

In this season’s schedule for the professional men’s soccer team I support – Everton FC of the English Premier League – one fixture was especially intriguing: a friendly match (organized by East African sports betting platform, SportPesa) against Gor Mahia FC, the most successful club in Kenya. Having played each other in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania the previous year, this game was held at Goodison Park, Everton’s home stadium, in Liverpool. The visitors from Nairobi were making history as the first African club to play an EPL team in England. As a spectator at the match, on 6 November 2018, I reflected on how this milestone related, sociologically, to wider soccer and social trajectories – past and present – between Africa, Britain, this city, and my club.

Gor Mahia followed a path already trodden by African players. In 1949, eleven years before gaining independence from the British Empire, a Nigerian “national” team visited Liverpool and other English towns. They held their own against amateur opposition despite most of their team playing in bare feet. Fifty years earlier, at the end of the nineteenth century, a team toured Britain from what is present-day Lesotho; and in the years immediately succeeding the Nigerians’ visit, teams followed from the Gold Coast (now Ghana) and Uganda. It was not until 1991 that Cameroon became the first African nation to play England in a full international at Wembley Stadium.

The contemporary presence of African soccer players in Britain urges consideration of how transnational migration can challenge – but also reinforce – the institutional whiteness of domestic sporting structures and cultures. At Everton (and elsewhere), migrant African stars have arguably been as important as British-born players of color in engendering more positive and inclusive attitudes and practices around race; although, sadly, racial and cultural stereotypes have persisted among some fans. Notably slower than most other teams to routinely pick multi-racial teams – with only a handful of cameo appearances from players of Black and Chinese British backgrounds for most of the twentieth century – Everton recruited its first African player, the Nigerian Daniel Amokachi, in 1994. Since then, the club has made signings from Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, DR Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa, together with several European-born players of African heritage. Yet, despite the success of myriad brilliant African players in the EPL, the relationship between African soccer and Western European teams more broadly is not without problems. Elite clubs have been criticized for profiteering from African players through exploitative talent identification and recruitment practices – what Colin King describes as the ‘features of slavery [that] have led to the underdevelopment of African [soccer]’.

Beyond the field

Studying sport sociologically requires that we look beyond its own cultures and institutions, and sometimes think outside of the current time period. By doing so, we uncover perhaps the most significant contextual dimension of this match: its staging in Liverpool.

‘The African-centered scholar can learn from the history of Black settlement in Liverpool’, writes Mark Christian, an academic authority on Black Liverpool cultures. This community differs from other long-established Black populations in Britain, as it was comprised initially and primarily by West African rather than Caribbean settlers. During the twentieth century Liverpool-born Blacks endured what Christian describes as a ‘catalogue of horrific racism’, including: anti-Black riots; oppressive state institutions; and pathological representations in media, political and even some academic discourses. The antecedents of these occurrences reside firmly in Britain’s imperial history, during which time Liverpool was, states Jacqueline Nassy Brown, ‘a seaport of incalculable national and global significance’ in the horrifying forced deportation and trade of millions of Africans as chattel slaves. Christian concludes that ‘[Liverpool’s] deep-rooted links with the slave trade make it an obvious candidate for the analysis of globalized and historical racist practices toward peoples of African descent (in all their various hues and characteristics)’.

Exclusion from the city’s principal sporting institutions and spaces has also characterized the historic Black Liverpool experience. The many Kenyan supporters at the Everton versus Gor Mahia match – women and men, drumming, singing, and blowing vuvuzelas – along with some young local residents of color highlighted a degree of progress from a time when the stadium and neighborhood (including the nearby ground of rivals, Liverpool FC) were regarded as dangerous “no go” areas for much of Liverpool’s Black population. But it underscored as well how little ethnic diversity is found across all British soccer stadiums in regular fixtures.

Linking up the play

Dominant political and popular discourses purport that we live in post-racial times and that empire is consigned to the past. In such a context, the role of critical sociology is especially important—to counter such claims, by exposing the racialized nature of contemporary sport and society. Following Ann Laura Stoler, this is not a matter of claiming that every current racial issue in sport has a direct and explicit link to colonial periods and practices; but rather of identifying and illustrating when and where local and global inequalities and trajectories in sport do have discernible connections to historical (and contemporary) racialized power structures.

Everton’s 4-0 defeat of Gor Mahia will probably be soon forgotten in the annals of British soccer history, although its significance for the pioneering visitors may be considerably greater. By their very nature, sporting events are fleeting; nevertheless, that should not obscure their capacity to make us pause, think, contextualize, and, not least, remember. Follow the ball…and see where it rolls.

Daniel Burdsey is a Reader in the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics at the University of Brighton, UK; and an Associate Professor (status only) at the University of Toronto, Canada. His research currently addresses connections between (post)empire, racialized identities, decolonial thinking and anti-racist resistance in British soccer. He is a lifelong Everton supporter and a season-ticket holder at Goodison Park.

University of Brighton Sport and Leisure Cultures research group twitter: @sport_research

There is a thesis that Donald Trump’s presidency has a silver lining in inadvertently laying bare the source and extent of many contemporary problems.

This can be named the Wake-Up Call Thesis. It was expressed, for example, by Baltimore Sun columnist Tricia Bishop: “This social media president has brought our faults to the surface for all to see. So now, instead of expending energy to hide them, perhaps we can start addressing them.”

Whether this thesis bears out – that is, whether the harsh realities of a Trump presidency will alert us to long-standing problems that have been largely ignored or dismissed – remains to be seen. Moreover, Trump opponents might well argue that any silver linings are still features of the storm cloud of his presidency. But, if the first step in solving a problem is admitting its existence, the Wake-Up Call Thesis is intriguing.

As researchers studying sport and the environment – and as researchers who have had our own “encounter” with Trump – the Wake-Up Call Thesis piqued our attention. Is there a silver lining in Trump’s fraught relationship with sport, and with golf in particular?

Trump on the Tee: Trump International Golf Links Scotland

Our interest in Trump pre-dates the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Our ‘encounter’ with Trump came in 2012, concerning his then-in-development Scottish golf course, Trump International Golf Links Scotland.

