Performing Kiwi Cultural Identity In/Through American Rugby

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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School

2013 Performing Kiwi Cultural Identity in/ Through American Rugby Christopher McLeod

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COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

PERFORMING KIWI CULTURAL IDENTITY

IN/THROUGH AMERICAN RUGBY

CHRISTOPHER MCLEOD

A Thesis submitted to the Department of Sport Management in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science.

Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2013 Christopher McLeod defended this thesis on April 1, 2013. The members of the supervisory committee were:

Joshua Newman Professor Directing Thesis

Jeffery James Committee Member

Michael Giardina Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you Dr. Joshua Newman for your time especially—your brilliance being a given. Thank you Dr. Jeffery James and Dr. Michael Giardina for serving on my committee. Thank you South City Rugby Football Club and all those associated for the good times, the good rugby, and the great company. I hope you find this a fair representation.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ...... vii 1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1 New Zealand Cultural Identity in the 2011 Rugby World Cup ...... 6 A Study of the Performance of Cultural Citizenship in/through American Rugby ...... 7 2. REVIEW OF LITERTURE ...... 14 Cultural Identity ...... 15 Migrant Identities ...... 24 Cultural Citizenship ...... 24 Embodying Cultural Citizenship ...... 37 Toward a Theory of Embodied Cultural Citizenship ...... 48 Rugby as a Site of Performative Cultural Identity ...... 50 Masculinity ...... 51 Masculinity in Rugby ...... 53 Intersubjective Rugby ...... 64 Embodying Cultural Citizenship through Rugby Performance ...... 71 3. METHOD ...... 74 Paradigmatic Foundations ...... 76 A Study in Physical Culture ...... 78 Participant Observation ...... 82 Autoehtnography ...... 84 Interviews ...... 86 4. DATA ANALYSIS ...... 90 South City “Raiders” Rugby Football Club (SCRFC) ...... 92 Some Actors at South City ...... 95 First Contacts: Framing Kiwi Cultural Citizenship ...... 109 Encounters with Giants: Facing Large Expectations ...... 110 Kiwis on Tour: Privilege, Performance and Perception ...... 114 Rugby Players and Guys that Play Rugby ...... 123 The Logical Place of the Kiwi Body in Rugby ...... 125 Rugby Physics, Two-on-one ...... 125 Sensations of Success ...... 127 Spaces and Bodies of Memory ...... 132 The New Zealand School of Tackling ...... 134 Kiwi Performativity ...... 140 A Kiwi Smelling Roses: English Cultural Citizenship in American Rugby ...... 143 The New Zealander and the Englishman: On Rugby and Cultural Citizenship ...... 144 Charlie Thorne and The Doctor: Migrant Memories of the Skin (and Bone) ...... 148 Doing it for the Queen ...... 150 5. DISCCUSION ...... 153

Embodied New Zealand Cultural Citizenship in American Rugyb ...... 153 A Model for Cultural Identity ...... 156 Chronicling Pain ...... 160 Pain Violence in the Constitution of Cultural Citizenship ...... 166 Theorizing Pain and Injury ...... 168 Pain and Injury in Rugby ...... 169 Pain, Isolation, Appearance, and Power ...... 172 Pain and/as Intersubjectivity ...... 178 Pain and Power in Rugby ...... 181 Coda ...... 183

APPENDACIES ...... 187

A. INFORMED CONSENT FORM ...... 187

B. IRB APPROVAL LETTER ...... 189

REFERENCES ...... 190

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 201

ABSTRACT

This is a study of the of Kiwi cultural identity as performed in and through American

Rugby. Drawing on the theories of Stuart Hall, Judith Butler and Sara Ahmed I look at how my

New Zealand cultural identity and rugby playing body was (re)produced by myself and my teammates and coaches at the South City “Raiders” Rugby Football Club (SCRFC). The data for this study comes from my participant observation in SCRFC as a player for six months, during which I kept autoethnograpic field notes and conducted semi-structured conversational interviews. I discuss how my cultural identity project in this rugby space was primarily embodied and performed and that this resulted in pain playing a central part in my experiences.

In this respect, what began as a study of cultural identity became a study of pain in the service of cultural identity. This leads me to theoretically explore pain as an empirical construct, arguing that pain must be considered both as a product and producer of cultural identities. As such I move to question Hall’s predominantly discursive understanding of identity arguing that we need to move beyond textual reductionism to study cultural identities as subject to biological, affective and material (re)production, (re)constitution, and negotiation.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Rugby Union football (from here referred to as rugby) is a team sport of 15 players per side. Rugby is ball-handling game with a large amount of running in possession of the ball, interspersed with instances of kicking and breaks in play for infringements and set pieces. The objective, simply put, is to out-score the opponent through the completion of various attacking invasion maneuvers. Instances of scoring include: touching down a ‘try’ in the opponents ‘goal’ area, place-kicking a goal after a try, making a penalty kick for goal, or drop-kicking the ball for goal during open play. The game is played in full contact, with a small amount of regulation to control the point of contact (i.e. tackles must be below the neck, and an attempt must be made to use the arms), but also with a relative lack of protective equipment. Consequently, success in rugby is largely determined by the ability of 15 bodies to penetrate, or alternatively stop, 15 opposing bodies.

Rugby has long been associated with dominant masculinity and ways of being a man.

Rugby has historically been tied with: the teaching of middle class male values in British public schools, the training of soldiers for battle, and the values of colonial settler populations (Nauright

& Chandler, 1996). Indeed, the values of strength, courage, discipline, and mateship hold steady in a sport that still holds a dominant position in many national identities and culturally defined masculine identities (Park, 2000). These values have also been inexorably tied to notions of pain and injury (Liston, et al., 2006). Giving and taking pain—breaking bodies and being broken—are fundamental aspects of playing rugby (Schacht, 1996). Such that suppressing emotion, overcoming pain, and taking risk are synonymous with rugby performance—and often

mythologized within the societies that give these performances cultural precedence (Pringle,

2009).1

I know this all well. I grew up in New Zealand, arguably the country in which rugby has

been most centrally incorporated in the national psyche. I was brought up in a district where the local Rugby Football Club (RFC) was the most important social space. I attended school in an educational setting in which rugby was traditionally used as the ideal method for installing manly character, a setting in which the performances and traditions of the First XV2 are still championed above other achievements. I lived in Canterbury, established in 1879 alongside

Wellington as the oldest rugby unions in the country. The home of the Southern hemisphere’s most successful rugby franchise, and training grounds of New Zealand rugby legends; Wayne

Smith, Robbie Deans, Todd Blackadder, Andrew Mehrtens, Richie McCaw and Dan Carter, to name a few. I was a citizen in a nation for whom the All Blacks—New Zealand’s national team—were a reflection of the national (sporting) ethos; rugby, New Zealand’s major passion and religion (Thompson, 1988). As author David Geary writes, “Rugby – is it a religion? It gives us community. We worship those who sacrifice their bodies for the good of all. It makes beer taste better. Hell there’s even a ‘Sin Bin’” (as cited in Johnston, 2011, p. 1)

As Geary further observes, former All Blacks such as Colin “Pinetree” Meads and Wayne

“Buck” Shelford have secured the right of hero status verging on worship in national dialogues.

The stories told of these men attest to horrible injuries sustained on the field of play—a broken arm and ripped scrotum, respectively. However, the veneration steams not from the suffering,

1 The type of identity politics that rugby promotes has had significant implications for race, gender, and class relations. Rugby masculinities are defined in opposition to, and in domination of, femininities and ‘lesser’ men (Schacht, 1996). Furthermore, the domestic labor of women has long serviced rugby, on and off the field (Thompson, 1988). 2 The First XV refers to a school’s premier rugby team, what in other sports may be referred to as the ‘A team’. Membership on a First XV is not limited to 15 starting players but also includes substitutes and potentially the wider training squad 2

rather from the willingness to continue playing in spite of these injuries. But in many ways it is

also more than that. There is a stoicism, an impassiveness associated with their actions and

general demeanor. For example, when asked about his worst rucking injury, Meads famously

replied, “nothing that didn’t heal” (as cited in Smith, 2012, p. 1). In New Zealand, this outlook

has become a goal for aspiring men and boys3; a beacon of manliness that is to be perfected on

the field through the trials of rugby violence.

This form of masculinity is seemingly so essentially ‘kiwi’, so taken-for-grantedly male,

so fundamentally tied to the national sport, so admired and esteemed, that it has become imbued

in the cultural identity of New Zealand men. These themes have been represented in beer

advertising (Law, 2008), performed by various All Blacks – national heroes par excellence—and

often internalized by the national populace. For example, New Zealand males with hemophilia

identified an inability to play rugby as the “single most pervasive idiom of distress” because of

the masculine abnormality that it entailed (Park, 2000, p. 446). Indeed, the discourse of rugby

and masculinity has been shown to constrain the range of gender and sexuality roles available for

a range of young New Zealand males (Bannister, 2005 Pringle, 2009;).

As “Pinetree” Meads alludes in his above comment on injuries, in New Zealand rugby

entertains a particular relationship to the body. This relationship is key to the adoption of such

identities. There exists a sort of hardness. A physical dominance, both of one’s own body and the

body of others. This verges on an almost ambivalent aggression, or violence, but only out of

necessity—in which actions that are unjustifiable in broader society are normalized on the pitch.

3 I would like to acknowledge here that this pervasiveness of masculine themes and the limitation of rugby as a sport of solely male participation is more a representation of how it has been constructed and framed in national discourses. This is far from how the landscape of rugby really is in New Zealand. Female participation in the sport is popular and growing. Indeed, my sister played the season of my departure for the regional women’s team. Perhaps what makes the fallacy of this masculine discourse so obvious is the successfulness of the Women’s national team, the Black Ferns, who have a record that far surpasses that of the All Blacks, or any other international team for that matter. 3

The body is a tool, to be emotionally distanced from oneself, the bearer of ruck marks—“tags”—

or symbolic capital. This relationship was likely born out of New Zealand’s formation alongside

settler or frontier identities.

More specifically, the particular physicality of frontier lifestyles was directly attributed to

the success of the 1905 All Black tour to England (Phillips, 1996). Indeed, Phillips (1987) attests

rugby’s early popularity to the importance of physical strength as an element of New Zealand’s

pioneer culture where, “back-breaking work remained characteristic for a long time” (Phillips,

1987, p. 11). Example’s of this early work included sailing, sealing, whaling, gold mining,

colonizing thickly bushed, “primitive land”, and farming: with New Zealand remaining a frontier

society through to the 1900s (Phillips, 1987). This trend or myth of hard settler men persevered

as a stereotype of Pakeha masculinity, and rugby came to encapsulate the desire to sustain the

muscular virtues of pioneer heritage. During the urban movement towards the end of the 1800s

rugby was promoted as a vehicle through which to ward off the perceived dangers of

urbanization, particularly fears of growing effeminacy in the male population (Phillips, 1996).

Here rugby served the motives of the elite men in New Zealand and, as the country was still a

colony in service of The British Empire, these motives were also those of the British elite.4 Those

men who wished to sustain the racial dominance of the white European man through a form of

social Darwinist logic in which the winners of the battles of commerce and war would be those

tempered in hard, physical, rural environments (Phillips, 1996). As historian Erik Olssen

observed, “rugby reassured New Zealanders that [white] man, if not woman, was still the master

of his fate; the captain of his soul” (as cited in Crawford, 1985, p. 77).

4 Indeed, it is worth noting that the use of sport in this way—as a vehicle for muscular Christianity, the training of a war-ready population, and similar masculine goals of the ruling class—can be clearly seen across a number of contexts. For example association football in England, and American Football in the United States. Therefore, this study takes its place within a history of sport-masculinity relations. 4

The dominant New Zealand myth of frontier, physically masculine, identity still persists and is still mobilized towards particular ends to this day. For example, Grainger, Falcous, and

Newman (2012) identify how current rugby themes speak to the “good old days” and the centrality of European men within the national imagination. Rugby is thusly argued to be a central part of history creation in New Zealand (Falcous & West, 2009). Specifically, rugby discourses serve to mask issues—such as those around multiculturalism—and produce a form of white (or Pākehā) security (Grainger, et al., 2012). In these national dialogues, notions of physicality have come to play a constant theme. Insecurities about white physicalities in relation to Pacific and Māori bodies have played a central role in the discussion of “white flight” and the

“browning” of rugby (e.g., see Paul, 2004; and NZH, 2004). Similarly, those concerned with the short falls of recent All Black sides have sought reasons to explain the corrosion of traditional

All Black spirit of “hard, uncompromising, self-reliant men” (Hope, 2002).

Finally, recent rule developments resulting in a stricter governance of the point of contact, and firmer sanctions for dangerous tackling, have provided commentators with a regulatory tabula rasa for casting masculine insecurities regarding physical dominance in relation to less legitimate masculinities and femininities. Such perspectives mirror the following opinion from a “genuine rugby fan” commenting on not being able to commit to a “full-on, bone crunching” tackle; “[l]et's be honest, (and all you hairy-legged, incense-sniffing, tree-hugging woofters can stop reading) rugby has become too sanitized, too sterile, and too "nice"

(Stuff.co.nz, 2007). A perspective echoed by former All Blacks great and current Samoa national coach Michael Jones who says, “if it carries on this way, I’ll be telling my son to go play rugby league”5 (as cited in Stuff.co.nz, 2007).

5 Rugby league emerged as the professional version of the game as those in the sport’s positions of power attempted to maintain rugby union’s amateur ethos and foundation. As such the split in the codes was 5

Thus, the rugby man’s utilization of the body—as a tool or weapon, distanced from pain and discomfort—has come to symbolize broader masculine understanding, acceptance and ignorance towards the body which has come to be nostalgically representative of dominant, white, colonial, masculinities. In this way, pain and injury are normalized, emotion is discouraged, and physical violence to bodies is justifiable for New Zealand men and boys

(Pringle, 2009).

New Zealand Cultural Identity in the 2011 Rugby World Cup

The current place of rugby in the national sporting landscape is perhaps best illustrated through experiences and narratives of the 2011 Rugby World Cup, hosted in New Zealand.6

Throughout the World Cup, Prime Minister John Key told stories of friendly Kiwi7 spirit as linked to the event (Key, Sep 18, 2011). He commented on the patriotic pride running through the country. He confirmed his participation in the kiwi imagination by extoling us to “enjoy the cup” and “go the mighty All Blacks” (Key, Sep 18, 2011), highlighting the importance of rugby to our collective trajectories. On a smaller scale, but with no less commitment to the game, families enjoyed and savored World Cup experiences together. Some of the luckier families even attended some of the locally held matches. During the tournament, rugby was the conversation topic between friends and acquaintances alike. Friends debated, sometimes heatedly, everything

inherently tied to class politics with rugby league historically associated with working class culture in opposition to the middle class ties of rugby union (see Collins, 2006). A result of this split has seen some animosity between the two sports making such a comment by an ex-All Black a particularly damning incitement on rugby. 6 During and after those weeks we were constantly reminded of the importance of the sport to our community. Messages from politicians, family, friends and the media reaffirmed the countries pervasive enthrallment with the sport and our collective performance on its field 7 “Kiwi” is a nickname commonly used both internationally, and in self-reference to denote people from New Zealand. The name derives from the kiwi, a bird native to New Zealand often used as a national symbol and generally viewed with pride by locals. 6

from World Cup histories to team selections, and controversial upsets to potential first-five8

replacements. And finally, when our victorious captain lifted the cup, the news media spoke as

our shared voice about the sometimes contradicting, yet always central, part of rugby in our

national culture:

We can find relief in the fact we are again officially the world’s best in what we do

best—playing, living and breathing rugby. After all, it is our game. A rejuvenating game,

but still a cruel game. It is an all-encompassing passion that has given us so much

anguish—long stretches of nationwide depression in 1991, 1995, 1999, 2003, 2007, but

not in 2011 when it once again became New Zealand’s glorious game. The New Zealand

heart is once more in union. (The Southland Times, 2011)

A Study of the Performance of Cultural Citizenship in/through American Rugby

This is the sporting context for my cultural citizenship as a New Zealand male. It is made

up of multiple frames of discursive reference: the media, national leaders, sporting heroes,

friends, fathers, gender ideologies. In this respect, citizenship is more than a category of political

membership to the state. Instead, I follow Ong (1996) who sees citizenship as a cultural

formation “tied to the process of self-making and being-made by power relations and structures

of broader collective citizenry” (p. 738). However, I am not there anymore; not in New Zealand,

that is. My recent move to the southeastern United States to pursue a Masters degree has taken

me away from the ‘place’ (home?) where those processes most obviously acted upon my body.

