In The Name of Democracy : Varieties and continuities of associative sports masculinities at club level during the 20th century

• During the first half of the 20th century the Swedish Sports Confederation became the dominant sports organisation in Sweden. In short, the organisation adapted a representative democratic principle and argued that it fostered its members to democratic citizens. In turn, this legitimised annual state grants but did not prevent long-time male domination within Swedish sports. This paper deals with the contradictive contents of sports masculinity (e. g. being similarly democratic and exclusionary) and, more specific, it focuses the long-time duration of masculine domination in a Swedish, voluntary sports club and how different visual and textual strategies were used to strengthen the masculine hegemony in the organisation.   The method draws inspiration from the concept of hegemonic masculinity, understood as something restraining and contradictive, and Wetherell & Edley's (1999) more fine-grained analytical tool called “imaginary positions”. The source materials are texts and photos in members reviews of Örebro Sports Club and the chronological period is two-folded divided from the foundation of the club in 1908 to 1933 and from 1967 up until 1989 when the club was dissolved into different juridical persons.   The results show that masculine positions were not only about winning and expressing a successful, active and struggling masculinity. The hegemonic (and heroic) position offered a range of possibilities to express and visualize masculinity but the very same position, on the other hand, contained plain borders towards deviant sexuality, functionality, ethnicity and gender. The discussion involves an approach to understand the results in relation to the difficulties of challenging patriarchy and male domination in sports.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Idrottsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Sport and Fitness Sciences (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Historia och arkeologi -- Historia (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- History and Archaeology -- History (hsv//eng)

Keyword

hegemonic masculinity

associative sports

democracy

history

Sports Science

Idrottsvetenskap

Historia

History

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)