The Trump company’s efforts at building Trump International Golf Links Scotland initially suffered what appeared to be a fatal blow. In 2007, the course proposal was rejected at the local level by Aberdeenshire council’s Infrastructure Services Committee in a close vote. A core concern with the development plan was that the golf course would encroach on the Foveran Links sand dunes, which are officially classified as a protected Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

But the demise of the course proposal was not a fait accompli. In a narrative twist, the proposal was “called in” for review by the Scottish government. In 2008, the Scottish government’s Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals recommended that course construction should go ahead, offering the following rationale: “None [of our findings] affects our overall conclusion that the economic and social advantages of this prospective development at national, regional and local level are such as to justify, uniquely, the adverse environmental consequences caused by a development on this scale and in this location” (pp. 225). The initial decision against the course was ultimately reversed.

Tripping Up Trump

Fast-forward to 2012, when we visited the course as it was nearing completion. By that point, Trump International Golf Links Scotland was embroiled in controversy. A protest movement called Tripping Up Trump (TUT) was striving to derail course construction for various reasons – most notably, the course’s environmental implications and its potential uprooting of local (human) inhabitants in the area. Residents were especially worried that Trump’s group would apply to the government for a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO), which would force residents’ removal from their land.

Trump himself butted heads with Michael Forbes, a local resident whose property lies on a proposed site for course construction. Judging from quoted excerpts, Trump’s claims ranged from hyperbolic (“Everybody thinks this is the best piece of golf land they have ever seen”) to dubious (“When completed this land will be environmentally enhanced and better than it was before”) to, in the case of Michael Forbes, coarse and pugnacious (he “lives in a pig-like atmosphere”). Having met with Forbes and been warmly welcomed into his home in 2012, we can affirm that the last of these claims is fake news.

Yet Forbes was up for the confrontation. To guard against a potential CPO, he donated a small plot of his land to TUT, who in turn initiated a mass ownership campaign. The idea was that signing over the land in this way would render the process of forced eviction impossibly complicated, as there were so many (Forbes-supporting) owners to deal with in any legal confrontation.

In the end, however, the golf course was completed. Stopping it was perhaps an impossible goal, given the government’s support of its completion. But Forbes and others were not forcibly removed. For his obstinacy, in 2012 Forbes won the ‘Top Scot’ prize at the Glenfiddich Spirt of Scotland ceremony – an award previously given to celebrities such as author J.K. Rowling and tennis player Andy Murray.

A Silver Lining? A Story of Sport and the Environment

The story of Trump International Golf Links Scotland is a multifaceted one. Among other things, it is an archetypal story of modern sport and the environment.

In recent years, the impacts of sport on the environment have received substantial attention. Sport event organizing committees, associations, and organizations have explicitly adopted an environmentalist stance – albeit one that aligns with corporate priorities, like ongoing growth and profit generation. Sport mega-events, for example, are accompanied by detailed plans for mitigating their environmental impacts. Sport leagues run environmental awareness programmes headlined by star athletes. The games go on, but with an explicit and well-publicized awareness of environmental issues.

The logic that underpins many of these initiatives is the logic of sustainable development – which means, in short, meeting the needs of the present without inhibiting future generations from meeting needs of their own. Sustainable development typically comprises the three prongs of economic, social, and environmental development (the ‘triple bottom line’).

But we have argued that sustainable development, at least in its application in sport, is deeply flawed. In theory, the triple bottom line weighs various facets of development in the interest of balancing them all. We contend that, in practice, environmental concerns tend to be considered so long as they do not intrude on social and, even more so, economic ones. Environmental goals can easily be superseded; it would seem that they are rarely, if ever, superordinate.

For a case in point, look no further than Trump International Golf Links Scotland. Recall the verdict delivered by the Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals: “[t]he economic and social advantages of this prospective development justify, uniquely, the adverse environmental consequences caused by a development on this scale and in this location.” In the Directorate’s report, even Trump’s organization recognized the potential loss of dynamism in the inimitable sand dune ecosystem. But the spectre of, for example, jobs and tourism made for sufficient justification.

If this critique of sustainable development is accepted, the question then becomes, How will sport’s relationship with the environment ever change? Can we make it such that the environment is considered in a more profound and meaningful way? The answer is unclear.

But what the Trump case does is lay bare the tenuous place of environmental concerns in the relationship between sport and sustainable development. Perhaps this is an initial step toward social change.

Indeed, the Trump case seems to have inspired some regret. A Scottish Natural Heritage spokesperson reportedly said recently that there has been habitat loss and damage to the dune system. The site may lose its status as an SSSI.

What’s more, former First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, having at one point championed the golf course and associated developments, reportedly now believes that Trump has broken his promise to build a world-class resort. In November 2017, The Guardian noted that the course employs the full-time equivalent of 95 people – against an earlier promise of 6,000 new jobs. If nothing else, the case should inspire even greater scrutiny of the presumed economic and social benefits of projects of this kind – and whether they should so easily supersede environmental considerations.

This is far from an academic matter. Another proposal to build a golf course on an SSSI in Scotland has recently been ‘called in’ by the government. In addition, a second course at Trump International Golf Links Scotland is still a possibility (a petition to block this recently earned more than 30,000 signatures).

To change sport’s relationship with the environment is no doubt a daunting task. But, if the Trump case has a silver lining, it is perhaps in revealing fault lines in the concept of sustainable development. It would fit the Wake-Up Call Thesis if Trump, inadvertently, were to bring this to the fore.

Brad Millington is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the University of Bath in the Department for Health. His research focuses predominantly on the relationship between sport and the environment and on health and fitness technologies. He is the author of two books: The Greening of Golf: Sport, Globalization and the Environment (2016, with Brian Wilson, Manchester University Press); and Fitness, Technology and Society: Amusing Ourselves to Life (2018, Routledge).