8 “First-five” is the name given, in New Zealand, to the player in the 10 position—often referred to as the “fly-half” in the northern hemisphere. The first-five (10, fly-half) tends to be one of the pivotal players in a rugby team taking on the role of the majority of the kicking, decision making, and ball distribution in the backline. 7

Why then, do I still feel them? Why do I feel more obliged to perform ‘Kiwi’ here/now

(where?/when?) than when I was obliged to perform ‘Kiwi’—as part of the New Zealand citizenship project—by way of my very location within the country? Why am I more of a New

Zealand male now than ever before? To attend these questions, I want to explore the process of making-self and being-made with respect to playing rugby. I ask: How am I (subject) articulated or located within these discursive flows that I touched upon in the above description of New

Zealand cultural formations (Hall, 1996d)? Furthermore, I want to understand this “location” by virtue of my recent “dislocation,” as a migrant student studying in an American university.

Therefore, my research question is, how, by playing rugby in America, is my male, “kiwi”, rugby-playing body reproductive of, and (re)produced and (co)produced by, these (cultural) identity politics,? And to what extend do I give my body over to the production of these cultural framings?

This is an important site of analysis for multiple reasons. Most notably, the current study contributes to broader understandings of identity politics. The sporting body, when it is at work, is used to produce identities that are never neutral. Sporting cultures privilege specific subject positions. Rugby in particular provides a valuable medium through which to interrogate this concept because it is a sport that has been linked to cultures of masculinity that have been implicated in the subordination of women and alternative ways of being a man. Secondly, rugby as a sport in which embodiment is heightened makes it a rich site through which to develop notions of performativity and embodiment in the production of cultural identities. Therefore, this is a study that opens our understanding to the ways in which the body is articulated with identity processes. How are corporeal experiences, sensations, and actions implicated in identity processes? What might it mean for identity to be performed? To be felt? How might identities

come to be understood as inscribed in/onto one’s body? And again we are led back to the issue of

identity politics and power relations. The place of the body and performance in physical culture

must be explored in the study of identity: as a potential site for the naturalization of the power

structures inherent in identity politics; or alternatively, a potential site of subversion.

In the pursuit of these contemplations, I intend to engage in an [auto-]ethnographic study,

playing rugby in an open men’s team in my current city—in the southeastern United States. I

believe rugby provides a useful site for interrogation because it is a space that is privileged in

New Zealand culture and, in some respects, may be a space in which New Zealand culture is

privileged here in the United States; and specifically with respect to New Zealand rugby-playing

bodies. For, by virtue of my upbringing in New Zealand, I have been endowed with a particular

set of knowledges, vernacular, accent, and physical skills and deportments that—as a result of

perceived or actual competence—situate me as valuable within the rugby community. In this respect, I follow a physical cultural studies axiom that seeks to “better understand context through bodily practice, as well as the oppressive and liberatory potential for the human body as constrained by contextual forces” (Giardina & Newman, 2011a, p. 182). Therefore, I catechize my body as a site for the (re)production of cultural citizenship and masculinity in this rugby space.

I am also concerned with the co-creation of this rugby body. In that, my body is always discursively (and physically) articulated within New Zealand (rugby playing) culture in ways that are, not just navigated by my own subjective self, but by others who view, contact and move with, my body in and around rugby. Therefore I aim within this study to map the complex structure of articulations that constitutes my body and identity in this context. As such I combine both ethnographic and autoethnographic strategies with interview-based narratives from the men

I played rugby with in an effort to understand how my male, ‘Kiwi,’ rugby playing body is articulated within corporeo-discursive formations, by myself, and others, in American rugby culture.

In order to further this research agenda, the next chapter will include a review of relevant literature. I begin by attending to how cultural identity has been understood, focusing on the contributions of Stuart Hall. After this, I focus on cultural identity as it has been used in migrant identity literature. In particular, these texts attest to the importance of globalization and migrancy flows to understandings of cultural identity. For example, Hall (1992) suggests that globalizing forces have resulted in a crisis of identity which has moved us away from any notion of essential, true, or stable selves. Therefore, I turn to multiple theorists to make sense of this contemporary identity-making condition, including Urry (2007) on the mobilities paradigm, Appadurai (1990) on ‘ethnoscapes’, Probyn (1996) on belongings, Ahmed et al. (2003) on uprooting/regrounding, and Hall (1996b) and Joseph (2011, 2012) on Diaspora. Finally, after developing this theory of cultural identity in the context of global migration, I conclude by suggesting that notions of citizenship and national culture that are implicated in cultural identity are worthy of interrogation.

In this line of thought, I posit that we can understand citizenship as more than a legal or state mandated category but a potential frame for the cultural reproduction; one that is implicated in transnational movements and relationships. Specifically, I identify how the embodiment of the citizen is of central importance to understanding such valuations, and indeed, experiences. As a result, my literature review is concerned with developing theories of cultural identity and embodied citizenship in such a way that they can effectively be used and in addition, moved in new directions. Thus, I produce a theory of cultural citizenship designed to understand the

inscription of cultural identity on, and by, the citizen body. Finally I develop the literature on

rugby, specifically as it relates to the performance and experience of masculinities. To which I

summarize rugby as an identity project specifically implicated in New Zealand cultural

citizenship and notions of masculinity. Hence, I seek to establish a framework of citizenship, as

it has previously been understood in the literature. Such directions I develop in the methods

section of this proposal.

In the third chapter I am concerned with the empirical approach of my study. In

particular, I highlight the assumptions that guide my research as paradigmatically grounded in

social constructivism. This paradigmatic approach stems from my aim to destabilize the

analytical relationship between researcher and researched that has been prevalent in the majority

of the literature detailed in my literature review. Whereas many authors have viewed rugby

(cultural identity, migrant identities, and citizenship experiences) from an outsider perspective, rugby—a practice in which the body is central—requires an internal perspective. Therefore, I outline how I was able to analyze my body as tackled and tackling. My assumption is that a body performing rugby cannot be attributed to nomothetic theorizing, or validated by survey methods, but rather, must be situated within the multiple frames within which it moves, between which it articulates, and from which it breaks.

As a result, I detail the methods of participant observation, autoethnography, and in-depth semi-structured interviews. I discuss how these methods were employed in my research (in line with my paradigmatic prescriptions). In particular, I somewhat reverse the researcher role by employing interviews as a way to better gauge how my teammates “read” me, perceive my cultural citizenship, and make sense of acts of physicality on the rugby field. Throughout this

chapter I identify some of the multiple considerations that are necessary for conducting work in

‘the field’ as a reflexive researcher.

In chapter four I present the data that I accumulated while playing for the South City

“Raiders” Rugby Football Club (SCRFC) through participant observation, autoethnographic

reflections, and interviews. I begin by outlining the context of my study, with a brief description

of the history and directions of SCRFC and what was happening during the time I was present.

This contextualization also includes a brief introduction to some of the actors at the club. After this I move to create a pastiche of my rugby playing experience. I undertake this by layering experiences, descriptions, feelings, interviews and reflections together to construct multiple vignettes. These vignettes are designed variously; overlap, contradict and evoke each other, to demonstrate the contradictory and contingent nature of cultural identities. This pastiche is divided arbitrarily into two sections. The first is concerned with the framings, expectations, negotiations, representations and (re)productions of my cultural citizenship in relation to various actors and experiences in South City. Whereas the second takes a specific concern with embodying this cultural citizenship project through an exploration of corporeal rugby encounters.

Finally, I provide an interview narrative with a fellow commonwealth rugby player in which our conversation gave rise to many of the notions that I found to be significant in my experience playing rugby in the United States. Throughout this chapter I endeavor to “take a back seat” with regards to analyzing the data, in an effort to let my experiences “speak for themselves”, until discussed in the next chapter.

In the final chapter (five) I begin by discussing the data that I presented in chapter four, by putting my experiences in dialogue with the literature I reviewed in chapter two. At the end of this discussion on my performance of Kiwi cultural citizenship in American rugby I point to the

central part that pain came to play in my experiences. Indeed, what began as a study of cultural

identity became a study of pain. In which cultural citizenship was literally experienced by the body in painful rugby encounters, violence, and injuries. As a result I extend this notion through the introduction of a set of “data” taking the form of a chronicle of the pain I experienced playing rugby. As a result of the pervasiveness of pain in this account I move to theorize pain as an empirical concept. As part of this theorization I question conventional perspectives that reduce pain to a product of culture, contending instead, that pain must be considered as a product and producer of culture. This leads me to explore; pain as intersubjectivity (in line with Ahmed’s theories), the implications for pain in the understandings of power in rugby masculinities, and finally, to question Hall’s discursive preoccupation in understandings of cultural identity. As a result, I make a modest attempt to explore how my cultural identity shares a dialectical relationship with pain. This is a primarily embodied cultural identity, which is subject to biological, affective and material (re)productions, (re)constitutions and negotiations. I conclude by proposing a move beyond textual reductionism in the study of cultural identity

CAHPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter I aim to develop an overview of previous literature on cultural identity, embodied cultural citizenship, and sporting embodiment (with a focus on the context of rugby).

By drawing upon, synthesizing, and questioning the literature that has been written on these subjects, I hope to develop an intimate understanding of interrelated concepts that might guide my research moving forward. Although I believe much of this literature will prove useful for

‘refining’ my interpretive toolbox, I ultimately want to transcend the ‘traditional’ ways of knowing rugby and thus will adopt a critical stance in the process of evaluating previous research. I also intend to blend these three potentially separate fields of research to develop a direction for study.

I will begin by developing a theory of cultural identity based on the work of Stuart Hall.

After which I situate identity projects in the context of globalization and migrancy with respect to concepts such as mobility, ethnoscapes, belonging and diaspora. With a theory of cultural identity mapped out I will then propose cultural citizenship as a specific identity project linked to ideas of nationhood, citizenship, subject values and in particular, embodied performativity. After this I will look into research into masculinities—in sport generally and rugby in particular—with a move to how contemporary scholars have come to develop more critical and nuanced considerations of how rugby is experienced. Finally, I synthesize these themes and mobilize an avenue for research.

Cultural Identity

Identity projects have become significant self-making ventures in modern society. The pursuit of defining oneself is generally supported as a viable and worthwhile activity. Indeed, the idea of having an identity is considered a feasible goal and legitimate possibility. In this section,

I aim to develop an overview of how cultural identity has been viewed and studied in within the fields of sport and cultural studies. Throughout this section I will endeavor to link the literature—the methods, conclusions, and perspectives—to the broader project in order to advance a study of cultural identity in rugby.

I will start, as most do, with the work of Stuart Hall. Stuart Hall’s theorization of cultural identity is grounded within the broader Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies project, of which he was a part, at the University of Birmingham in England. Before introducing his work on cultural identity, I will provide some initial contextualization of cultural studies, as documented by Hall (1996b) and During (1993). Due to its lack of well-defined methodology or spaces of investigation, cultural studies has been misconceived by many as an open project.

However, Hall (1996b) contends that this is not the case, “there is something at stake in cultural studies”—it is a political project (p. 263). As a result cultural studies is not just anything, it is something; a something in which positionalities matter. Therefore, a look at the key theoretical turns or positionings in cultural studies may provide us with an idea of the field’s intentions and directions, and the place of cultural identity theory within.

The defining feature of early cultural studies is the assumption that “it is at the level of individual life that the cultural effects of social inequality are most apparent” (Durring, 1993, p.

2). Originally, the focus of cultural studies scholars (notably Raymond Williams and Richard

Hoggart) was the development of this notion in the study of working class cultures. As a result,

cultural studies was originally seen as a Marxist critical practice. However, Hall (1996b) stress

that this was not simply in the sense that it uses Marxist theories. Instead, cultural studies worked

with, and against, Marxism. Indeed, Morley and Chen (1996) suggest that this relationship with

theory has been a defining aspect of cultural studies: “the identity of cultural studies has always

been constituted and reconstituted by its dialogues with issues raised in and by particular

historical conjunctures” (p. 2). The value of Marxism for cultural inquiry was in Marxism’s way

of connecting together, in critical reflection, the domains of everyday life, politics, and theory.

However, Marxist theory’s major shortcoming was its essentialist tendencies. In this working

relationship Gramsci and his term—hegemony—was used most often in cultural studies as

providing a means to address (if not solve) the unresolved work of Marxism.

One of the first developments in the field of cultural studies emerged out of an interaction

between proponents of cultural sociology (see Raymond Williams)—on forms of life—and a

structuralist focus on semiotics and ideology. Thus, “polysemy” was developed, in order to

realize the capacity of individuals and communities to generate multiple meanings of symbolic structures. The cultural studies tradition of viewing cultural production as a process of hybridization, re-production and negotiation was in this way born—an interest in “how groups with least power practically develop their own readings of, and uses for, cultural products—in fun, in resistance, or to articulate their own identity” (During, 1993, p. 6).

Earlier I pointed to the way cultural studies had a propensity to respond to particular historical issues. One such example of this that had a particular influence on cultural studies was the rise of Thatcherism (and Reaganism), and the politics of the New Right. Of particular issue was the dissemination of monoculturalism and conservative family values by these regimes. In response to this arose feminist and race perspectives. Hall (1996b) in particular details how these

“interruptions” significantly disturbed what was at that time a largely patriarchal cultural studies

body. However, in general, feminist and race perspectives called into question the idea of meta-

discourses. This was in line with the emergence of French theorists such as Foucault who pointed

out the political nature of theoretical discourse. As a result, cultural studies began to think of

subjects as living in a decentered society demanding a plurality of culture and theory. This lead

to projects “committed to maintaining and elaborating autonomous values, identities and ethics”

(During, 1993, p. 13). As a result cultural studies has stepped away from its emphasis on

working class culture and has instead become a site for marginal and minority voices in general.

This shift was also partly in response to the accelerated globalization of cultural production and distribution arising in the 70s. However, the multidirectional nature of globalizing processes meant that cultural researchers could not just be content with detailing homogenizing effects, or

the generation of new, local, vertical differences. Globalization also gave rise to emerging

diversity and autonomy.

One further theoretical “interruption” discussed by Hall (1996b), is often referred to as

“the linguistic turn”—the discovery of discursitvity and textuality. Again, it is worth noting that

these concepts introduced in semiotic and poststructuralist writings (of Foucault, Derrida, and

Barthes in particular) were not simply appropriated by cultural studies. They were wrestled with,

altered, and in the processes the (almost) settled path of cultural studies was once more

dislocated. The general outcome of this interruption reconfigured theory “as a result of having to

think questions of culture through metaphors of language and textuality” (Hall, 1996b, p. 271).

This reconfiguration manifests as a displacement implied in thinking about culture:

There’s always something decentered about the medium of culture, about language,

textuality, and signification, which always escapes and evades the attempt to link,

directly and immediately, with other structures. And yet, at the same time, the shadow,

the imprint, the trace, of those other formations, of the intertextuality of texts in their

institutional positions, of texts as sources of power, of textuality as a site of

representation and resistance, all of those questions can never be erased from cultural

studies (Hall, 1996b, p. 271)

However, it is also within the inclinations inherent in this theoretical legacy that Hall (1996b) saw the danger in cultural studies’ future. In that researchers must keep in mind the tension between the study of texts and the material conditions of existence, or alternately, the tension between politics and theory:

unless and until one respects the necessary displacement of culture, and yet is always

irritated by its failure to reconcile itself with other questions that matter, with other

questions that cannot and can never be fully covered by critical textuality in its

elaboration, cultural studies as a project, an intervention, remains incomplete. If you lose

hold of this tension, you can do extremely fine intellectual work, but you will have lost

intellectual practice as a politics (Hall, 1996b, p. 272)

As we will come to see, this tension—the what is at stake—in cultural studies has become the center of many academic debates. For example, if we need to think of all culture as text and language, how do we avoid reducing all practice to discourse? Indeed, the cultural studies tendency to reduce the body to text has provided some of the impetus behind the recent physical cultural studies movement (Giardina & Newman 2011b), a development that I will discuss and utilize in the chapter.

Another important part of the cultural studies “tradition,” one worth elaborating on for the current project, is the theory and method of articulation of which Hall has made significant

18 contributions (Slack, 1996). Whilst admitting that I may be violating the Birmingham School’s desire to avoid pre-packaged theory, I will nevertheless highlight a few key points, developments and insights of the “practice” of articulation. Theories of articulation emerged to address issues in Marxist thought (as mentioned above) particularly its reductionist tendencies. “Articulation” as a concept is derived from Marx, Gramsci, and Althusser, with key developments attributed to

Laclau and Mouffe. As a word, or isolated concept, articulation is a moment of arbitrary closure.