Brian Wilson is a sociologist and Professor in the School of Kinesiology at The University of British Columbia (UBC), and Director of UBC’s Centre for Sport and Sustainability. He is author of The Greening of Golf: Sport, Globalization and the Environment (2016, with Brad Millington, Manchester University Press), Sport & Peace: A Sociological Perspective (2012, Oxford University Press) and Fight, Flight or Chill: Subcultures, Youth and Rave into the Twenty-First Century (2006, McGill-Queen’s University Press). His research focuses especially on links between sport, environmental issues, peace, and media.

Sport has important political power in contemporary culture. When North and South Korean athletes marched under a unified flag during the opening ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, it provided a powerful sign of cooperation between the two nations. Seeing the two Koreas marching together symbolized hope for reunification in the Korean peninsula. The 2018 Olympics, however, were only one chapter in a much longer story about the ways in which South Korea has invested substantial resources in attempts to foster a (global) Koreanness through success in sporting mega-events. In fact, cultural anthropologist Rachael Miyung Joo has argued that South Korea sees transnational sport as the most useful way to demonstrate the potential of a “global Korea.” Sport, in this respect, is used as a cultural apparatus to build a collective identity—what political scientist Benedict Anderson called an “imagined community.” Here, we aim to deconstruct South Korean sporting nationalism by analyzing how sport operates to establish and reinforce nationalism in South Korea.

Selective Nationalism and Korean Ice Hockey

South Korean media have often emphasized either athletes’ nationality (i.e., citizenship) or ethnicity (i.e., ancestry) in constructing a collective sense of Koreanness. When the media reported on the Olympic project of the Korean Ice Hockey Association (KIHA), naturalized athletes’ citizenship was heavily emphasized in building a sense of Koreanness. Since 2011, both the South Korean government and KIHA had been pursuing a strategy to strengthen the team leading up to the 2018 Olympics— a plan that included recruiting white players from North America. Notably, the South Korean government granted official citizenship to seven white players through a special case that enabled them to bypass the normal naturalization process, which would have included a requirement of at least five years of residence in South Korea. South Korean media quickly began to portray the newly recruited/naturalized players as Taegeuk warriors with blue eyes, highlighting their fast assimilation into Korean culture. Media emphasized the players’ love of spicy Korean food and ability to speak basic words in Korean. Favorable media representations of the naturalized players may have helped convince South Korean citizens of the players’ Koreanness despite of their lack of Korean ancestry. Their nationality as South Korean citizens signified Koreanness in this particular case.

On the other hand, ethnicity was key in forming Koreanness in the case of Hines Ward, a former National Football League player who grew up in the United States with a Korean mother and African American father. When Ward was named MVP of Super Bowl XL, South Korean media celebrated his Korean ethnicity as well as his kinship with his Korean mother. Further, the media representations reflected a process in which racial and ethnic relations among South Koreans were being redefined. Despite the fact that he was an American citizen who had grown up in the U.S., the media framed Ward as a “proud” Korean who had demonstrated the power of a global and multicultural Korea (Ahn, 2011). In so doing, South Korean society accepted him into the boundary of “Koreans” regardless of his skin color or citizenship. The media representation of, and public reactions toward Ward illustrates a case in which Korean ancestry defined Koreanness.

These examples raise questions about the ways in which either citizenship or ancestry constructs and drives South Korean nationalism in particular instances. To provide more insight about this matter, we return to some recent examples from the sport of ice hockey. Although ice hockey is not particularly popular in South Korea, the media often spotlighted the sport in the years leading up to the 2018 Olympics. In 2017, Sang Wook Kim, a South Korean ice hockey player, won the Most Points Award in the Asia League Ice Hockey (ALIH). South Korean media were quick to write articles with titles such as “Kim became the first South Korean to earn a top rank in the ALIH.” Sang Wook’s athletic achievement was perceived as foreshadowing a bright future for South Korean men’s ice hockey, which was particularly meaningful with South Korea playing host at the 2018 Olympics. While his accomplishment was impressive, such headlines were misleading. Sang Wook was actually the second player with Korean ancestry to win the Most Points Award.

The first player with Korean ancestry to win the Most Points Award was Alex Kim, a Korean-American player. He won the Most Points Award in both 2008 and 2010 while playing for Team High 1 in the ALIH. Alex Kim’s parents had migrated to Southern California in the United States, where he was born and raised. However, Alex still voiced strong “Korean pride” as a Korean-American. In an interview with a South Korean newspaper, he stated “[T]he name on the back of my uniform is special to me. I am Alex, an American, but at the same time, I am Kim, a Korean. During my career in the United States, I always tried to show that Koreans could be great hockey players.” Even though the comments emphasized his Koreanness, South Korean media seemed to downplay his Korean identity due to his U.S. citizenship. Despite Alex’s strong Korean pride, South Korean media outlets did not reciprocate this affection. Rather, the media identified Sang Wook as the first Korean player to win the award. This example illustrates the ways in which media representations demonstrate the complexities of ethnicity, race, and citizenship in South Korea. Comparing the cases of Sang Wook and Alex, it becomes evident that Korean nationalism operates in an obscure way, often as a selective apparatus.

As such, South Korean media selectively construct a discourse of Koreanness either through nationality or ancestry, implicitly framing whether an athlete should be considered “one of us.” For Alex Kim, despite his impressive performance on the ice, the media outlets did not portray him as “one of us”—in this case by drawing a line between Koreans with official citizenship and a Korean-American athlete without South Korean citizenship. Alex’s case may seem contradictory in comparison to the ways in which South Korean media framed Hines Ward as a symbol of global Koreanness. We interpret these contrasting cases as illustrating the ways in which South Korean media and society may be influenced by the broader (white) global society. In the case of Ward, he played in the highly-publicized and financially lucrative NFL, garnering substantial notoriety in the U.S. However, Alex Kim was lacking in global recognition from outside of South Korea. In this way, perceived hierarchy in the global sport context was embedded in the South Korean media representation of these players.

The acceptance of naturalized white hockey players, meanwhile, adds another layer of complexity to the South Korean media’s selective representation of players with respect to the production of nationalism. That the naturalized players did not possess Korean ancestry and could speak little Korean, yet were still embraced by the media, demonstrated the potentially racialized nature of citizenship and ethnicity in the sporting context. Because ice hockey is often thought to be a “white man’s sport,” the naturalized players were portrayed by South Korean media as saviors who were recruited to elevate the performance of South Korean ice hockey. South Korean media appeared willing to expand the boundary of “Koreanness” when there was a tangible benefit to the country—in this case, global sporting success. Ultimately, these examples help illustrate some of the ways in which whiteness is afforded privilege in South Korean society.

Doo Jae Park is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His scholarly interests focus on physical culture in the context of North American sport, specifically the intersection of race, racialization, and whiteness. His work seeks to understand how socially constructed whiteness as normative (re)produces “otherness” of Asian Americans both within Asian American ideology and in wider societal realms.

Na Ri Shin is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Recreation, Sport, and Tourism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The overall focus of her research agenda lies in the field of sport, physical culture and development, with an interest in globalization and cultural changes in particular. The aim of her research is to enhance an understanding of how globalization impacts the ways in which we manage sport, physical culture, and development. She is particularly interested in investigating sport as a cultural expansion from the West to the Tricontinental (Asia, Africa, and Latin America), and tracing the political and cultural trajectory of the expansion.

As part of research I did several years ago on U.S. women’s professional soccer, I went to a lot of games. I still do. Since 2011, I’ve attended games in Chicago, Atlanta, Portland, New Orleans, and Birmingham.

In all of these locations, one thing has always stood out to me—how different the crowd is from that of many men’s sporting events. At professional women’s soccer games, girls fill the stands, accompanied by their parents. But not just any families are there—white girls and their parents predominate.

Some people assume that fan demographics simply reflect existing interest in sport. In other words, the stands are packed with white parents and their daughters because these groups are the “market” for professional women’s soccer in the U.S.—those who are already most interested in the product. And sure, many fans may be interested in women’s pro soccer due to having played soccer or watching their kids play. The overwhelmingly white and class privileged pool of players in the competitive, pay-to-play youth soccer pipeline undoubtedly makes interest more likely among these groups of girls.

However, sociologists of sport have challenged the idea that fan numbers and demographics simply reflect existing interest. Instead of seeing fandom as this one-way mirror where fans select into stadiums, there exists a two-way street where interest is also cultivated and grown by sport and media organizations. Fanbase numbers and demographics are influenced by the opportunities to become fans in the first place, how visible these opportunities are, and to whom they are available.

For instance, mass media outlets have a role in building audiences by making sports teams, leagues, and players visible to many people. Media communicate the history and stakes of sports competitions, drawing fans to the action and shaping their perceptions of sport. The fact that women’s sports receive less than 5 percent of mainstream mass media coverage is troubling, then, because women’s sports are denied the opportunities to connect with new and existing fans routinely provided to men’s sports. And, as sociologists Michela Musto, Cheryl Cooky, and Michael Messner have found, even when women’s sports are covered, they are often presented as less exciting than men’s sports.

In my book Kicking Center: Gender and the Selling of Women’s Professional Soccer, I argue that beyond media coverage, teams and leagues engage in their own forms of audience building. In studying the “Momentum” (I use this as a pseudonym for an actual women’s professional team), I found that this team ‘engendered’ fandom in the sense of creating opportunities for fandom and by making these visible, building interest among those who may not have known this young league existed. In the process of doing so, the team made opportunities for fandom more visible and available for white, class privileged groups than others.

In the process of building an audience, the Momentum participated in community events like road races, food festivals, and youth soccer tournaments. In team apparel and underneath a large team-logoed tent, players and staff members introduced themselves to potential fans, signed balls and jerseys, challenged one another to juggling contests, and handed out game schedules and, frequently, free tickets to upcoming home games. These events were designed to build awareness and interest in the team among locals. Yet, with the Momentum located in a predominately white and affluent suburb, these efforts made the team, its players, and its schedule most visible to white and class privileged residents.

Simultaneously, the Momentum also ‘engendered’ fandom by generating different opportunities for and experiences of fandom among men and women. Based in a frame of empowerment in women’s sports, girls were assumed to be the most highly interested in coming to games. As a result, audience building was largely designed and carried out with girls in mind. The Momentum partnered with girls’ soccer teams, featured girls in many of their promotional videos, and set up their game day spaces to welcome children, with inflatable bouncy houses, face-painting, toy giveaways, and child-friendly pop music.

The girl- and child-centrism of the team’s marketing campaigns, public appearance schedule, and game day spaces often marginalized or alienated adults whose fandom was not tied to children. This was particularly true for adult men. For instance, Jared, a 30-year old white season ticket holder, likened his fandom to strenuous swimming. He said, “I mean the league is totally geared to like teenage soccer players. That’s kind of what they’re going after. I just – nothing. Don’t care. I swim upstream. I like what I like. No one can tell me any different.”

In fact, in some moments, adult men’s fandom of women’s professional soccer was perceived as being suspect. Lacking motivations for fandom that clearly aligned with narratives of women’s empowerment, highly engaged adult men fans were feared to be more interested in the player’s bodies than their athletic abilities. At one post-game fan meet-and-greet, an older man with gray hair who attended the event alone was enthusiastic about meeting the players, telling me things like, “I can’t believe I just talked to Abigail!” After several of these post-meeting exclamations, he felt a need to explain his fandom to me, saying, “This isn’t sexual or anything…it’s just that I appreciate their play so much.” The man was right to be concerned about how his fandom was perceived—when I joined a group of Momentum staff members later, the table’s consensus was that the man was “inappropriate.” While some may believe that men are not interested in women’s sports, this example illustrates a more complex reality—men who are interested in women’s sports sometimes face questions about the motivation for their fandom.

Walking in the stands at games today and looking at the fans around me, I am acutely aware that these are not just the most interested, but also the most welcomed fans. I encourage us to ask, who is included and who is excluded in the process of building fandom? And, despite the goals of these efforts to make new fans and connect to existing ones, what might be the consequences of current audience building for the future growth and vitality of women’s pro soccer?