To draw from Hall’s interview with Grossberg, articulation is:

the form of the connection that can make a unity of two different elements, under certain

conditions. It is a linkage which is not necessary, determined, absolute and essential for

all time. You have to ask, under what conditions can a connection be formed or made?

The so-called ‘unity’ of a discourse is really the articulation of different, distinct elements

which are rearticulated in different ways because they have elements which can be

rearticulated in different ways because they have no necessary ‘belongingness’. The

‘unity’ which matters is a linkage between the articulated discourse and the social forces

with which it can, under certain historical conditions, but not necessarily, be connected.

(Hall, 1996c, p. 141)

Articulations create “complex structures” of identity out of difference and similarity, with articulations upon those articulations linking experience, meaning and politics to ever-larger structures (Slack, 1996). As a result “there will be structured relations between its parts, i.e., relations of dominance and subordination” (Hall, 1980, p. 325, as cited in Slack, 1996, p. 115).

Therefore, the interrogation of an articulated structure or practice requires an analysis of the organization of “autonomous” forces into circuits of power; a mapping of context, if you will. But in such a way that “the context is not something out there, within which practices occur

or which influences the development of practices. Rather, identities, practices, and effects

generally, constitute the very context within which they are practices, identities or effects”

(Slack, 1996, p. 125 emphasis theirs). This practice must avoid the tendency to reduce all

practices to discourse. Hall (1985) contends, “[i]t does not follow that because all practices are in

ideology, or inscribed by ideology, all practices are nothing but ideology. There is a specificity to

those practices whose principle object is to produce ideological representations” (p. 103). The

cultural studies project then, is concerned with re-articulating these units. It is the political

examination and intervention into articulations of concrete effect. Such as, in this case, the

maintenance and creation of cultural identities. As I will elaborate on shortly, the practice of

articulation is a key premise when thinking about the process of identification, which is central to

Hall’s formulation of cultural identities. The concept of articulation provides us with a way to

look at identities as partial, fragmented, potentially contradictory structures, which are strategic,

positional, and are a function of the “politics of difference”. Furthermore, the idea that identity is

articulated within larger structures—structures of inequality and relations of power—means there

is something political in identity. Individual and collective identities are implicated in

experiences of inequality. As such there is something at stake in research on cultural identity

(Hall, 1992).

Cultural identities for Hall (1992) are “those aspects of our identities which arise from our “belonging” to distinctive ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, and, above all, national cultures” (Hall, 1992, p. 596). As a result, it important to start by contextualizing contemporary cultural identities. Hall (1992) locates identity within the context of the dislocation and fragmentation of the modern subject such that we are facing a “crisis of identity.” Specifically, the late twentieth century has seen a disintegration of cultural landscapes with which social

individuals locate themselves. For instance, Hall (1992) suggests that “masterplans”, or systems

of meaning, which previously related to collective notions of class, nationality, gender, sexuality,

race and ethnicity, are fragmenting and multiplying to the point that “we are confronted by a

bewildering, fleeting multiplicity of possible identities, any one of which we could identify

with—at least temporarily” (Hall, 1992, p. 598). This results in a “dislocation or de-centering of

the subject” such that “we are ‘post’ any fixed or essential conception of identity” (Hall, 1992, p.

597).

How then are we to understand any form of cultural identity if those previously collective

social identities or “master concepts” on which our identities were based are failing? Hall (2005)

suggests that it is not so much that these structures have disappeared but rather that “they no

longer have that suturing, structuring, or stabilizing force, so that we can know what we are

simply by adding up the sum of our positions in relation to them” (Hall, 2005, p. 45). Instead,

cultural identities are increasingly diverse, plural, situated as in process. In order to understand

this cultural identity project in contemporary society it is worth beginning with Hall’s work on

identity.

As a result of the “crisis of identity,” Hall (1996d) revisits the idea. He proposes that the reinvigoration of identity must attempt to rearticulate the relationship between subjects and discursive practices. According to Hall (1996d), this is primarily a question of identification, which draws its meanings from discursive and psychoanalytic considerations. From a discursive approach, identification is never complete. It is a process, a construction. It is conditional and based in contingency. Thus identification, in the pursuit of incorporation, never truly fits.

Identification is, then, “a process of articulation, a suturing” (Hall, 1996d, p. 3). When understood in psychoanalysis, identification becomes imbued with semantics. Thus, to draw on

Freud, Hall’s (1996d) process of identification is one instilled with ambivalence, in which molding takes place in relation to the other, abandoned choice. As a result, systems of identification(s) do not cohere as a functional unit and can emerge from plurality, conflict, and disorder.

Importantly for Hall (1996d), identity is not essentialist but strategic and positional. This means that self-identity is no more true than any superficial collective cultural identity. Both, and indeed, all forms of identification are segmented and splintered, multiply constructed, dynamic, and subject to a radical historicization. Therefore:

We need to situate the debates about identity within all those historically specific

developments and practices which have disturbed the relatively ‘settled’ character of

many populations and cultures, above all in relation to processes of globalization, which I

would argue coterminous with modernity (Hall, 1996) and the processes of forced and

‘free’ migration which have become a global phenomenon of the so-called ‘post-colonial’

world. (Hall, 1996d, p. 4)

In this way, identities are historical and institutional because they are constituted within discourse and representation. Thus they are subject to specific narrative and inventive strategies.

Moreover, they are implicated in flows of power, because: “identities are constructed through, not outside, difference. This entails the radically disturbing recognition that it is only through relation to the Other, the relation to what it is not . . . [that] ‘identity’—can be constructed” (Hall,

1996d, pp. 4-5). Here identification is a process of ambivalence towards “the Other that belongs inside one. This is the Other that one can only know from the place from which one stands. This is the self as it is inscribed in the gaze of the Other” (Hall, 2005, p. 48). Thus the constitution of a social identity, as a necessary process of ambivalence, is an act of power.

However, Hall (1996d) asks: how we are to understand the meaning of identity and

theorize its emergence if it is constantly destabilized by what it leaves out? In order to address

this issue, Hall (1996d) contends that identities “are the result of a successful articulation . . . of

the subject into the flow of discourse” (p. 6). This notion of articulation is important because the

subject must also invest in the position constructed for us by discursive practices. Hall (1996d)

further posits that an understanding of the constitution and maintenance of identity requires the

theorizations of psychoanalysis. Thus it is the articulation between psychic identity and

discursive formation in which the issues and futures of identity, as a theoretical tool, lie.

Hall’s (1996d) discussion provides an in-depth view of cultural identity. We can see how cultural identity has changed such that it can no longer be represented by any fixed notion or

‘truth.’ Cultural identity is conditional, contingent, historical, and multiply constructed. Cultural identities are formed through differentiation, they don’t ‘fit,’ and they are implicated in power relations. In addition, Hall (1996d) argued that identity debates must take place in the context of globalization. Indeed, he argued that the processes of globalization are confluent with modernity.

As a result, I will pursue a detour9 to interrogate this context—both how it has been described and the theoretical concepts through which it can be understood. The explicit purpose of this detour is to detail how cultural identity can be positioned and theorized as existing in this broader context and as such I pursue the concepts of diaspora, mobility, ethnoscape, belonging, and heterotopia which I believe can advance our current framework for cultural identity.

9 Hall and the cultural studies project in general preferred to think of theory as a detour towards understanding. This is opposed to ideas of “fitting experience into theory”, and instead suggests a reciprocal relationship with theory and empiricism emphasizing evolution and malleability. 23

Migrant Identities

This sub-heading, “migrant identities,” is designed to mark this exploration into cultural

identity in the context of global migration. This is a twofold process of 1) understanding the

geopolitical context(s) in which contemporary identity projects exist and 2) developing a

framework which takes this context into account in my mission to research cultural identity as a

student/sporting migrant. The general developments seen in this field have related to broader

changes in the ways we view global relationships between, and flows of, people. Traditionally,

these perspectives have held notions of status, presence, “home” and “the return” to be of

importance. These views have tended to be situated in center-periphery, colonial models which

emphasize Eurocentric modes of thought. However, recent developments have tended to

emphasize mobilities, flows, and becomings. Indeed, in much the same way as Hall moves

identity away from stasis towards a process of articulation, global flows of people and culture

have been recognized as existing in perpetual peripheral relationships, describable only in terms

of the points they cross in movement—never stationary, always becoming.

John Urry provides a pertinent example of these recent developments in the

understanding of globalization and mobility. Urry (2007) outlines the mobilities paradigm in

which he advocates for an overhaul of how social phenomena have been previously analyzed.

Instead of the traditional sociological emphasis on stasis, structure, and order that views social

actors in terms of their presence, Urry (2007) promotes “a sociology which focuses upon

movement, mobility and contingent ordering” (p. 9). Specifically, Urry (2007) sees social

relationships as constituted by diverse connections, varying by distance, intensity and physical movement. Social life is thus organized around “mobilities” to form mobility systems.

Perhaps of particular importance to the current project is the potential within the

mobilities paradigm to consider the “mobility of movement” (Newman & Falcous, 2012). Urry’s

project is one that incorporates macro and micro level mobilities such that conventionally studied

movements such as travel or migration “always involves corporeal movement and forms of pleasure and pain. Such bodies perform themselves in-between direct sensation of the ‘other’ and various sensescapes” (Urry, 2007, p. 48, emphasis his). For example, Newman and Falcous

(2012) use the mobilities paradigm in a preliminary venture into the ways that sporting bodies create a “paradox of mobility: whereby freedom of movement—through the circulation of moving/sporting bodies simultaneously produces immobility” (p. 50, italics theirs).

Newman and Falcous (2012) also suggest that Appadurai’s concept of “scapes” may be useful for thinking about the “mobility of movement.” Appadurai (1990) describes the world in which we live as characterized by a new global cultural economy. Appadurai (1990) argues that this modern system “has to be seen as a complex, overlapping, disjunctive order that cannot any longer be understood in terms of existing center-periphery models” (p. 588). He proposes a framework for interrogating these disjunctures based on the relationship among various –scapes

(i.e. ethnoscapes, ideoscapes):

The suffix –scape allows us to point to the fluid, irregular shapes of these landscapes . . .

These terms . . . also indicate that these are not objectively given relations that look the

same from every angle of vision but, rather, that they are deeply perspectival constructs .

. . these landscapes are eventually navigated by agents who both constitute larger

formations, in part from their own sense of what these landscape offer. (Appadurai, 1990,

p. 589)

For example, ethnoscape refers to the landscape of persons who make up the flowing world we inhabit. The different dimensions of these “scapes” can be combined in order to perceive the flows of cultural material and its movement across boundaries. Such an approach brings to light the way in which many flows may move in contradiction and disjuncture. Therefore, considering my focus on the movement of my active body into a new space of sporting mobilization,

Appadurai’s (1990) framework shows how “the mobile body can be conceived as both fluid and moving on the pitch—and more importantly, as inextricably wound into broader circuits of global capital and culture” (see Newman & Falcous, 2012, p. 53, note 2).

Although these mobility theories are undoubtedly useful for recognizing how global movements of bodies objects and images transform our understandings and experiences of the world, particularly in terms of home and belonging, Ahmed et al., (2003) question “rootless mobility” as the defining feature of contemporary experience. Instead they attempt to trouble these simplified claims specifically concerning home and migration or uprootings/regroundings.

Indeed, as Brah (1996) argues, “ the question is not simply about who travels, but when, how, and under what conditions?” (p. 182). Ahmed et al.’s (2003) central argument is that, “[b]eing grounded is not necessarily about being fixed” equally, “being mobile is not necessarily about

being detached” (Ahmed, et al., 2003, p. 1, emphasis theirs). This perspective unearths the

plurality of experiences that are contingent to home and migration. The question then becomes,

how are uprootings and regroundings enacted in relation to each other—“affectively, materially

and symbolically”? (Ahmed, et al., 2003, p. 2). As a result I will endeavor to detail some

concepts that allow us to think both uprooting and re-grounding in the study of migrant identity.

For example, one important concept used widely in the study of global migration is

diaspora. Based on his understanding of identity as an articulative “production,” Hall (1996b)

26 problematizes traditional notions of diaspora as locating cultural identity as a “one true self”, linked to a past, a place, or a home. Basing the argument in a discussion on Caribbean cultural identity in cinematic representation, he suggests that this understanding of diaspora was important in political acts of imaginative rediscovery, which drove many social movements.

However, he also posits that cultural identity must be thought of as “a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as of ‘being’” (Hall, 1996a, p. 225). Cultural identities then, are not an essence but a positioning—by self and other—within narratives of history and culture. In this light cultural identity is a politics of positioning. In addition, we can envision a cultural identity in which continuity and difference persist in and alongside each other. As such, Halls diaspora experience is defined by:

the recognition of a necessary heterogeneity and diversity; by a conception of ‘identity’

which lives with and through, not despite, difference; by hybridity. Diaspora identities

are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through

translation and difference. (Hall, 1996a, p. 235)

In the current project, in which I aim to explore cultural identity in the context of

(dis)location—from New Zealand to the United States—the concept of diaspora is an interesting idea that requires attention. Specifically with regards to the study of sport, Joseph (2011; 2012) uses the concept of diaspora to interrogate the community (re)generation of Afro-Caribbean immigrants living in Canada. She shows how cricket was used to generate and maintain diasporic communities in the form of cross-border interpersonal networks. Throughout her analysis Joseph (2012) maintains the creative tension of “home” and “dispersion”, and the politics of difference, which characterizes Hall’s (1996b) understandings of diaspora. As a result,

Joseph (2011; 2012) succeeds in illustrating a cultural practice that is not simply grounded in the

27 re-imagining of home but a sense of becoming characteristic of cultural identities in the context of global migration and the decentered subject.

Probyn (1996) also develops a theory of movement—as the changing configuration of social relations—through a “sociology of the skin”. She foregrounds her analysis of “spaces of movement” and “movements across space,” in the concepts of outside belonging and heterotopia.

For Probyn, outside belonging operates as a way of being. It speaks to the desire individuals have to belong, performed in the impossibility of ever belonging in the true sense. Therefore, Probyn’s

(1996) comprehension is in line with Hall’s proposition that we are past a true self and entering upon a stage in which identity is a forever process of becoming. Probyn’s analysis emphasizes movement and as such she aims to capture the ways in which belongings move between heterotopic spaces. Drawing on Foucault, Probyn (1996) understands heterotopias as spaces that

“destroy” syntax and thus provides an analytical space to think of belonging beyond our tendency to categorize. After all, “[t]he sights and sounds of the spaces in which I sometimes belong are integral to the ways in which I live and think belonging, the ways in which space presses upon us and is in turn fashioned by desires” (Probyn, 1996, p. 10).

One of the key aspects of Probyn’s (1996) use of heterotopias is the affordance for

“doubledness”—an at once inside and outside—such that “place” becomes a point in movement and space becomes a set of relationships. Therefore Probyn (1996) takes as her central argument that the outside is the most appropriate way to conceive of social relationships. This allows us to think of surfaces, “relations of proximity,” evoking once again Hall and the theory of articulation—an always outside, a never fitting, and creation out of difference. Thus, Probyn

(1996) writes of “the ways in which belonging hinges on not belonging to raise the ways in

which the manners of being at the threshold may provide another perspective from which to view

the complexities of identity, difference, subjectivity, and desire” (p. 14).

Therefore, we can see how Hall’s view of cultural identity exists within a very ‘messy’

context of post-modern, ‘forced,’ and ‘free’ global migration. A world where locations mean less

and yet are never meaningless, possible trajectories and the uncertainty of futures mean more.

Although, Hall never left us in doubt to how capricious identities were, Urry and Appadurai

show how these projects occur in an increasingly disjointed and mobile society. In addition, the

constant movement of people in space, colliding with the worlds of others, brings with it a whole

host of cultural representations and systems of meaning. Coherent narratives of self and

community are called into question by the very presence of the other, the stranger, and are

replaced by a host of other options with which to construct our identities. We also have

developed some theoretical concepts through which to think about cultural identity in these

global flows. The mobilities paradigm (Urry, 2007) highlights the importance of movement in

social relationships. Movements that occur across different and at times contradictory scapes

(Appadurai, 1996). However, these perspectives have been critiqued by Ahmed, et al. (2003) as

privileging a “rootless” subject.

As such we have discussed perspectives that allow us to consider detachment in stasis

and grounding whilst in motion. For example, Probyn (1996) shapes how we can think of the

peripheral nature of belonging desires that give us motion between—always only between (in the sense that one remains on the periphery, the outside)—heterotopias. In addition, concepts such as diaspora provide a sense of home in migration, allowing us to articulate cultural identity within this rhyzomatic10 system of globalization. For example, diaspora as Hall (1996b) and Joseph

10 This is an evocation of Gilles Deleuze who is very influential in Probyn’s theorizing. By mentioning him in this way I am intending to acknowledge his work without opening the proverbial “can of worms” 29

(2011; 2012) perceive it, shows cultural identity as articulated with the places of the past, from

which one has been displaced, and directs cultural identity towards places of becoming. In

addition, Probyn’s (1996) outside belonging sees cultural identity imbricated in one’s desire to

belong. I will now discuss a pertinent example of how many of these concepts have been used in

empirical analysis. This discussion serves the dual purpose of: first, showing how these theorists

(specifically Hall and Probyn) and their cultural identity projects have been synthesized and

“made to work” in the empirical world, and second, to identify avenues in which further or divergent analysis is required.

Fortier (2000) examines Italian ‘migrant belongings’ in Britain as they are established

through identity narratives. With an analysis of different forms of representation (political

discourse, daily life at church) that negotiate and resolve Italian identity projects, she

demonstrates how cultural identity is “at once deterritorialized and reterritorialized” (Fortier,

2000, p. 1). Such that, Italian migrant culture in London is centered around the symbol of

emigration: a diasporic third space between localism and transnationalism. To conceptualize

identity Fortier (2000) uses Probyn’s (1996) idea of ‘belonging’ and Hall’s (1996) theory of

articulation. Therefore she sees identity as constituted by both movement and attachment—part

of a longing to belong which results in momentary positionings in the process of becoming.

Therefore, Fortier (2000) analyzes identity through the identification of momentary points of attachment and departure. This concept is favored over any understanding of identity as a stable state, and instead mobilizes it as a transitional moment. Thus, identity represents the passage of one space to another, “always producing itself through the combined processes of being and becoming” (Fortier, 2000, p. 2).

that a detailed discussion would require. I can only lamely justify this oversight based on the limitations of my thesis that result of its nature as a Master’s project. 30

A specific feature of Fortier’s (2000) study is the illumination of the ways in which the

formation of particular subjectivities was influenced by the form(ul)ation of group identity. To

accomplish this project Fortier (2000) drew on Butler’s (1993) notion of performativity.11 In this context, social categories were seen to be constructed through performative acts of gender and ethnicity, where “the performative act ‘works’ because it draws on and covers the constitutive conventions, which through repetition, effectively produce what appears as eternally fixed and reproducible” (Fortier, 2000, p. 5). In addition, Fortier (2000) shows how the collective performances of belonging seen in this British Italian community were embodied.

This leads Fortier (2000) to consider the way bodies become the site for the display of cultural identity and thus become an influential factor for group identity practices. This notion is of particular importance for the study of cultural identity in rugby. Fortier’s (2000) proposes that the visual, or surface appearance had an acknowledged part to play in identity formation.

However, we could argue (as does she) that this is a rather superficial analysis of the body’s role in identity practices; Fortier (2000) focuses on institutional practices, as opposed to individual experience in the formation of identity. As she acknowledges, this centering on representations and not individuals suggests that the body is interpreted as a surface for identity inscription.

Thus, we can see an opening for migrant identity and performativity work centered on the individual and an extended understanding of the body (an avenue that I will explore in a later chapter).

Fortier (2000) concludes by considering the centrality of the lived experience of motion – both in terms of everyday bodily motion and migrant displacement – to the migrant belongings venture: “the space and time when bodies ‘hover perilously’ between two ‘moments’ is lived at

11 I will revisit Butler’s theories in-depth in a later section on embodiment.

once as eternal and momentary, for it is inhabited by living embodiments and embodied

memories of continuity, presence, and change” (p. 174). Therefore, ‘migrant belongings’

involves the process of creating momentary coherence between moments, spaces, cultures and

histories. This is a central aspect to the creation and duration of identities. Thus, the study of

belonging is one of envisioning transient thresholds, of painting the continuous movement of

being and becoming. Identity is hence tremulous, momentarily stabilized by multiple moments of

suture, the mapping of which is the goal of the cultural identity project.

There are three important aspects that I would like to draw from Fortier’s (2003) analysis

and develop in relation to our broader discussion on cultural identity. First, we can see the

concepts of cultural identity and migration at play in the empirical space of British Italians. It is

clear that previous perspectives of identities, as true or essential, do not suffice. In addition,

diaspora does not relate solely to the notions of return but equally to the perpetual processes of

becoming. Therefore, cultural identity in the context of global migration—a context of

mobilities, scapes, and heterotopias—is constructed through points of attachment (Hall, 1996)

and departure (Probyn, 1996). This is in line with the theoretical turns that we have seen in

cultural research in general. We can no longer be content with studying a stable self, existing in

stasis. “Selves” must be viewed as becoming and belonging. They must be seen as existing only

in relation to structures of articulation. Structures which are themselves articulated into larger

structures of the economy, politics and culture. Or as Appadurai (1990) calls them, “scapes”.

Above all mobilities must be stressed, both as the foundation for social relationships and in

relation to the mobility of mobilities; but also a sensitivity for how movement can be grounded

(Ahmed, et al., 2003).

Second, we can see that cultural identity is embodied and performed. This is of particular

importance of the current study. For one, I intend to situate the study in the sporting environment

of a rugby club, in which case my playing rugby represents a performance of embodied New

Zealand cultural identity. Furthermore, rugby as a practice of heightened embodiment and

performativity we can develop on Fortier’s identification of the body as a site for the display of

cultural identity. What would it mean to move past the acknowledgement of bodily surfaces in

cultural identity projects? How might we come to see cultural identity experienced in the body?

To have one’s cultural identity inscribed on the body through performance? In the pursuit of

these questions, in a following section on embodying citizenship I will—through a brief

engagement with the work of Judith Butler and Sarah Ahmed—develop a theory of embodiment

and performativity.

Finally, Fortier (2003) sees ‘migrant’ in a way that diverges from popular discourse. Such narratives have tended to understand immigration as interlocked with the notions of ethnicity and race (Fortier, 2003). Which may reestablish the unproblematic ‘invisible’ nature of whiteness

(Frankenberg, 1997). Here the migrant positioned against most dominant/jingoistic framings of the migrant, in that I am a white European. Indeed, one of the motivating factors behind Fortier’s

(2003) interest in Italians in London was the self-identification by community leaders as

‘invisible immigrants,’ in relation to “the undesirable result of assimilation that causes the loss of an original ‘ethnic and national identity” (p. 23). However, this approach still seems to favor the ontological supremacy of Western thought. Although Fortier (2003) makes whiteness visible, she produces another example of a minority (in this respect in linguistic and religious sense)

“absorbed within the white European majority” (p. 22). There still persists a “vicious cycle between speakers and spoken for” (Chambers, 1994, p. 5).

It seems to me that an important aspect of decentering the Western or ‘First’ world, and

in turn acknowledging the periphery, necessarily means asking; who is at the center? Who are

these ‘white European majorities’ with which all minorities must assimilate? Who is the

privileged cultural identity in a global migrant world? Surely we could suggest this central role is

filled by the citizen, at least the citizen par excellence: the one who, to paraphrase Donald

(1996), fits what the citizen is and, is the citizen. If we are all influenced by migrant flows, then we must acknowledge, not just how the minority—ethnic, cultural or otherwise—experiences the global world as an anomaly, but how the ‘invisible—not just white but as the ‘center’, or citizen—majority’ also experiences that world. How is cultural identity a privilege, or a norm,

“the freedom to feel unmarked” (Berlant, 1997, p. 2)? We need to pay attention to “the very different and unequal ways in which people experience transnationality as a major feature of globalizing forces” (Westwood & Phizacklea, 2000, p.15). In order to develop this idea I move to a discussion on citizenship.

Cultural Citizenship

If we recall, Hall (1992) proposed that cultural identities are “those aspects of our

identities which arise from our “belonging” to distinctive ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, and,

above all, national cultures” (Hall, 1992, p. 596, emphasis mine). With this in mind, we might

now turn to how notions of citizenship can be regarded as an important avenue of cultural

identity. Furthermore, in this specific study I sought to introduce a picture of New Zealand male

identity as constructed out of an intimate relationship between rugby, national identity and

masculinity. Therefore, because national culture is important to cultural identities generally, and

my rugby playing identity specifically, I wish to develop the concept of cultural citizenship. I

34 aim to use cultural citizenship as a concept to understand how my rugby playing body is both performatively constituted, and, co-created in American rugby.

The problem of citizenship has re-emerged as central to current sociological debates regarding access to state resources and notions of social integration (Turner, 1990). Specifically, citizenship presents itself as an issue because it can be defined in multiple ways each of which has political consequences. Indeed, Turner (1990) shows how conventional notions tend to paint citizenship in a unitary form, which in turn differently favors those seeking rights under the nation-state. This has lead some to argue for an understanding of citizenship as a multi-layered construct (Yuval-Davis, 1999). Indeed, we can see citizenship in a number of lights. Citizenship can be thought in terms of a label created by the state, serving a legal function through distributing specific rights and requiring particular obligations. However, citizenship is also an idea that exists in relation to less explicit forms of control, regulated instead by forms of self- governance (Benhabib, 2005). In addition, citizenship and national culture can also be performed on a collective level—in the creation and celebration of communities (Goldstein, 1998), and in bounding ties of national solidarity (Miller, 2000)—and on the level of individuals as they negotiate national identities. Therefore, we are presented with the very intersection between cultural identity and citizenship. Citizenship, as a concept, represents a space to be filled; a requirement for the functioning of the state. However, citizenship is also performed, and as Hall

(1996) reminds us, the necessarily fictional nature of this process in no way undermines its discursive, material or political potentiality. In line with this proposition, Ong (1996) criticizes the majority of citizenship literature for not attending to how people, especially (im)migrants, are made into national subjects through everyday processes. Therefore, she considers citizenship to be a cultural process—“a dual process of self-making and being made within webs of power

linked to the nation state and civil society” (p. 737). We can use this term of ‘cultural

citizenship’ to link the ideas of cultural identity and citizenship. Such a concept helps us

understand different criteria for belonging within national populations, and the cultural practices

and beliefs that are produced out of this negotiation for belonging. Therefore the rest of this

section will be dedicated to the way citizenship has been viewed in relation to cultural processes.

Berlant (1997) discusses citizenship in the political landscape of the United States with

an emphasis on right wing, familial, and Reaganite themes. In opposition to claims that position citizenship is increasingly meaningless in modern transnational and global economic contexts,

Berlant (1997) argues, it is precisely under these transnational conditions in which the constitution of nationhood comes under intense scrutiny, concern and struggle. Such that, citizenship has moved past the point of patriotic category into the realm of how social membership is measured and valued. In her analysis Berlant (1997) “reads the waste materials of everyday communication in the national public sphere as pivotal documents in the construction, experience, and rhetoric of quotidian citizenship in the united states” (p. 12). Indeed, it is these instances of publicity, which Berlant (1997) sees as “technologies of citizenship,” that work to construct the conditions of social membership and, in turn, “proper” national subjects and subjectivities.

If Berlant (1997) was to answer Donald’s (1996) question on who are citizens?, she might reply, Reaganite American citizenship is painted as: infantile, straight, white, middle-class, and heterosexual—all collectively marching toward a “national future.” She would add that this valuation of citizenship requires the cleansing of those who are not fully valued citizens; the immigrant, the gay, the sexually non-conjugal, the poor, the Hispanic, and the African American.

However, the “other” may contribute their difference and variation to the future, so long as they

36 are willing to assimilate—through racial mixing in the form of respectable familial relations (a type of genocide in itself)—to become “white enough.”

Furthermore, normal citizenship is also created via corporeal models. In this instance

“[t]he body’s seeming obviousness distracts attention from the ways it organizes meaning, and diverts the critical gaze from the publicity’s role in the formation of the taxonomies that construct bodies publicly” (Berlant, 1997, p. 36). This claim is in line with Fortier (2003), who highlighted the importance of body performativity, display, and signification to cultural identity.

Because cultural citizenship is lived through, and expressed by, the body, we can suggest that embodiment is of particular importance. Therefore, with Berlant’s (1997) depiction of citizenship as a significant metric of social worth and membership as a guiding principle, I will advance the concept of embodied cultural citizenship. This is achieved through the introduction of a collection of recent literature that has sought to define, develop and discuss the intersection of the body and citizenship. I then expand on this initial review by introducing two theorists,

Judith Butler and Sara Ahmed, who I believe will provide useful perspectives in enhancing this line of thought.

Embodying Cultural Citizenship

In this section I intend to explore the ways in which we might conceive of cultural citizenship as being embodied. It is worth reiterating that although citizenship has been understood in multiple ways—for example, as a legal construct, a status denoting rights and responsibilities; a “green card” citizen—I am primarily concerned with understanding citizenship as a cultural reproduction (in line with Ong 1996). Therefore, although I will draw on literature

37 that analyzes citizen bodies as the move between legal boundaries, I intend to privilege the

(re)production of the cultural citizen body in my final analysis.

My discussion on embodying cultural citizenship begins with a particular focus on the recent turn towards the transnational subject (Westwood & Phizacklea, 2000; Basch, et al.,

1994). Specifically, this perspective questions the idea that we live in a post-nation world. In line with Berlant (1997), texts that study the transnational subject suggest that citizenship and the nation still matter. For example, Berlant (1997) and Schneider (2011) demonstrate how conventional dominant views, such as those perpetuated by Reaganite and contemporary governments in the United States, define citizenship through monopatriotism, normalcy and assimilation of image culture and belief. As such, citizenship could be considered as existing with multiple boundaries and borders, both material—in terms of state lines policed by check points and border controls—and metaphorical—as seen in the naturalization process (Schneider,

2011). Furthermore, these boundaries are implicated in the stratifications of “full citizens.” For example, the boundaries of public and private have been implicated in the citizenship rights of women in Australia (Beasley & Bacchi, 2000). In addition, the citizen’s body always exists only in relation to the social body or community in and the requirements that this relationship presupposes. Therefore, we can see that democratic citizenship is determined in two parts as:

“the ideals of self-governance and the territorially circumscribed nation-state” (Benhabib, 2005, p. 673) As such, I want to now explore how citizen bodies have been implicated in the crossing and negotiation of these borders and boundaries of self and nation in the context of transnationalism. Specifically, I suggest that previous understandings of the citizen bodies, such as Benhabib’s above, have emphasized the body as belonging to the State. Instead, I offer an extra avenue through which to think citizen bodies. One that moves past the ideas of migrants

38 and differently valued subjects—as moving in relation to state boundaries in the (dis)service of the community good—to the state as directly inscribed in/onto the body. Layered upon the surface as a patriotic skin and articulating with one’s identity as a form of cultural citizenship and constituting the body through performance.

I will begin this exploration of embodied citizenship by exploring the ways that citizenship has been conceptualized as a result of the increasing mobilization of people between nations. Indeed, despite these trends, Basch et al., (1994) argue that the identities of migrant populations are still rooted in nation-states. As such, a new conception is required to include “as citizens those who live physically dispersed within the boundaries of many other states but who remain socially, politically, culturally and often economically part of the nation-state” (Basch et al., 1994, p. 8). To define the process by which these individuals and collectivities sustain these relations they use the term “transnationalism.”

Various recent perspectives have been used to develop an understanding of the transnational experience. In reflection on my earlier introduction of the concept of diaspora, Brah

(1996) coins the term diaspora space as an incorporation of the spaces and borders of nations in the transnational movements of people, technology, finance, and culture. These spaces are sites of the production and reiteration of local, national and supra-national state power, along with, the challenge presented by cultural creativity. For example, Brah (1996) argues that diasporic collectivities, “figure at the heart of the debate about national identity” (p. 243). This is because they pose “as a threat to the integrity of the ‘nation’” but also, alternatively form “the very basis of the identity of ‘plural societies’” (Brah, 1996, p. 243). Specifically this concept allows for a recognition of the multiple material and metaphorical borders at play in transnationalism, and

“addresses the transmigration across these ‘borders’ of people, cultures, capital and commodities,

39 marking a space where new forms of belonging and otherness are appropriated and contested”

(Brah, 1996, p. 241).