Rachel Allison is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and affiliate of Gender Studies at Mississippi State University. Her research examines the gender, racial, and class politics of U.S. professional sports. Her book on U.S. women’s professional soccer is out now with Rutgers University Press.

Some may have chuckled the first time Boston Bruins forward Brad Marchand kissed an opponent on the cheek. This was during the 2017-18 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season, and the “recipient” was Toronto Maple Leafs forward Leo Komarov.

In that moment, some of us may have had tingles thinking about when Phoenix Mercury star Diana Taurasi bestowed a kiss upon opponent Seimone Augustus of the Minnesota Lynx in what seemed to be an attempt to diffuse a heated situation during the 2013 WNBA playoffs. In that case, both players got called for a personal foul, then later joked about it in the post-game press conference.

Marchand was not penalized, though he too joked about it after the game. But as similar acts continued into the postseason, people were laughing a little less. This “tactic” was interpreted as antagonistic given Marchand’s history of fines, suspensions and, of course, penalty minutes. During game one of the first round of the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs, Marchand again kissed Komarov. Some have quibbled over whether it was actually a kiss or a “nuzzle.” Regardless, the NHL demanded that Marchand stop the kissing/nuzzling. No specifics about potential penalties or other repercussions were provided.

Either word never reached Marchand, or he just didn’t care, because in the next round, he licked Tampa Bay Lightning player Ryan Callahan. This is when the league announced, via Twitter, that it had “put him on notice.” There were no further incidents, and the Bruins’ season came to an end after losing the series against Tampa Bay.

It is difficult for me to take seriously the collective “eewwwing” and complaints about inappropriate behavior because of the hypocrisy blanketing this whole situation. The NHL has failed to address its problems with homophobia, violence, and racism—all of which are exemplified in how the league reacted to Marchand’s behavior. It is not funny, and any “humor” masks the fact that these incidents were acts of antagonism and sexual assault.  Yet, no one has called them that—not explicitly.

Marchand’s last victim, Callahan, was upset because he felt licking was akin to spitting. Spitting falls under the category of bad behavior and is prohibited by the NHL and subject to a (minor) fine. This is likely due to potential health issues associated with exposure to bodily fluids, but also because spitting is a tactic used to antagonize opponents. Such concerns about health would be valid if we were not talking about players in a league who regularly are exposed to bodily fluids—namely blood—in the course of sanctioned on-ice assault. Fights are tactics as well; they send messages to opponents and are used to swing momentum. Fights are not only encouraged by coaches but have become expected behavior.

Because of the existence of sanctioned violence, the league’s threats against Marchand are hypocritical and lack legitimacy. The NHL’s response to Marchand’s behavior reflects a hierarchy of assault in which licking an opponent is treated as substantially more serious than punching someone, which draws a 2-minute penalty (or 5 depending on severity) and garners the respect of fans, teammates, and coaches. The uproar about Marchand’s behavior was not due to the fact it constituted assault perpetuated by one player against another, but rather was based in homophobia/homonegativity.

Cyd Zeigler of Outsports.com wrote about this facet of the controversy, but he too focused on the need for the NHL to penalize Marchand because it prohibits spitting. He noted the deployment of homophobia as a tactic to throw off opponents, but we would be naïve to think that this was the first time homophobia was used on the ice for such a purpose. I have sat close enough to the ice to know this not to be true. The non-anecdotal research on the culture of masculinity and hockey along with stories about sexually based hazing among intercollegiate hockey teams, reinforces this fact. Given the NHL’s homophobia problem, penalizing someone for spitting when it really is not about spitting—and it is certainly not about health—does not address the underlying problem.

Zeigler has a valid point, but he misses the assault part of it; specifically, the sexual assault. Marchand is deploying sexuality in a physical way to exert or maintain power over another individual. In this #metoo moment, the lack of recognition—by everyone—of this incident as sexual assault is unfortunate but not surprising. It remains difficult to convince people that (1) sexual assault happens between men and (2) that sexual assault is not about desire for sex and does not always include penetrative sex. In this case, the NHL could not talk about the homophobia without talking about the sexual violence, so it did neither.

The NHL’s violence and homophobia problems are steeped in a culture of hypermasculinity and misogyny. These things cannot be disaggregated. There is a failure to understand the intersecting operations of power and privilege here, including whiteness. The NHL has arguably taken more definitive stances on racism within the league, primarily by fans against players. But we cannot overlook that the perpetrator in this case is a white man and that his whiteness, along with his “successful” display of heterosexual masculinity, has protected him from any real censure and violence.

What happens to Marchand in the off-season is unknown. Regardless, it is unlikely anything will change in the culture of the NHL. It will continue to allow fighting, and this will perpetuate the culture of violence that is widely tolerated until something “beyond the pale” occurs. It will remain impossible to punish a player for the same type of actions that earn him praise, a hefty salary, and a fan base, while also maintaining credibility as a sports governance organization.

Kristine Newhall is an assistant professor of Kinesiology at SUNY Cortland where she teaches courses in sports ethics and sport and sexuality. Her research interests focus broadly on the intersections of race, sexuality, and gender in contemporary and 20th century sports and fitness cultures. Current projects include athletes’ coming out narratives; the history of women’s sports spaces; applications of Title IX; sexual violence and intercollegiate athletes; and trans policies and representations.

In November 2013, a capacity crowd of nearly 40,000 fans at the Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb, Croatia celebrated one of the great moments for any team competing in international soccer: by defeating Iceland 2-0, the Croatian national team was among the last of 32 countries to qualify for the 2014 Men’s World Cup finals in Brazil. Amidst the ecstasy, someone made the fateful mistake of handing a microphone to Josip Šimunić.

As a hard-tackling defender for Croatia aged 35, this was almost certainly Šimunić’s last chance to play in a World Cup. Alone on the field but for a cameraman tracking his every move, Šimunić moved with an energy that belied his gangly 6’5” frame, receding hairline, and perpetual five o’clock shadow. As he gesticulated with the microphone, jersey in hand, he screamed to the crowd in a call-and-respond repeat “Za dom spremni” – “For the homeland!” In perfect and immediate synchrony, a large portion of the crowd responded “Ready!”