Westwood and Phizacklea (2000) build upon these notions in their discussion on varying levels of transnational privilege. They highlight the different experiences of various types of migrants in their attempts to crossing national borders in the European Union. Specifically, they identify privileged transnational migrants “who have the freedom legally, and economically, to move across borders and between cultures, doing business on their way” (p. 2). The authors show how these privileged transnationals experience nationalism in moments of diasporic patriotism whereas others are subjected to exploitation and the trials of earning citizenship status.

We can see from Westwood and Phizaclea’s (2000) analysis how “[c]rossing borders has profound effects upon individuals but also upon ways in which national affiliations and nation- state are understood” (p. 15).

These theorists give us an idea of the macro forces and flows in play in transnational boundary makings and crossings. To build on this we can see how citizens and their bodies are differentially implicated in border negotiations on micro levels of analysis. For example, Sparke

(2005) shows how Smart Border programs privilege business class citizenship through expedited boarding procedures whilst limiting citizenship for others. This is specifically pertinent to the biopolitical project of embodied citizenship when we consider the implication of biometric border controls (Van der Ploeg, 1999). In addition, Randazzo (2005) discusses the historical and contemporary situations by which the lesbian, gay, and transgender bodies of asylum seekers face social and legal boundaries as they cross borders into the United States. This is an example of the physical, cultural, and social borders reminiscent in Brah’s (1996) description.

However, in acknowledging Ahmed et al.’s (2003) call to avoid privileging mobility in

thinking about uprootings and regroundings, we can also see how bodies negotiate borders

within the nation-state whilst “full citizens.” Thus acknowledging the citizen project as an

intersection self-governance along with territorial politics (Benhabib, 2005). In these cases we

can identify how various citizens are differently incorporated into the national community body.

Beasley and Bacchi (2000) work under the assumption that bodies give substance to citizenship

and citizenship matters for bodies. They move to get these two ideas—citizen and body—which

have historically been separated in feminist literature, to “speak to each other.” Thus Beasley and

Bacchi (2000) aim to develop the “simultaneity of citizen bodies.”

Beasley and Bacchi (2000) begin with a review of feminist literature on both citizenship

and embodiment and conclude that—although attention has been paid to embodiment—it has

painted the body as abstracted and representational, such that ‘social flesh’ is unimaginable. In

order to thicken or give weight to embodiment, the authors turn to Sara Ahmed’s12 (1998) work

on situating flesh through touch. Beasley and Bacchi (2000) argue that a framework with this

starting point can work to:

loosen citizenship from its almost exclusively public location and make bodies (e.g.,

birth, breasts, breastmilk and spinal cord damage) part of the participating subject, while

at the same time grounding the notion of the Body, not just by gesturing towards the

plural (bodies) but by lodging bodies in their physical and social particularities. (Beasley

& Bacchi, 2000, p. 349)

Bacchi and Beasley (2002) follow up this theoretical piece with a push towards an acceptance of citizen bodies in policy. They identify contemporary delineations between full and

12 I will address Ahmed’s work in detail later in this section along with Butler as I expand on a theory of embodied cultural citizenship 41 lesser citizens that center specifically upon assumptions about bodies, in Australian social policy.

Specifically, they discuss two political subjects. The first is considered to have control of their body and is thus deemed a citizen, whereas the second is judged not to exercise this control and as a result, is equated with lesser citizenship status. These instances show how, “forms of regulation and constraint – limitations on ‘autonomy’ – become justifiable” (p. 325). Thus the mind/body dichotomy present in ‘control over’ versus ‘controlled by’ the body, involves governmental rules and regulations, providing the dominant rationalization for forms of control over a range of political subjects. Thus, in order to challenge these assumptions, Bacchi and

Beasley (2002) offer a notion of “’fleshy, social intersubjectivity’ or ‘social flesh’ as an attempt to capture the complex meaning of the interdependence and necessarily social existence required by material bodies” (p. 327).

Hohle (2009) utilized the concepts of citizenship and the body to understand the importance of performances for social movement research. Hohle (2009) examined two civil rights groups to illustrate “the constitutive aspects of good black citizenship and the deracialized self” (p. 301). Both these groups (SCLC and SNCC) sought to deracialize the body, albeit in different ways, through ritualized and repetitive physical training in citizenship schools. For example SCLC aimed to produce “good citizenship through mastering the appropriate affective responses and bodily postures that organized the deracialized self while engaging in nonviolent practices” (p. 302). In these examples of research we can see how different bodies navigate boundaries of the nation. In these particular examples Donald’s (1996) differentiation between citizenship as a label and citizenship as an identity is clear. There is discrepancy between the citizen as concept and the citizen as lived body. This acknowledgement calls for a departure into theory such that we can construct a detailed perspective on embodied citizenship. In this

42 exercise, I deal with two theorists (Judith Butler and Sara Ahmed) who I believe provide useful ways to understand the intersection of my citizenship—as a cultural identity, the citizen—as an ideological frame, and the citizen body—on which the nation is inscribed, layered and performed.

Butler (1988, 1990) provides a feminist theory of embodiment that links the performative acts of the body to the constitution of identity. However, her theories differ from conventional ones in the sense that she takes the agent as the object of constitutive acts rather than the subject.

Speaking specifically to gender identity as unstable and non-essential in a similar way as Hall constructs identity generally, Butler argues that identity is “instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” (Butler, 1988, p. 519, italics theirs). This is therefore, a performance that actors and audience come to believe and reproduce in further performances. Therefore, “gender proves to be performative—that is constituting the identity it is purported to be. In this sense, gender is always a doing though not a doing by a subject who might be said to pre-exist the deed” (Butler, 1990, p. 25). Such that there is no essential identity behind expression, instead

“identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results”

(Butler, 1990, p. 25).

Here we see that performance contests the very notion of subject. Indeed, Butler’s (1988,

1990) notion of performativity has very real implications for how we view the body, our embodiment, and our subjectivity. This notion does not deny the notion of materiality, rather materiality is realized by its affordance to bear meaning: “The body is not merely matter but a continual and incessant materializing of possibilities. One is not simply a body, but, in some very key sense, one does one’s body and, indeed, one does one’s body differently from one’s contemporaries and from one’s embodied predecessors and successors as well” (Butler, 1988, p.

521). However, again we must reiterate that this does not suggest some disembodied agency as

directing action. Indeed, the performance as the constitutive act forecloses any notion of essential nature (for Butler there is no central unrealized ‘sex’ or ‘gender’).

These performances must be understood with regards to the body as a historical situation.

Such that, the multiple possibilities of bodily performance exist only in regards to historical condition and circumstance. As Butler (1988) states, “the body suffers a certain cultural construction, not only through conventions that sanction and proscribe how one acts one’s body, the ‘act’ or performance that one’s body is, but also in the tacit conventions that structure the way the body is culturally perceived” (p. 525-526).

Ahmed (2000) also provides a useful theory on embodiment and identity informed by feminist perspectives. She examines the “fleshing out” of encounters with embodied others.

Ahmed (2000) contends that we imagine these others as strangers “allowing us to face that which we have already designated as the beyond” (Ahmed, 2000, p. 3). Here strangers are assumed to have a nature. Therefore, the “strange encounter” is implicitly tied to the construction of identities and subjectivities of difference as, “in daily meetings with others, subjects are perpetually reconstituted: the work of identity formation is never over, but can be understood as the sliding across of subjects in their meetings with others” (Ahmed, 2000, p. 7). In addition, these encounters constitute the other by our attempt at achieving recognition and thus opening past encounters—constituting others in the way of ontological stranger. That is, the stranger is some-body we already recognized as a stranger.

Ahmed’s (2000) theory is one implicitly tied to concepts of embodiment and particularly a “fetishism of figures,” surfaces, and touch. Specifically she asks: “How do ‘bodies’ become marked by differences? How do bodies come to be lived precisely through being differentiated

from other bodies, whereby the differences in other bodies make a difference to such lived

embodiment?” (Ahmed, 200, p. 42). Specifically, Ahmed (2000) focuses on the skin as a

border—a border that feels and takes the role as an apparatus for social differentiation. In this

respect she paints the body as a mechanism for the maintenance of bodily integrity through

protection from the unwanted. In this line of reasoning the white body, as unmarked, is in fact

“marked” with the privilege of invisibility and access. The nature of this encounter is by no

means constrained to the visual sphere, but is also tactile, “so too some skins are touched as

stranger than other skins” (Ahmed, 2000, p. 49). Skin and touch are thus implicated in diverse

arrangements of social and bodily space—arrangements of self and stranger, an intersubjectivity:

the production of the stranger’s body as an impossible and phobic object—involves, not

just reading the stranger’s body as dirt and filth, but the re-forming of the contours of the

body-at-home, through the very affective gestures which enable the withdrawal from co-

habitation with strangers in a given social space. The withdrawal remains registered on

the skin, on the border that feels” (Ahmed, 2000, p.54)

Finally, Ahmed (2000) pays particular attention to migrant bodies in a way that plays usefully into the themes of the current argument. She discusses the experiences of migration as occurring on the level of embodiment, noting “Migration stories are skin memories: memories of different sensations that are felt on the skin. Migrant bodies stretch and contract, as they move across borders that mark out familiar and strange places” (Ahmed, 2000, p. 92). She assimilates migration to a process of “estrangement”—a transition from one register to another—specifically in relation to “home.”

In this study I seek to synthesize Butler and Ahmed’s theories in order to think about cultural citizenship as embodied. However, it is worth noting that these two theorists do not

45 necessarily understand issues of power in the same way. Therefore it is important show how they can work together—how they can be put into conversation in a way that allows us to acknowledge the strengths in each, and in particular the strengths as related to the current topic.

Specifically, I understand a synthesis of Butler and Ahmed’s work as revealing a framework for embodied performativity. Butler makes it apparent that one’s identity is constituted by performance and that this performance is made possible only in relation to historical condition and circumstance. Thus, the conditions in which performance and cultural perception of performance are structured by historical circumstance, circumstances which are in turn constituted by performance. In this respect we can see how performance and the context that allows it are reproductively linked. In fact, Butler’s assertion that the subject is omitted from this power dynamic paints overtly structural understanding of cultural reproduction.

Here Ahmed’s theories can allow us to develop a more nuanced account of the

(re)production of identity. First, Ahmed’s developments of intersubjectivity or inter-embodiment bring to light that “identity does not simply happen in the privatized realm of the subject’s relation to itself” (2000, p. 7). Instead, it becomes apparent that the relationship between subjects is a key factor of the circumstances in which performance occurs. Furthermore, this is a relationship between bodies, established through the economies of skin and touch. Importantly, this brings to light the way power acts differently between bodily encounters, for instance, constituting the stranger as an unlivable subject position. In addition, the production of the other body also involves the production of one’s own body.

Before elaborating on my synthesis of these theorists I will take a step back to define what it is I mean by subjectivity. Drawing upon McLaren (2002) I take on a Foucauldian understanding that “provides resources to articulate a notion of subjectivity that is embodied, and

46 constituted historically and through social relations; and that this embodied, social self is capable of moral and political agency” (p. 5). Very simply, I understand subjectivity as how one comes to know about oneself. However in the pursuit of a more detailed definition it is important to acknowledge Foucault’s rejection of the Enlightenment subject—as being the condition for possibility and experience—instead claiming that it is experience that results in a subject.

Furthermore, there is a historical and cultural specificity with regards to conceptualizing the self in Foucault’s subjectivity. In this respect, modern subjectivity is a conception of the self born of normalizing disciplinary practices (social norms, practices and institutions). Hence Foucault’s conceptualization of power is central to discussing subjectivity. The subject is positioned as both the effect and vehicle of power, in that subjectivity is invested with power through these normalizing disciplinary practices. In addition, McLaren (2002) reads this notion of self as social and relational, “depending on relations to others” (p. 63). Finally, embodiment is the locus of subjectivity and is as such inseparable from bodily practices. This understanding of subjectivity acknowledges “bodies as constituted through power relations are constituted intersubjectively”

(Maclaren, 2002, p. 115-116). Therefore, this conceptualization fits well into my appropriation of Ahmed’s work.

I believe that this consolidation of intersubjective-embodied-performance is useful in the current context. We can see that the constitutive power of performativity is still contingent upon historical circumstance. However, the workings of power become nuanced beyond a simple reciprocal relationship between context and performance. Instead we can understand context as providing conditions for intersubjective encounters between bodies, where some bodies a privileged but where both are shaped by the encounter; where bodies perform together. This is a theory of how physical corporeal powers are articulated into broader structures of power. In this

instance the context and cultural forces surrounding rugby can be seen as creating the conditions

of rugby performances in which relationships of power are enacted in the encounters between

bodies—where each body yields in some way to the other, affecting both, however unequally.

Toward a Theory of Embodied Cultural Citizenship

These theorists provide us a rich field within which to explore cultural identity (as

citizenship) in the uniquely physical space of rugby. Butler shows us that the self is constituted

by the act, whereas Ahmed further posits that the self and the other are constructed in an

intersubjective encounter. Citizenship in this sense may constitute more than self-governance and

the negotiation of space, borders, and territories. What if those borders are inscribed upon the

citizen’s body, constituting oneself and one’s identity through the repetition of stylized acts

(Butler, 1988)? (And here I am not referring to simply the singing of the national anthem but a particular masculinity and physicality that runs deeper than the Union Jack.13) How might these territories be layered upon the other or the self in the strange encounter, in the skin memories of the mobile athlete (Ahmed, 2000)?

In a globalized society, migrant flows have become an increasingly influential force in

our lives. Migrancy destabilizes ideas of space and time, center and periphery, and importantly,

identity projects. Whilst it is apparent that mobilities and the flows of culture across “scapes” is

important in our new conceptions of identity—as an articulated, de-centered subject—we also

need to acknowledge ideas of re-grounding. In this respect we can acknowledge citizenship as an

important frame of our cultural identities. Indeed, Hall (1992) contends that our belonging to

national cultures is—above all other cultural belongings—a primary constituter of our cultural

13 The Union Jack is the flag of the United Kingdom, often incorporated into the official flags of (former) British overseas territories, such as, in this case, New Zealand

identity. This proposition calls us to explore the concepts of diaspora, diaspora space,

transnationalism, outside belonging and heterotopias. These concepts allow us to consider

articulations of grounding in the mobility of movement. Our cultural identity, whilst on the

move, or displaced, is nevertheless articulated to points of reference—and particularly the

nation-state—through transnational citizenship.

Furthermore, and although we can clearly see how our cultural identities are implicated in the larger national communities through the negotiation of borders and boundaries, this cultural citizenship can also be seen as inscribed in/on the body. The embodied performative act constitutes the cultural citizen subject. Just as the strange encounter produces the cultural citizen subject through ambivalence and the intersubjectivity of skin, figures, and touch.

Therefore, although this literature review has required me to tackle aspects of cultural citizenship in isolation, it becomes apparent that they are not just linked, but of the same entity.

Cultural citizenship as an identity; cultural citizenship as political frame; cultural citizenship as an embodiment—these vectors and multiplicities cannot exist in mutual exclusion of any other.

At best we can use these notions individually to specify how cultural citizenship—as a rhizomatic, “complex structure” of articulations (Slack, 1996)—is articulated within larger structures and circuits of power. Therefore, our cultural citizenship project emerges as a cultural studies project of mapping context and positioning the enfleshed body within that cartography: the mapping of embodied, material, phenomenological, psychoanalytical, discursive, and ideological plateaus of cultural citizenship in which, “the context is not something out there, within which practices occur or which influences the development of practices. Rather, identities,

practices, and effects generally, constitute the very context within which they are practices,

identities or effects” (Slack, 1996, p. 125 emphasis theirs). As a result, I seek through this study

to explore the ways and extent to which rugby—as embodied, remembered, cultured,

nationalized, performed and experienced—provides a rich and unique context for studying

productions and projections of my New Zealand cultural citizenship.

Rugby as a Site of Performative Cultural Identity

In light of the literature I have developed in the previous sections of this chapter I will

now turn to cultural identity in rugby. The studies that have previously dealt with the subject of

cultural identities in rugby have tended to focus on the notion of masculinity. In these instances,

rugby has been most often detailed as a place of masculine performativity. In light of this I will

review the literature on masculinity—as cultural identity—in rugby (specifically as performed

and experienced). I wish to make it clear to the reader that this exploration is undertaken with the

aim of working back to a theory of cultural citizenship. In this respect, the salience of masculine

identities and cultures in rugby research makes it an important starting point. Although this focus

could justifiably be critiqued for ignoring and demeaning the experiences of a large community

of well established women’s rugby players,14 I believe that the context of the proposed study

(men’s club), the suggested methods ([auto]ethnography), and my researcher embodiment (male) justify a focus on men’s rugby. Therefore I endeavor to develop rugby as a site of cultural identity beginning with the important and oft studied theme of masculinity and masculine

14 Women’s rugby has become a burgeoning field of analysis in the sociology of sport and gender studies. The experiences of women rugby players have been studied generally at the elite level (Chu, et al. 2003) including a focus on the issues that arise trying to gain recognition in a traditionally masculine sport (Howe, 2001b). The instance of injuries has also been studied in elite populations (Doyle & George, 2004) and found to be considerable (Schick, et al., 2008). Studies at the lower competition levels have tended to delve deeper into the issues of gender power, resistance and physicality at play in the violent, traditionally masculine sport. Comstock and Fields (2005) for instance, identify the prevalence of foul play in USA as contributing to significant amounts of injury. This violent, physical, and potentially subversive culture has in turn lead researchers to be divided as to the role of rugby in the negotiation of femininity as resistance (Broad, 2001, Chase, 2006); and/or alternatively, as problematically reinforcing the gender order (Ezzell, 2009; Gill, 2007). 50 performance. I will begin by briefly acknowledging the work that has been done on masculinity in sport generally and then focus on masculinity in rugby.

Masculinity

The production of masculinities and male power has been described as “the primary assumption of the field” of sport studies (Birrell. 2000, p. 67). As a result the topic of sport and its link to masculinities has seen a burgeoning amount of study in sociology of sport and the related parent and sub-disciplines, such as gender studies, men’s studies, feminism, gender in sports studies, and cultural studies (Malcolm, 2012). The establishment of this avenue of study in the 1970s has evolved over the decades to privilege different understandings and multiple foci as the object of study. Whilst sticking to the general theme of actual sporting participation and performance, I believe it is worth acknowledging the historical shifts and emphases upon which the study of masculinity and sport has been built.

Critical feminist studies offered perhaps the first substantive theoretical contribution to study gender as a category for analysis in sport (see for example, Graydon, 1983; Hargreaves,

1989). Such analyses often painted sport as an institution in which male ideological supremacy was upheld and perpetuated (Graydon, 1983). The focus of these writings tended to enunciate pain, injury, misogyny, homophobia, and violence perpetrated by men over women (McKay, et al., 2000). However, the emergence of “men’s studies” (see Messner & Sabo, 1990) pushed men’s experiences of sport into the center of analysis. These earlier works tended to use

Connell’s (1987) concept of “hegemonic masculinity.” This Gramscian inspired theory of power moves past a vision of “singular man” as dominant. Instead, sporting spaces are structured

51 around a “gender order” in which multiple masculinities and femininities are stratified by power dynamics (Connell, 1987).

Originally, this authorship focused on the construction and validation of masculinity in sporting institutions (Messner & Sabo 1990; Messner, 1995); as a function of youth sport and the masculine learning of boys (Fine, 1987; Messner, 1990a); through the patriarchal structure of sporting institutions (Sabo, 2001); and, implied in the institutionalized use of violence (Messner,

1989). However, an avenue of scholarship emerged in the 90s that identified resistance to, or alternative perspectives of, dominant ways of being a man (Messner & Sabo, 1994). This approach highlighted the existence of plural masculinities, and looked beyond “static sex-role and reductionist concepts of patriarchy that view men as an undifferentiated group that oppresses women . . .” (Messner, 1990b, p. 107). For example, Laberge and Albert (2000) explored transgressions of hegemonic masculinity in boy’s adolescent sport. Equally, Pronger (2000) and

Anderson (2002) raised the issue of disruption to the gender order posed by homosexual athletes.

Additionally, Messner (1990b) identified social class and race differences between male sporting experiences. Indeed, the male sporting body became increasingly understood as a “contested” site of gender construction (Rowe, et al., 2000).

However, research into sporting masculinities through hegemonic theory has still tended to emphasize the negative aspects of sport. For example McKay et al. (2000) summarizes the dominant critical perspective of sport “as a hostile cultural space for boys to grow up in and develop relationships with one another and women” (p. 6). As such, recent writing has seen a shift toward post-structural studies of gender in sport, influenced by the likes of Michelle

Foucault and Judith Butler (Malcolm, 2012). For example, Pringle (2005) asserts that the focus on Gramscian understandings of gender and power in sport is problematic as “they risk

52 conceptualizing and representing linkages between sport and masculinities in one particular manner” (p. 257). In addition, hegemony tends to understand power as working in binary opposition—as all or nothing—with no room for deviation (Pringle, 2005). Therefore, Pringle

(2005) suggests that the theories of Foucault would be better suited to illuminating the “complex articulations between, sport, masculinities, and relations of power” (p. 273). In general, poststructuralist theories emphasize the subjective experiences of individuals, such that, men’s sport is perceived as a space of difference and diversity (Malcolm, 2012).

Masculinity in Rugby

It is pertinent that Sheard and Dunning’s (1973) exploration of the rugby club as a “type of male preserve” was one of the earliest studies on gender in the sociology of sport (as cited in

Malcolm, 2012). The analysis of rugby has—as a result of the game itself and the sub cultures that tend to be associated with it—required a sensitivity to gendered relations of power. As

Schacht (1996) suggests, rugby could be considered the archetype of masculine practice.

Therefore, masculinity must be considered central when studying rugby. This contention is supported by Obel’s (2004) reflection on her rugby research in New Zealand. Despite an initial reluctance to include a gender perspective she found that, due to the gendered nature of the sport, such an omission was impossible. Because of this strong tradition of masculinity, rugby scholarship has, in many respects, ran parallel with the research themes in sport and gender studies more generally, including a sympathy for the various epistemological and ontological preferences and shifts in the field. For example, rugby—in line with original feminist studies— has been identified as a space for the construction and reproduction of hegemonic masculinity, a

53 sport in which violence, mysogeny, and machismo are practiced and females are subordinated

(Muir & Steitz, 2004; Schacht, 1996).

Rugby has also demonstrated instances of alternative and resistive forms of gender relations as seen in “men’s studies” and plural notions of masculinities (Light, 1999; Thompson,

1988; Price & Parker, 2003; Anderson & McGuire, 2010). Finally, rugby has also seen a recent turn towards post-structural theorizing through Foucauldian concepts of discourse and power

(Pringle, 2001,2008, 2009; Pringle & Markula, 2005). Thus, in the pursuit of an appreciation of rugby as a sport performed in relation to masculinity, I proceed to explore how masculinity and rugby have been understood, how these understandings have changed, and what this review can tell us about the study of masculinity in the future.

Muir and Seitz (2004) study the role of masculinity in deviant subcultures. They employ participant observations of more than 50 collegiate rugby teams in the United States over four years. Data was in the form of field notes, informal interviews and unsolicited recordings. Muir and Seitz (2004) observed numerous instances of machismo through a variety of actions. Such as demeaning other sports, celebrating pain and violence, consuming alcohol, discussing sexual conquests, and insulting through feminine coding. In addition, the post-match party was identified as a major site of misogynistic-driven behavior. The notions of machismo, misogyny, and homophobia are offered as the “ideological catalysts that guide a majority of these ritualized performances” (Muir & Seitz, 2004, p 306). Homophobia was also implicated in contradictory ways through homosexually themed rituals. It is also important to note that these ritualistic actions were group based and ephemeral in nature.

Schacht (1996) also identifies misogynistic masculinity-defining behaviors as occurring both on the pitch and in the cultured practices related to participation in collegiate rugby.

However, Schacht (1996) points to how images of femininity and of women are simultaneously

and relatedly constructed in these spaces. Schacht (1996) studied two different university clubs,

one in Utah and the other in Missouri. Although he entered the rugby space primarily as an

academic advisor and thus observer, he realized that actual participation was the only way to

truly explore the setting and thus became a player. He describes his participation as an active

membership role to try to understand the players’ worldviews. In taking on this role “researchers

participate in the core activities in much the same way as the members, yet they hold back from committing themselves to the goals and values of the members” (p. 552).

Subsequently, Schacht (1996) describes rugby as a masculine ritual in which he identifies three salient themes. The first theme related to an underlying value of “survival of the fittest” in which the centrality of violence was reinforced in the playing and practicing of the sport.

Furthermore, this employment of violence—a violence that was directly related to physicalities—defined what it was to be a “man” in this context, and thus directly influenced the hierarchical structures of the teams.

The second theme detailed the pervasiveness of a “no pain, no gain” ethos. Experiences of pain and injury were accentuated in rugby as a sport that limits protective equipment. In addition, Schacht (1996) surmised that pain for rugby players has more value when received (in a stoic and even embraced manner) than when administered. He argues that this reinforces hierarchies and male superiority. This superiority of men and, in particular, rugby playing men is principal to the last theme of “relational rejection of the feminine.” Schacht (1996) observed instances in which masculinities were constructed in relation to femininities. Being a man existed only in contrast to what it supposedly was not: being a woman. This notion was present in

55 comments, insults, and the songs that were sang during after-match functions. Schacht (1996) surmises that:

Rugby players situationally do masculinity by reproducing rigid hierarchical images of

what a “real man” is in terms of who is strongest, who can withstand the most pain, and

who relationally distances himself from all aspects of femininity through forms of

misogynistic denigration . . . Rugby, like other sporting events, is literally a practice field

where actors learn how to use force to ensure a dominant position relative to women,

feminine mean, and the planet itself. (p. 562)

When reflecting on these studies, we notice an underlying theme of physicality and the body. Whether in the practice of domination or giving and receiving injury, there is something to be said about the uniquely physical practice of rugby that lends itself to the narratives of

“survival of the fittest” and “no pain, no gain”. It is through their bodies that these men experience and understand their power and the ‘essentialness’ of gender. Therefore, an understanding of rugby as a physical-culture must pay homage to body.

Light and Kirk (2000) agree with this proposition and draw upon the ethnographic work of Loic Wacquant (1995) to address the lack of literature pertaining to the experiences of actual flesh-and-blood sporting bodies. They explore the “corporeal and discursive nature of young men’s rugby training in an Australian high school and the ways in which this contributed to the embodiment of a class and culture specific form of masculinity” (pp. 163-164). Light and Kirk

(2000) studied this phenomenon through the observation of a “first XV15” of an elite independent high school in Brisbane Australia over a period of three months. They employed data collection methods of in-depth, semi-structured interviews, field notes, and video analysis.

15 The “first XV” is the premier team of the high school. See footnote 1 for more details 56

Light and Kirk (2000) go on to discuss how a class-specific form of hegemonic masculinity shaped the practice of rugby training. They give special emphasis to the embodied nature of these practices. For example, suffering sacrifice and tolerance of physical pain played a central part to the development of masculinities. Additionally, the physical and ideological production of dominating bodies could be seen in training which “featured drilling and disciplining of the body to make it an efficient weapon for the exercise of force and domination over other young men” (p. 170).

Light and Kirk (2000) also describe a fascinating exchange in which the threat of an upcoming match with a rival, more ‘working class’ team—and the associated threat of violence—produced training experiences based more on physical dominance than that employed in previous training sessions. Light and Kirk (2000) point to the importance of regimes focused on the body in the practicing of rugby at the school.

This paper by Light and Kirk (2000) is part of their broader project on male high school rugby in Australia and Japan. In particular, I would like to make reference to a related studies performed by Light (1999; 2001). Light (2001) studies the pre-game rituals of a Japanese high school rugby team. The paper focuses largely on the build-up to the team’s final at the national championships. Data was generated through semi and unstructured interviews in Japanese, observations and video analysis.

Light (2001) describes the rituals surrounding the national championship tournament including preparation, nightly meetings, team walks, songs, dressing room conduct and the entrance onto the field. He shows how these cultural practices represent the “symbolic journey from the profane world of daily social life into the sacred realm of physical confrontation and rule-legitimated violence” (Light, 2001, p. 460). In turn, he argues that such rituals must be

57 understood with their implications in particular forms of masculinity constructed in sport cultures.

In addition, Light (2001) illuminates the similarities and differences that exist between western and Japanese rugby teams rituals and how such practices can be understood as an interaction between larger sporting and local cultural norms and meanings. Thus, the journey of the sacred to the profane and the creation of social bonds are consistent customs across rugby teams from a variety of contexts. However, “the ways in which much of the ritual was performed in a particularly Japanese way acted to confirm cultural identity and to mark rugby as a form of cultural practice” (Light, 2001, p. 461).

Light (1999) also demonstrates how culturally specific forms of masculinity are created in Australian and Japanese rugby settings through divergent bodily practices. He focuses on his experiences as the head coach of a Japanese university club from 1990-1992. The concept of

“seishin” (loosely defined as human spirit) was central to the practice of rugby and the intertwined cultural masculinity. The logic of “seishin” could be seen in the intensities of trainings, the value of drilling, the resistance to Australian training methods, and the men’s understandings and relationships to their bodies. For example, the belief was such that Japanese men did not have the aggression that other men have and thus “needed” to train very hard to build spirit. Light (1999) draws on Wacquant (1995) to show how repetitive practice of physical tasks was constitutive of a particular embodied habitus and masculinity.

Therefore, we can see how culturally-specific masculinities are constructed and experienced in relation to particular bodily practices. Through Light’s (1999) example, we can see how one form of cultural masculinity was central to the way a specific rugby setting was constructed and the embodied experiences that came as a result of participation in this setting.

This demonstrates the interrelation between cultural identity (and its masculine specificities) and

the moving, sport (rugby) playing body. In line with this assertion we can use ideas of

embodiment to extend other understandings of rugby. For example, Park (2000) provides a

fascinating account of the place of rugby, as a practice of hegemonic masculinity, within

hemophilia narratives in New Zealand men. Her study is based on research carried out in 1994-

96 with a national sample of people with hemophilia in which 80 people were interviewed in

relation to participation in leisure activities. Park (2000) speaks to the dominance of rugby, and

the associated ideas of masculinity, in New Zealand national identities16 as providing a source of

conflict in boys and men that suffer from a disease that precludes them from engaging in contact

sports. She concludes “the inability to play rugby was the single most pervasive idiom of distress

for men with hemophilia” (p. 446).

Although Park (2000) does not explicitly detail the body in her research, she alludes to its

presence. Indeed, the inherently physical nature of the disease and its impact on the pursuit of

physical activities, suggests that the body plays an important role in an analysis of hemophilia

discourse. This importance can be seen in the following example given by Park:

when a high school boy with the invisible disability of severe hemophilia did not play

rugby and was hassled by his mates, he said to his mother ‘I would rather have my legs

cut off so people could see it.’ He wanted it to be obvious that he could not, rather than

would not, play rugby. (pp. 445-446).

This example shows how rugby, masculinity, and hemophilia are intimately tied to ideas of the

embodied self.

16 National identity and rugby as been studied by multiple scholars and in a variety of contexts. For example; Wales (John, 2007), South Africa (Nauright, 1996), Ireland (Tuck, 2003), New Zealand and Samoa (Grainger, 2006) 59

To summarize thus far, many scholars have illustrated the ways and extent to which rugby—as a deeply embodied cultural practice—is intimately tied the construction, reproduction, and representation of hegemonic masculinity. These studies tell us that men define themselves, in opposition to women and “lesser” non-rugby playing men within rugby spaces. Furthermore, rugby as a uniquely physical experience—one of pain and injury, training regimes and physical contact—draws conversations around the body into a discussion around masculinities. In turn, to be a man is to have a particular relationship with one’s body; a relationship that ignores or accepts risk, pain, and injury; a relationship premised on the physical dominance of oneself and the bodies of others—particularly lesser males and females; a relationship in which the body is instrumental, an object of violence. In this literature rugby has been situated as the practice par excellence through which to experience the body in ways that work under hegemonic masculinity. Further, rugby produces a cultural identity in which masculine ideals are prevalent.

However, there are also passages of resistance in and around rugby—dialectical modes of power and a mutability of experience.

For example, Thompson (1988) explored the 1981 South African rugby tour of New

Zealand as a site in which male patriarchy was challenged. He describes how the mocking, objectification, and defiling of women and homosexuals have always been part of the rugby tradition. However, the 1981 tour became a place where these repressive hegemonic norms became challenged. Specifically, women were very prominent in the organized opposition to the

South African rugby tour. As a result of protest action, oppositional arguments began to enter family units, the media, and the general national consciousness. Thompson (1988) suggests that both women’s and Māori interests became more readily accommodated as an upshot of this mass

60 public mobilization. This space of resistance illuminates the ways in which power acts along multiple, sometimes-contradictory flows.