Unfortunately, Šimunić’s chant was also a clear reference to a hateful nationalist cry used by the fascist Ustase pro-Nazi regime that ruled Croatia during World War II. Šimunić protested innocence, relying on a defense of simple patriotism and claiming “some people have to learn some history.” Global soccer authorities disagreed, as he was suspended through the 2014 World Cup for his “discriminatory” act and never played for the Croatian national team again.

To make Šimunić’s story even more intriguing from a sociological perspective, his moment of nationalist frenzy followed a lifetime spent mostly nowhere near “the homeland.” Though Šimunić’s parents were Croatian, he was born and raised in Canberra, Australia and developed into a world class soccer player at the Australian Institute for Sport. Professionally, Šimunić spent the majority of his career playing in Germany, and in his personal life he married a “Canadian-Croat.” Though he ended his career with the Croatian professional team Dinamo Zagreb and spent several recent years as an assistant coach for the Croatian National Team, it is plausible to suggest that Šimunić’s emotional nationalism was not necessarily “for the homeland.” Instead, it may have been a way to make sense of splintered and imagined identities – types that powerfully shape our 21st century lives.

Šimunić’s story thus becomes less a morality tale and more a prompt for broader thinking about soccer, and the 2018 World Cup now underway in Russia, as a mirror and a lens—reflecting and refracting our social world in ways that both illuminate and distort how we understand our selves and others. The World Cup provides a rare combination of global attention and emotionally engaging spectacle—a combination that offers a unique perspective on critical issues such as nationalism and identity. Global sports mega-events derive at least some of their popularity from the rare opportunity to put usually imagined communities on display. Though United Nations meetings may be more consequential, they don’t make for particularly good television. The World Cup final, in contrast, draws enough viewers to make it the globe’s most broadly shared cultural experience.

That shared attention is then often framed by broad social narratives about the places and politics of World Cup hosts. To cite recent examples, the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, as the first World Cup hosted in sub-Saharan Africa, became a forum for discussions about development and division—soccer’s global governing body FIFA trademarked the phrase “Celebrate Africa’s Humanity” as if there was something singular and unified about the humanity of that diverse continent. The 2014 World Cup in Brazil, particularly after massive 2013 street protests surrounding the Confederations Cup warm-up tournament, became about corruption and inequality. There are still regular news briefs about “white elephant” sporting facilities from both Brazil’s World Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympics—emblems of bread, circus, and massive profits for well-positioned elites. The 2018 World Cup cultivated narratives about hooliganism and racism that pervade an unfortunate proportion of the soccer landscape in Russia, while the 2022 World Cup in Qatar is already rife with attention to worker’s rights and religious tolerance.

During the month-long tournament itself, attention often shifts to narratives about the nations and identities represented through competition. As the British cultural historian Eric Hobsbawn famously (among soccer scholars) noted, “the imagined community of millions seems more real as a team of eleven named people.” The start of a World Cup match, with eleven men from each side donning national colors and saluting their flag, is a powerful visual image of nationhood. But, like many such visual representations of identity, it is also often inaccurate. For one, the simple fact that the players who get the most global attention are men, despite the athletic accomplishments on display in the women’s World Cup, only starts to hint at the many questions about gender, masculinity, and sexuality embedded in global soccer. In addition, World Cup teams often visually present complex stories about race, class, and ethnicity—stories that vary by nation from the relative homogeneity of the Russian national team to the sometimes surprising diversity of teams such as Belgium.

The complexity of these narratives and the emotional nationalism of the World Cup is reflected in a final addendum to the Šimunić story. Since his banishment from the 2014 World Cup, and in a quest for exoneration, Šimunić collaborated on a documentary film titled Moja Vlojena Hrvatska—My Beloved Croatia—that argues his moment of nationalist fervor was an embodiment of noble pride rather than a hateful screed. The English language trailer for the film begins with the claim “Soccer, to Croats, is much more than just a game” and segues into interviews with Croatian World Cup players talking wistfully about the patriotic feelings of playing for their national team. Even Šimunić’s father, the Australian emigree, makes a tearful appearance describing his pride at seeing Josip in the distinctive red checked uniform of the Croatian national team.

It is, ultimately, an emotional jumble of personal concerns and public issues of the type that sociologists love to dissect and the World Cup seems ever-primed to provide. To really watch the World Cup, a more humble Šimunić might say, “some people have to learn some sociology.”

Andrew Guest teaches sociology and psychology at the University of Portland in Oregon. His research focuses on youth and community development, particularly as reflected in sports and activity programs. A longer version of this essay is available amidst his other occasional sports jottings at sportsandideas.tumblr.com.

As the furor over NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem rekindles, the full power of the players themselves has not yet come into play. Presidential politics and U.S. culture wars combined to make the issue a dominant subplot of the 2017 NFL season. In late May, the league’s team owners reopened the debate by deciding to create a policy requiring players on the field during the playing of the national anthem to stand, under penalty of fines and on-field penalties, though players can also stay in the locker room.

The policy was made and passed unilaterally, without consultation of the players or their labor union, the NFL Players Association. Unusually, the owners didn’t even conduct a formal vote, and at least two owners abstained from the informal vote that was taken. President Donald Trump responded favorably and injected fresh criticism into the process by suggesting that NFL players who choose to stay in the locker room during the anthem “maybe … shouldn’t be in the country.”

Having made their moves, the teams and the president have three months before the 2018 season begins, in which to wait for players to respond. What happens next is uncertain, but my background as a sports and social media researcher tells me it could be both surprising and unexpected for those who have traditionally wielded the most power in the NFL.

Why is this happening now?

The timing of the owners’ move is both calculated and politically savvy for the NFL. The announcement did generate significant backlash from many sports media commentators, as well as current and former players and the players’ union. The long Memorial Day holiday weekend didn’t do much to blunt those criticisms, but it’s likely that the most negative reactions will dissipate by the middle of the summer.

If and when the issue is reignited, it will likely be viewed as the players creating the issue, rather than the owners. For instance, the players’ union is considering whether and how to respond – including potentially claiming violations of the collective bargaining agreement under which football players work.