This begs to question, in what ways may resistance have been present in the contexts explored by Schacht and Muir and Seitz? Were these cultures really as rigid as they seemed?

Specifically what counter narratives may have been at play beneath the surface level of male performance? Do all players identify with this culture in the same way?

An example of a potential challenge to the hegemonic order of rugby is provided by Price and Parker (2003) in their ethnographic study of a UK-based amateur rugby union club for gay and bisexual men. The clubs existence in mainstream rugby competition challenged stereotypes on and off the pitch. However, Price and Parker (2003) argue that, “in an attempt to gain some level of acceptance for players, the club is co-opted into mainstream rugby and continues to endure discriminative (heterosexual) practices in order to remain unchallenged” (p. 122). Such that the club, with its apolitical stance, may actually reinforce heterosexist explanations of sport through its “(in)action.”

Certainly, this would suggest that rugby occupies a space that is synonymous with dominant heterosexual forms of masculinity, such that, just participating in rugby is invariably driven by, and constituting of, particular forms of masculine logic. Indeed Schacht (1997), in a commentary on his 1996 article reviewed earlier, provides a fascinating account of his experiences as a researcher within a setting in which his feminist values were in direct opposition to the culture he was participating in. In a conversation around the submissive nature of rugby— in that ‘losers’ are marginalized (often violently), and used only to bolster their superiors’ false state of being—he concludes:

I increasingly find myself searching for places where my class, race, gender, and sexual

orientation would have no meaning so that my present privileged state of being would

lose its accepted meaning and no longer be so oppressive to so many people. (Schacht,

1997, p. 338)

Therefore, it would seem as though Schacht (1997) sees rugby as inherently oppressive,17 whereby the only way to not contribute to the subordination of peoples is to seek other activities and spaces. It seems that to a lesser extent Price and Parker (2003) would agree that to participate in rugby, via rugby’s logic, to gain a rugby status, is to submit to rugby’s heterosexist processes.

However, Anderson and McGuire (2010) provide an alternative perspective on masculinity in rugby. They employ a triangulated approach to understanding the gendered perspectives of men on an elite rugby team comprised of student athletes. Participant observation and interviews were conducted with 18 of the players and six women who were casual friends with the players. Instead of identifying a range of hegemonic masculinity practices as seen in the studies previously cited, Anderson and McGuire (2010) contend that ‘inclusive masculinity’ was the dominant male gender perspective. Drawing on Anderson (2005), inclusive masculinity refers to “the emergence of an archetype of masculinity that undermines the principles of orthodox (read hegemonic) masculine values—yet one that is also esteemed among male peers”

(Anderson & McGuire, 2010, p. 250). Specifically, this type of masculinity was not predicated in opposition to femininity or homosexuality. It did not value excessive risk-taking. And it existed in opposition to the orthodox masculinity modeled by their coaches.

Anderson and McGuire (2010) conclude by suggesting that new ways of thinking about men’s masculinities is required, especially in cultures in which homophobia is retreating.

17 Pronger (1999) would argue that all competitive sport plays the role of reproducing phallically aggressive and anally closed cultures of desire 62

However, they do acknowledge that these particular men may be afforded the ability to perform

inclusive masculinity more so than other men, because of their high masculine capital (as

successful heterosexual rugby players) and privileged class and race backgrounds.

Pringle (2001) also positions his work in relation to the dominant theory pervading much

of the literature on pain, violence, and masculinity in heavy contact sports. This being, “heavy

contact sports are positioned predominantly as producers of hard unreflexive men imbued with sexist and homophobic values” (Pringle, 2001, p. 426). Pringle (2001) sets out to challenge this idea through “narratives of the self” which draw upon his own rugby playing experiences. This form of textual engagement is harnessed for its emotive potential, to aid in illustrating how rugby violence works to both produce and resist dominant notions of manliness (Pringle, 2001).

Pringle (2001) describes three experiences linked to playing rugby that took place from nine years old through to his final season in the XV of his high school. He goes on to discuss how these experiences can be analyzed through Foucault’s theories of discourse, subjectivities and power. Rugby became tied to Pringle’s (2001) subjectivity at a young age. Rugby was also positioned as controlling corporeal actions through techniques of self, which lead to harmful power relations in the form of bullying. Specifically, Pringle’s (2001) 11 or 12 year old self’s desire to confirm his sense of manly rugby playing self resulted in self-implemented exercises

(techniques of the self) designed to attain that mode of being—thus he disciplined himself through self surveillance in line with dominant discourses of rugby and manliness. Finally, the tension between an acceptance of pain and violence and a fear of getting hurt is highlighted as producing a possibility for resistance (Pringle, 2001). Importantly, Pringle (2001) argues that the tensions present in his rugby experience lead to his ultimate rejection of hypermasculine values thus producing and resisting dominant ideologies of masculinity.

This study provides a critical view of how masculinity has been understood in the majority of sport literature. We can see how lived experience is far more complex than some of the earlier works give credit. These seem to, at times, suggest that putting on a pair of studded boots turns a man into a violent misogynist. Although there are undoubtedly social pressures at work in the changing room, on the paddock, and at the after match function, men experience these forces, flows and spaces in different ways. In line with this understanding, Pringle’s (2001) auto ethnography is a piece of a larger study that examined the discursive connections between masculinities and rugby experiences of fear, pain, and pleasure in New Zealand men (Pringle

2009; Pringle & Markula, 2005). I will now elaborate on some of the additional works in this broader study with the aim of looking beyond gender reductionism toward a study of performance that sits more comfortably alongside the theories I have introduced in previous sections.

Intersubjective Rugby

Previous studies of rugby (for example, Light & Kirk, 2000; Muir & Steitz, 2004;

Schacht, 1996) have critically and clearly shown how rugby is a domain of patriarchy, dominated by notions of masculinity and subsequent performances of. However, an increasing field of research suggests that rugby is more complicated than simple domination and imitation, and instead provides many instances of negotiation and subversion. These views point to the multiple dimensions and flows of power present in subjective experience. Such a perspective, in which the door is opened to seeing rugby experience as existing in a complex context of power and articulation—between discourse, bodies, and spaces—is more in line with what we might expect if Butler or Ahmed were to interrogate the rugby field. As such I will now expand on a

64 multidimensional reading of rugby, specifically by drawing on Pringle, and Pringle and

Markula’s work on rugby in New Zealand.

Pringle and Markula (2005) move past the neo-Gramscian notion of hegemonic masculinity, popularized by Connell (1987), which has dominated the theoretical underpinnings of much of the research I have already described. Instead they appropriate Foucault and his concept of knowledge and power, acting through discourse, to understand the influence of rugby in shaping men’s understandings of masculinities and self. Specifically, they ask “How do men’s rugby experiences of fear, pain, and /or pleasure articulate with discourses of masculinities?” (p.

447).

For their study, data was collected through in-depth interviews with a purposefully selected group of 14 adult New Zealand men. These men had a diverse array of rugby participation experiences and ranged in age from 21 to 50 years. Pringle and Markula (2005) introduce rugby in New Zealand as sport as an omnipresent reality infused with masculinist and nationalistic discourses and, as a result, is an ideal site for probing into how men come to understandings of masculinity and self in complex ways. Through interviews, Pringle and

Markula (2005) identified three dominating discourse that provided the grounds for rugby’s pervasive influence: rugby as New Zealand’s national sport, rugby as a sport for males, and rugby as an exciting but rough sport. These discourses were present in the everyday practices of these men growing up. This notion may be well summed up by a quote from one of the participants, Seamus, who said “Rugby is very much in our culture; New Zealanders are still very involved with it. It’s almost bred into us. And it’s hard to ignore or rebel against” (as cited in Pringle & Markula, 2005, p. 490). It becomes apparent in this analysis that Pringle and

Markula (2005) are dealing with particular discourses pertaining to rugby as a practice of cultural

identity for New Zealanders, and particularly New Zealand males. In this respect, it is a study of

how these individuals differently negotiated discursive frames in the constitution of self.

The conversations with these men showed that “although rugby provided an influential

context in which the interview participants negotiated formative understandings of masculinities

and self, these negotiations did not result in the clear affirmation and reproduction of dominating

discourses of masculinity” (Pringle & Markula, 2005, p. 491). For example, the men experienced

their bodies differently throughout their childhoods, as competent or weak, in danger or

dominant. They held, and overtime developed, divergent views on pain, risk of injury, pleasure

and terror, despite experiencing similar discourses with regard to the games physicality. The

cultural dominance of rugby in New Zealand provided a point of resistance for some and

reflection for others through divergent perspectives on ethics, health, violence and feminism.

Thus, Pringle and Markula (2005) question whether heavy-contact sports like rugby

should be singularly represented as producers of dominant and problematic masculinities.

However, this is not to argue that concern for the social significance of rugby in New Zealand is no longer necessary. Indeed, rugby’s dominance limits the resources for the pursuit of alternative masculine subjectivities, particularly during youth. Furthermore, the small instances of observed resistance in these men’s perspectives remain unlikely to alter problematic relations of power.

Specifically, the difficulties in rebelling were presented as the risk of being publically positioned as unpatriotic and feminine. This conclusion suggests that the participants felt as though there were actors or mechanisms present in New Zealand society that would police any departure from dominant norms. This notion is of particular interest to me in the current study due to my location outside of spaces in which I would suggest a lack of overt pressures to conform to this practice of cultural citizenship.

Pringle (2009) also draws on Foucauldian theorizing to analyze, via in-depth interviews with seven rugby players from New Zealand, the discursive constitution of rugby pleasures. His aim is not to romanticize these pleasures, but rather “to reveal, in a critical manner, how these pleasures can be regarded as building blocks that prop up the social significance of the sport and its unintended discursive effects” (Pringle, 2009, p. 212). Pringle (2009) shows how the workings of discourse and power, and technologies of dominance, created rugby pleasures, and subjects that sought those pleasures. In this analysis, Pringle (2009) frames the disciplinary process of rugby as being of a particular embodied nature. He argues that these practices (such as training regimes) were employed in the acceptance of pain but also in the production of various forms of pleasure. In this instance I believe he is alluding to an intersection between an intersection between embodiment and culture in the production of rugby pleasures in New

Zealand men—for example, when he situates tackling pleasures and embodied risk as interacting with discursive understandings of rugby in New Zealand as a “noble game”. Indeed he suggests that such discursive negotiations are colored by effect. Pringle summarizes the pleasures of rugby in the interviewers accounts as follows:

the pleasures of rugby violence transported the interviewees to an edge (Lyng, 1990) that

necessitated their negotiation of the blurred boundaries between pleasure and pain,

confidence and fear, wellbeing and injury and, at the extreme, consciousness, and

unconsciousness. The intoxicating mix shaped the players’ subjectivities, desire to play

and enhanced feelings of social connectedness. This edgework demanded great skill,

concentration and proved addictive for some. (Pringle, 2009, p. 229)

In order to de-familiarize these rugby pleasures and open this dominant sporting culture up to critique, Pringle (2009) assimilates rugby to sadomasochism. He postures that both rugby

67 and sadomasochism are taboo-breaking practices, with relations of power, in which pleasure arises from physical domination and the fear of pain, in the search for emotional solidarity. This method of “making strange” destabilizes the romanticized discourse of rugby and provides an alternate lens with which to understand and critique the broader culture of the sport.

The ways with which scholars have attended to the study of masculinity in sport, and masculinity in rugby, have been subject to multiple transitions, shifts and evolutions over the last

30 years. Whilst initial perspectives tended to emphasize rugby as a site of male ideology and supremacy, the emergences of mean’s studies identified hegemonic masculinity at play in the production of gender orders in rugby spaces. This ordering privileged men of violence and physicality over alternative ways of being a man or women. However, we can also see instances of resistance in women’s action, homosexual rugby, and a changing landscape of the gender order towards inclusive masculinity. However, these perspectives have still tended to favor domination and resistance as the only directions of power. As such Pringle’s (2001; 2008; 2009) and Pringle and Markula’s (2005) work draws on a poststructuralist lens to identify the complex articulations of masculinity, rugby and power. These analyses show that participation in rugby is colored by multiple, dynamic, and at times contrasting subject positions.

I align myself with Pringle’s work on rugby, and in particular, his Foucauldian understandings of power. Specifically, this notion of power is preferable to Connell’s hegemonic masculinity—employed by Muir and Seitz, Light, and Schacht. This is because hegemonic power is reduced to being dualist in nature, employable only as domination by consent, or resistance. This makes it difficult for researchers to acknowledge the complexity of men’s experiences of sport, some of which may be positive and admirable (Pringle, 2005). A

Foucauldian definition of power, on the other hand, points to workings of power that are

complex, and at times, ambiguous. In this respect sport is more than just compliance and

rebellion. Foucault brings to light how subject positions and positionalities are negotiated by

individuals in relation to discourse, such that, masculine norms can be experienced differently by

men—as self affirming or as questionable. As such I follow Pringle (2005) who suggests “that a

turn to Foucault could be advantageous for continued examinations of the complex articulations

between sport, masculinities, and relations of power” (p. 273). However, I also believe it is

important to note that the Pringle and Markula (2005) conclude that the cultural domination of

rugby (especially in New Zealand) should not be thought of uncritically. It is still an aspect of

society implicated in negative power relations and the limitations of subjectivities.

We can take Pringle (2009), and Pringle and Markula’s (2005) studies of rugby

subjectivity and pleasure and apply them to the current study on Kiwi cultural citizenship in

American rugby. We can extrapolate from their findings particular understandings about how

masculine performativity coalesces around the body in New Zealand context. It is clear that the discursive dominance of rugby—in relation to New Zealand’s national consciousness, and as a sport for males—position’s rugby and rugby narratives in such a way that they must be negotiated by practically all New Zealand men. This notion places a particular physical practice as central to cultural identity projects. Even though Pringle and Markula (2005) clearly show how rugby is subjectively interpreted and negotiated, in some ways the male body was always textually implicated in this process. Even by virtue of not playing, the interviewee’s bodies, and body images, were invoked in ways that made it difficult to construct a respective masculine subjectivity. In this respect, New Zealand cultural citizenship included a central project of masculine performativity through rugby.

Furthermore, Pringle’s (2009) interrogation of rugby pleasures can give insight into how these identity projects—as performative negotiations—were colored by affect. We can see how the body—disciplined in line with dominant notions of masculinity—experienced social and embodied pleasures in the performance of cultural citizenship. However, it is worth reiterating that these processes and experiences occurred in the New Zealand context. Indeed, both Pringle

(2009), and Pringle and Markula (2005) suggest that some of the mechanisms that sustained these notions of pleasure, and cultural dominance of rugby in New Zealand, were felt as a presence to the participants. This begs to question, how we are to think about the male performing rugby body and the Kiwi cultural citizenship project outside of New Zealand? For example, the notion that soccer is a sport for “poofs”, as alluded to by Derek (in Pringle and

Markula, 2005, p. 485), is almost a distinctly Kiwi male perspective. If Derek were to have moved to another country in his youth he may have found that his soccer playing afforded him a particular masculine status in other cultures.

Therefore, to think about the performance of cultural citizenship outside of rugby would involve thinking differently about identity practices. It would involve thinking about performance in relation to notions such as diaspora, in which identity is negotiated in relation to similarity and difference, deterritorialization and reterritorialization. Furthermore, the subjective negotiation of discourse is no longer a question of conformity or resistance but rather premised on displays, the (re)production of representations, and the constitution of the citizen other through intersubjectivity. We need to think about the forms that local citizenship framings take when they are removed from systems of governance, policing actors, and cultural pressures. In this respect, masculinity—although a significant aspect of these projects—is decentered in identity politics. We need to think beyond the reductionist notions of gender, towards the

70 multiple ways our moving (in the double sense invoked by Newman and Falcous, 2012, as the

“mobility of movement”) bodies perform and constitute identity in relation to other bodies in space. Therefore, the interrogation of these (dis)located identity projects—how rugby subjects are positioned, and their negotiated positionalities—is a worthy topic of analysis.