How effective their actions are will depend largely on how the players present themselves on social media – what communications scholars call “framing.”

Framing the controversy

The controversy began in the 2016 NFL preseason with San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick protesting structural and institutional racism and bias in the U.S., particularly in American police practices.

The NFL’s initial reaction supported Kaepernick’s right to protest, saying “Players are encouraged but not required to stand during the playing of the national anthem.” The 49ers organization was even more direct: “In respecting such American principles as freedom of religion and freedom of expression, we recognize the right of an individual to choose and participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem.”

There were initial complaints about Kaepernick’s choice not to stand for the anthem – including feedback that led to him taking a knee rather than just sitting on the bench. But the protest didn’t become a public lightning rod until President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence created a new frame around Kaepernick’s kneeling in protest against injustice. They proclaimed he was disrespecting the country and its military.

The effect was immediate and stunning. Before Trump objected, more than 60 percent of his supporters viewed the NFL “somewhat or very favorably.” In less than a month after he first spoke out against the NFL for allowing Kaepernick’s protests to continue, that plummeted to near 30 percent. That drop no doubt played a part in the NFL owners’ recent action to block on-field protests.

Regaining control of the narrative

As the players determine how to respond, they’re starting from a difficult position. Historically, NFL owners have almost always won their public relations battles, whether against players in collective bargaining negotiations or against government watchdogs in public stadium funding battles.

However, the players have a tool they can use to try and reframe the protests, and keep the focus on their message: social media. With Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, they can communicate directly with fans and provide sports media observers nationwide with cogent and reasoned justifications for their actions.

Some players have already began to reframe the protests as a First Amendment issue, which current Philadelphia Eagles defensive lineman Chris Long did on May 23. In general, Americans support free speech and object to attempts to limit it – even in the workplace.

Other players have pointed out that having players stand on the field for the national anthem is a relatively new phenomenon in the NFL, dating from 2009. That point could also connect with a growing backlash against payments from the U.S. Department of Defense for overt displays of national pride on the football field, such as staged family reunions for soldiers returning from overseas.

There is no guarantee of success with either approach. The hyperpartisan nature of the current political environment may mean that public opinion won’t change. But NFL players have to try and seize control of the narrative, and social media provides a better platform than any other to attempt that.

Connecting directly with fans is important, and venues like Facebook and Snapchat provide that opportunity. It’s perhaps even more important to connect with media members across the country, because they can influence coverage and public discourse; Twitter gives players a direct line to reporters and columnists.

It seems unlikely that the public debate over the protests will disappear quietly, despite what the NFL owners want. For players who find themselves in an increasingly perilous public relations battle, it will be important to control the framing, using social media to assist them – and perhaps even bringing the discussion back to where it started, with police shootings of African-American men.

Galen Clavio is an Associate Professor of Sports Media and Director of the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana University. His research focuses on the influence of electronic and new media on the interactions between sports media, sport organizations, and sport consumers. Some of the specific areas he investigates are sports journalism, online sport fan communities, sports blogs, sport video games, and social networking.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Muslim sportswomen are too often read and represented as the oppressed “other” needing saving from their backward culture/society. However, my research on the digital lives of Muslim sportswomen reveals the multiple and nuanced ways they are taking matters of representation into their own hands, and in so doing, are challenging dominant portrayals of Muslim women in the mass media. Mainstream media coverage of Muslim women tends to focus on the hijabi athlete, while other Muslim sportswomen are often overlooked. The overrepresentation of the “oppressed” hijabi athlete obscures the multiple ways that Muslim women are participating in sport, as well as the cultural differences and diversity within this group. For example, the image below of a beach volleyball match between teams from Egypt and Germany, dubbed by some as the “clash of civilizations,” was circulated widely on social media. Many of the conversations and images centred around the hijabi athlete and rarely mentioned her Egyptian teammate who did not wear the hijab.

Such depictions, through text (describing Muslim women as passive and oppressed) and/or images (focusing on the hijab/niqab), create narratives that adhere to the Orientalist view, which distorts non-Western cultures in comparison to European cultures, implying the “other” culture is backward, uncivilized, and exotic. This type of media discourse may continue to reinforce problematic and limited representations and understandings of the lives of Muslim women in the world today.

Over the past decade, researchers have increasingly explored the important role of social media in contemporary sport. Some feminist scholars have examined how sportswomen are using social media for self-branding and marketing, online self-representation, or digital activism. However, Muslim sportswomen are not necessarily using social media in the same ways. To better understand how Muslim sportswomen are using social media in their everyday lives, my PhD research draws upon the work of critical feminist digital media and sports scholars, applying an intersectional approach to consider the ways in which different aspects of participants’ identities (e.g., race, gender, religion) combine to influence their experiences. Specifically, I have conducted interviews with 20 Muslim sportswomen from around the world in an array of different sports (e.g., mountaineering, fencing, basketball, CrossFit, mixed martial arts) and different sporting backgrounds (elite, competitive, and recreational). Prior to interviewing the sportswomen, I conducted an eight-month digital ethnography. This involved overt observations (with permission from participants) of the online lives of 26 Muslim sportswomen’s social media accounts across four different platforms (SnapChat, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter). For the Muslim sportswomen in my research, rather than being stereotyped into mainstream media’s perspective of the oppressed “other,” they are subtly and at times overtly bringing in the complex nature of their offline lives into digital spaces and offering alternative representations of sportswomen.

As an example, a participant in my research, Dina (name changed for anonymity) is a 30-year-old mountaineer from the Middle East and North Africa. Dina, who does not wear the hijab in her day-to-day life, stated: “I like to give the mysterious element on Instagram that maybe I am covered or maybe I am not.” The control of her social media posts is not just for the “mysterious” element, but to get local sponsors (keeping in mind cultural norms of her society) and importantly influence other girls/women to take up mountaineering. In other words, she is strategic and conscious with her posts so she can share a different narrative about herself, her sport, and her society.

Muslim sportswomen are more diverse and their lives are more complex than typically depicted in mainstream media. For the Muslim women in my study, their identities do not rest solely on religion, gender, race, or nationality, but rather on individual interpretations and experiences at the intersection of such identities in relation to sport. For example, some participants didn’t want to be known as the first woman to compete in a particular sport from a Muslim country; rather, they wished to be recognized for their skills as athletes. In sum, social media allows the Muslim sportswomen in my research opportunities to reimagine and promote counternarratives to dominant media representations, as well as adding further complexity to understandings of digital embodiment.

Nida Ahmad (na105@students.waikato.ac.nz) is a PhD Student in the Faculty of Health, Sport and Human Performance at the University of Waikato, in New Zealand. She also is on the executive board of the Muslim Women in Sport Network, which launched in 2018. Her research focuses on Muslim sportswomen’s uses of social media. She has published in the International Journal of the Sociology of Sport, Routledge Handbook of Youth Sport, Routledge Handbook of Sport for Development and Peace, and International Journal of Communication. You can follow her on Twitter: @NAicha11

For most of January 2018, one of the worst sexual abuse scandals ever in sports dominated the news cycle, as former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced to life in prison. During the trial, more than 100 sexual abuse victims testified about the predatory environment Nassar had created. Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman delivered an awe-inspiring 13-minute testimony that received national praise. Raisman, who identified herself as a powerful voice and advocate for all victims of sexual abuse, embodied the persona of feminist advocate and champion for abuse victims. However, Raisman’s credibility as a feminist advocate has come into scrutiny in light of her decision to pose – for the second time – for the 2018 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. This case raises several questions: Can Raisman still be considered a feminist advocate in light of her choice to pose for a sexist, white, heteronormative, and objectifying magazine feature? Where is the line between empowerment and objectification? As a rhetoric scholar, I am interested in how both Raisman’s traditional form of activism (public address) and her embodied rhetoric are compatible feminist discourses. My purpose is to explain Raisman’s multi-modal activism through the lens of feminist rhetorical criticism – highlighting the concept of “power feminism” – in order to complicate what feminist sports scholars and hosts of the Burn It All Down podcast call the “Sports Illustrated swimsuit conundrum.”

Modes of (Feminist) Rhetorical Activism and Power Feminism

Feminist rhetorical activism takes many forms. Traditionally, rhetorical activism has been defined as “public protest,” “confrontation,” or other forms of verbal, deliberative discourse.  However, communication scholars Sowards and Renegar advance a more pluralist view of rhetorical activism. In addition to public address, they argue, feminist rhetorical action may manifest as creating grassroots models of leadership; using strategic humor; building feminist identity both on- and off-line; sharing stories; resisting stereotypes and labels; and other visual or embodied forms of protest. Such forms of protest have been used for centuries. Images of women cycling in nineteenth century magazines functioned to resist dominant cultural frames of the “frail” female body whose reproductive parts needed to be preserved. In the twentieth century, second-wave feminism introduced consciousness-raising activities where women could gather to share, listen, and organize. Finally, in our current century, SlutWalks have attempted to reclaim the kinds of clothing traditionally associated with “promiscuity” and resist the rape culture logic that blames assault victims. Such victim-blaming discourse proliferated after the release of Raisman’s Sports Illustrated feature, as exemplified by a tweet directed at Raisman reading, “How can you complain that you were molested?”

Contemporary rhetorical activism is not limited to one of these forms; rather, most activist discourse is multi-modal as well as multiply-mediated. Further, there are competing forms of feminist thought. I argue that Raisman’s rhetorical action is in line with “power feminism,” which focuses on working within the system or “using the master ‘s tools” to affect  change in society. Media studies scholar Rebecca Hains has criticized “power feminism” in her analysis of television content, which revealed that “power feminist” characters adhere to normative standards of femininity, making them successful commodities in the marketplace. While such criticisms are indeed necessary, I argue that “power feminist” rhetorical action is still important, even if it is imperfect.

Aly Raisman as “Power Feminist” and Multi-Modal Advocate

During Raisman’s testimony, she said, “I have both power and voice and I am only beginning to just use them.” I argue that both her verbal testimony and her Sports Illustrated swimsuit feature are complementary forms of feminist rhetorical activism. Both demonstrate Raisman’s transformation from a passive victim into an active agent in the form of a survivor/advocate. In her testimony, she chronicled the story of her objectification and abuse. Her direct confrontation (“Larry, it’s your turn to listen to me”) demonstrated Raisman’s reclaimed voice and agency. In the case of her embodied rhetoric in Sports Illustrated – both the traditional poses and the “In Her Own Words” feature – Rasiman displays, rather than hides, her body. She transforms from victim to survivor. This is a “power” move, which stands in contrast to what Naomi Wolf called “victim feminism.”

It is still important to maintain critiques of the patriarchal media landscape we inhabit. Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue is certainly not the epitome of women’s empowerment or feminist discourse; it is unfortunately one of the only times women appear in Sports Illustrated at all. Further, “power feminism” is not without its criticisms. As radical feminists have argued, “the master’s tools will not dismantle the master’s house.” However, this does not undermine Raisman’s feminist activism, and we should not revert to ideals of purity that demand women be passive and modest. In Raisman’s own words (written on her naked body), “Women do not need to be modest to be respected.” That simple assertion says so much. Aly Raisman is no victim – she is a powerful survivor. Raisman’s multi-modal activism depicts a survivor who has claimed her body, her power, her agency, and her voice. For Raisman, both speaking and posing make her a “power feminist” because she both acknowledges the power she has as a woman and a high-profile athlete (the role-model persona), and she participates in an institution (the swimsuit issue) that caters to patriarchal and heteronormative ideals. However, her public testimony and her embodied rhetoric should be viewed as compatible and complementary forms of activism. Rhetorical action can be simultaneously progressive and regressive. Advocacy – and any communication, really – is never just an either/or. It can be, and usually is, both/and.

Rebecca Alt is a doctoral candidate in Communication (Rhetoric and Political Culture) at the University of Maryland. She is interested in the communication of elite sport culture, organizational rhetoric, and advocacy. You can follow her on Twitter at @rhetorbec.