Embodying Cultural Citizenship through Rugby Performativity

Because growing up in New Zealand you cannot help but feel a failure if you are not accepted into that rugby culture . . . (Sebastion, cited in Pringle and Markula, 2005, p. 485-486)

Before a tackle union game, I would have intense anxiety. You know I would have butterflies. I would have to go to the bathroom . . . as soon as I either tackled someone or someone tackled me, the anxiety was gone… (Angus, cited in Pringle, 2009, p. 223-224)

Sport is a site of heightened embodiment par excellence. Indeed, moving one’s body is the foundation for playing sport. Arguably, it is this corporeal movement—and the tactile affordances this movement allows—that provides our initial motivation to engage in sporting activities. In turn, sport as a fundamentally cultural construction suggests that these physical acts are essentially performative. As such, it stands to reason that sporting activities provide rich cases for the production of cultural citizenship and belonging. This being the case, I argue that rugby presents an exceptional site in which New Zealand cultural citizenship is distinctly at play.

Indeed, the interweaving of rugby and New Zealand cultural citizenship may represent a sport- culture relationship unique in terms of its pervasiveness, particularly in relation to discourses on masculinity (Pringle & Markula, 2005). Therefore, research on rugby provides an opportunity to extend Fortier’s (2000) observation of the body as a site for the display of cultural identity. An

71 observation, Fortier (2000) acknowledges, requires development in order to develop an in-depth understanding of the body’s role in identity practices.

Furthermore, it is clear that the subjective experiences of rugby are multiple, contradictory and in process. It is difficult to garner how another player negotiates these subjectivities, to attribute their actions to a particular performance or to understand how they experience their embodiment in sport. Indeed, doing so runs the danger of drastically undervaluing the complexity of the subjectivities and simplifying the meaning of physical culture to an individual. Therefore, I intend to undertake an [auto]ethnography on my participatory experiences in rugby. I want to interrogate my own body as it tackles, as it is tackled. In this I follow Giardina and Newman (2011b) in an inconvenient physical cultural studies18, to “make use of our bodies to understand how power operates on the bodies of others” (p. 54).

However, the study I propose also aims to study cultural citizenship as “becoming” through (co)performance. This will be achieved by mobilizing a theory of cultural citizenship informed, generally, by Stuart Hall, and additionally, by the concepts of performativity (Butler,

1988, 1990), intersubjectivity, (Ahmed, 2000) and belonging (Fortier, 2000; Probyn, 1996) as constituting, and constitutive of, embodied identity. This involves interrogating how my cultural citizenship is being (re)produced for me and projected on to me in the space of rugby. Initially this requires an acknowledgement of how I bring cultural citizenship to this rugby space through lived experience and discursive framings of “home”. Far from being a clean slate I already embody a cultural citizenship. One which undergoes a reframing by way of my migration to

America. In a way then, this is a project that seeks to tell us about the construction of the representation of the citizen “other”. In doing this I attempt to discern how others position me, my cultural citizenship and my rationalized masculinity, through my rugby playing body.

18 I will elaborate on Physical Cultural Studies in the next chapter and position my work within the field. 72

Therefore, I intend to engage in interviews with teammates and the coach to discern how my

“kiwi” body is constructed in an American rugby club. In addition to this I intend to place these socio-cultural framings in conversation with my personal-cultural framings. As such, I endeavor to delve into notions of diaspora, transnational migrancy, and inscribed citizenship. This follows

Ahmed et al., (2003) and their suggestion to acknowledge grounded-movement and mobile- stasis. Hence, I create a dialogue between the “complex structure” of articulations that constitutes my fragmented identity.

In this way my [auto]ethnographic account will reflect on my negotiation of these frames.

How will I fit the spaces that are made for me—subvert or escape them? As such, I will aim to illuminate the messy and more often than not, incongruent nature of identity processes, which never quite seal: and are always in the process of becoming and belonging. As displaced into this space, how do I perform—and in turn become (according to Butler)—a New Zealand man? How is this becoming or belonging co-constructed and variously articulated

CHAPTER THREE

METHOD

In the previous chapter, I developed a conceptual framework for a study of New Zealand cultural identity as performed in and through American rugby. Specifically, sport in general, and rugby in particular provides a rich site for the analysis of cultural citizenship because of its nature as a practice of heightened embodiment. When we consider embodiment as the key to understanding the constitution of identities through performativity and intersubjectivity, then the study of rugby bodies becomes an important pursuit. Especially when we contemplate on the gendered relations of power reproduced, and the depleted subject positions available, as a result of rugby’s cultural superiority (Park, 2000; Pringle & Markula, 2005)

In this project I build upon theories from the likes of Hall, Probyn, Butler and Ahmed to study how my cultural citizenship is carried into, (re)produced around and through, my participation in men’s club rugby. These theories emphasize a notion of identity as—in opposition to traditional notions of self as essential and fixed—fragmented, de-centered, in the process of becoming and belonging, co-produced through ambivalence and constituted through performance. In this respect, my cultural citizenship first needs to be understood as located within multiple cultural frames. For instance, it is important at this point to acknowledge that I bought with me a New Zealand cultural identity that was already in the process of becoming. I did not enter this rugby space as a ‘clean slate,’ upon which cultural identity was constructed.

Indeed, my searching out of rugby in America should be considered as a cultural citizen project in itself. Therefore, what makes this particular study unique is the way in which my identity was articulated back to, and (re)produced in relation to, existing constructs of what it means to be a

Kiwi rugby player in America. Representations that were negotiated by myself and others.

Therefore, in a team sport such as rugby, this inevitably entailed the ways in which my

“Kiwiness”—and its assumed masculinity and rugby playing traits—was (re)produced and

negotiated by teammates and coaches. In this sense others positioned my rugby body, sometimes

as soon as they heard me speak. Therefore, interviews were required to discern how these men

contributed to the (re)production of my cultural citizenship (as theorized by Ahmed).

However, Hall (1996) argues that we must invest in positions constructed for us in order

to live a cultural identity. Despite how omnipresent discursive practices may be, identities still

require the empowerment from “the subject.” As a result identities are strategic and positioning.

Indeed, Butler (1988, 1990) contends that identity is constituted through the performative act,

prior to any subject position. In order to address these perspectives, I provided an

autoethnographic reflection on how “I” negotiated the frames which were made for me, and

which I dialectically (re-)made. Therefore, I place my autoethnographic Self in conversation with

the interviews in order to explore the “complex structure” of articulations in which my body

moves: both as a contested discursive production and constraints/privileges placed/afforded to

me as I move on the field. This line of insight is premised on showing the cultural citizenship

project as a becoming/belonging process, never congruent, always in vain.

In the rest of this chapter I outline a method for the study of New Zealand cultural

citizenship as performed in and through American rugby. In order to do this, I begin by grounding my study in the range of foundational assumptions that inform my approach. After which I frame this research within the field of physical cultural studies. Finally, I outline the process of participant observation and the resulting data collection and representation techniques—interviewing and autoethnography—as I will implement them in the field.

Paradigmatic Foundations

The paradigmatic foundations are key considerations of any research project. The

researcher’s paradigm represents an overarching set of beliefs that provide the groundwork for

determining research axiologies, epistemologies and methodologies. In this sense they provide

the parameters of a research project (Markula & Silk, 2011). The perspective that I align with in

this study is the constructivist or interpretivist paradigm. This framework takes subject

perceptions as paramount and as such, constructivists interpret these perceptions to gain

understanding. I will proceed to outline the metaphysics of the constructivist paradigm in order

to illustrate the ontological, epistemological, methodological foundations of my study. This

outline involves commenting on particular issues such as voice, research value, reflexivity and

research aims.

I will begin with constructivist understandings of Ontology. Ontology relates to questions

on the nature of reality, in relation to which constructivists take a relativist approach. This

suggests that realities exist in multiple forms that are dependent on the individual. Therefore knowledge is constructed through individual lived experiences and interactions with others.

Lincoln, Lynham and Guba (2011) suggest that this means researchers should participate in the research process with their subjects in order to accurately reflect their reality. As this project is aimed at constituting my reality, I sit within, and am in some ways bound to, this paradigm, insofar as I acknowledge that my reality is relative.

Epistemology relates to the thinking process and the truths we seek as a result.

Constructivists take a subjectivist epistemology. This perspective emphasizes the co-construction of findings, and a recognition of the researcher role in the production of knowledge. In this respect an engagement in [auto]ethnography is in line with the acknowledgement that “inquirer

76 and inquired [sic] are fused into a single entity. Findings are literally the creation of the process of interaction between the two” (Guba, 1990, p. 27). In relation to methods as the process of research, constructivism employs hermeneutics and dialectics. In this respect constructivist methodologies tend to focus on the interpretation of expression that is compared and contrasted dialectically in order to find constructions of consensus. Therefore, naturalistic methods such as interviewing and observation tend to dominate the “empirical toolbox.” Because of this focus on naturalistic methods, questions of whose voice is privileged in scholarship are important. In the constructivist paradigm the researched and researcher voices are mixed.

The goals of constructivist research vary. However, developing an understanding and interpretation through the meaning of particular phenomena as experienced could be considered a general theme. In addition, Lincoln, Lynham and Guba (2011) suggest that this generated understanding should be sought in order to improve practice. Indeed, Guba and Lincoln (2005, as cited in Lincoln, Lynham & Guba, 2011) suggest the potential for findings in catalyzing action could be considered as criteria for judging the quality of research. However, in general terms constructivist research is valued based on intersubjective agreements reached between actors on the consensus towards produced knowledge (Lincoln, Lynham & Guba, 2011). Indeed, transactional knowing—valued as a means of emancipation in itself—is valued intrinsically in constructivist perspectives. Furthermore, issues of reflexivity are serious and must be considered as a central concern in the value of research.

The constructivist paradigm aligns with the theoretical framework I developed in order to study my cultural citizenship. For instance, my understanding of cultural identity privileges the co-construction of meaning based on my own and others subjective perceptions and experiences of my New Zealand rugby playing body. Furthermore, I acknowledge the relativity inherent in

77 individual realities when attending to embodiment as a primarily individual experience. Finally, the relativist perspective makes it apparent that it is important to avoid privileging my experiences of rugby. Therefore, although I am undoubtedly privileging my body as a site of interrogation this does not necessarily mean that it is being overly privileged. Instead, by using my body as a means of getting at where another player is coming from I am privileging my perspective less than if I was to generalize about another body’s motivations based on using a

“researcher’s gaze.” However, in delving into the constructivist paradigm, it also becomes apparent that I have multiple obligations towards subjects, action, and reflexive practice. As a result, I will address some of these these factors as they arose when detailing the methods I employed for inquiry. But first I will move to ground my approach the field of physical cultural studies.

A Study in Physical Culture

Physical cultural studies (referred from here on as PCS) has recently emerged as a field of inquiry for those social and cultural thinkers who take the body, physical practice and/or physical culture in all their multitude forms and formations to be of central importance (see for example, Andrews, 2008; Giardina & Newman 2011a, 2011b; Silk and Andrews, 2011). The

PCS project is significantly informed by Stuart Hall’s form of cultural studies, and the interrogation of cultural identities, as briefly described in the previous chapter. Drawing from

Hall’s influence, PCS takes a concern with bodily culture’s role in the construction and experience of structures of power (Andrews, 2008). In addition, the project retains the tradition of radical contextualization implicit in the practice of articulation (Andrews, 2008). However, this is not to suggest that PCS simply involves cultural studies theories in the study of the body,

rather “this is a Physical Cultural Studies that in the first and last analysis assumes meaningful,

textual, sensual, lived, performative, fleshed bodies can only exist within and through

articulations in culture(s)” (Giardina & Newman, 2011b, pp. 39-40).

In order to further explore the potentialities of this nascent field, Giardina and Newman

(2011a) frame the PCS project as moving “beyond writing and researching about bodies to

writing and researching through bodies as the principle force of the research act” (p. 184, italics theirs). Such an initiative promotes a focus on the body as means to view, learn about, and hopefully, to understand society—its development and structure. This “radically embodied” venture aims to re-center the body in the cultural studies tradition. This has conventionally been a favorable field of articulative and radically contextual politics. However, some would argue that it has at times been plagued by a textualization or abstraction of the body. Giardina and

Newman (2011a) instead call for scholars of the active and sporting body to mobilize a “body participative” research paradigm. This approach aims towards physically contacting the physical

– in terms of “active agentive human bodies (and their flesh politics)” (Giardina & Newman,

2011a, p. 189). Additionally, a study from this perspective requires a self-reflexivity in which the researcher acknowledges the body politics of their performative selves.

One further aspect of PCS that is worth elaborating on is its call for committed praxis19— a call for “engagement with real utopias, democracy and social intervention” (Atkinson, 2011, p.

137). This notion is in line with the original beliefs of cultural studies in which scholars had a responsibility to be political in their work. In particular, Atkinson (2011) paints a picture of PCS as public praxis in which the study of cultural life must take as its immediate goal the possibility and existence of better worlds:

19 Praxis refers to the practical application of theory lessons or skills. In this case Atkinson (2011) is advocating for critical scholars to engage in community and political ventures towards social change, as opposed to just critiquing the social world through disengaged literature 79

Not only does this require a research to take sides, be involved, translate theory, publish

in a range of contexts, be an outspoken critic and take chances, it requires one to take

sides by advocating particular ethics or moralities. It requires us to break new ground

transgress disciplinary boundaries, pursue policy research with much vigor, and research

beyond the comfortable subjects we so regularly study and the comfortable ways we

study. It requires an invested and concerted interest in matters of sport and physical

activity for/as social development, movement cultures as potential solutions to broad

gauge social problems (Atkinson, 2011, p. 142)

I believe that the PCS approach is intimately tied with the current project. This is a study premised on the necessity for co-presence of researcher amongst researched bodies, and an inductive approach to understanding. I will explain and validate this approach by reflecting on my uniquely embodied researcher self, and once more, pointing to the theories that are at the frontier of identity thought. First, in terms of my embodiment and whilst aware that it is not enough to justify research by way of happenstance, I never-the-less suggest that my recent

(dis)location into a city in the southern United States provided a valuable prospect for the study of cultural citizenship and migration generally, and New Zealand bodies in American rugby more specifically. By virtue of exposure to rugby as a boy, as a “Kiwi,” as a son, as a captain of the first XV, I was uniquely afforded entrance and a position in this rugby space.

Furthermore, my unique embodiment serves two purposes in this situation; it provides a point of access to the research context and importantly, becomes the central concern of the research act:

By necessarily situating the researcher’s physical body in and among bodies—sharing

experiences of the physical ways in which we experience fieldwork—we are better able .

. . to elucidate the politics of gender, exclusion/inclusion, and corporeality acting upon

and within these spaces of physical culture, In so doing, as Elin Diamond (1996) notes,

we enable the inclusive critique and reflexive re-evaluation of the cultural contexts

through one’s subjectivity (Giardina & Newman, 2011a, p. 187)

As Giardina and Newman (2011) discuss, the link between researcher identity, experience, and

findings is a valuable exercise in re-articulating with the world we so often tend to study from

afar. Furthermore, the current project goes so far as to shift the site of analysis from traditional

objects of study—participant rugby bodies—to a focus on my researcher body. In many ways

this project became an analysis of how my teammates and coaches analyze my rugby body.

Therefore, in line with the constructivist paradigm—the intrinsic value of this study is the

premise that multiple subjective realities and knowledges interacted in the creation of my-rugby-

body and “my” experiences of “it.”

In this sense, even the [auto]ethnographic side of my research was geared toward

commenting on how I negotiated these “other” understandings of, and projections onto, my

body. Therefore, this project is a production of dialogue, a conversation between my positions

and experiences and the positions and experiences around me that are involved in positioning

and experiencing my cultural identity and citizen body.

In addition, the literature I have documented point to the every day activities of the performative or the strange encounter. These experiences not only constitute identity but also form a future matrix of articulations that guides the next performance, and provides the reference for the next strange encounter. All of which Hall reminds us, articulate the body within the broader historical context. The point being that it is the level of performance that the act of constitution, and importantly subversion, play out; it is at the level of experience that

81 articulations are not as suturing as previously assumed. This is, in methodological terms, the level of participation, again the level of the body. As a result I argue that it is on the inductive level of “messy bodies” and my messy, painful, and pleasurable experience that a productive empirical analysis can eventuate.

Thus, participant observation provided the grounds for my project. The full participation observation entailed in training for rugby, playing to win, and socializing for the enjoyment. Out of this experience, I produced two forms of empirical analyses; interviews with teammates and coaches, and an [auto]ethnographic account and reflection. These two avenues of inquiry are designed from the offset to interact, to overlap, to create a dialogue of perspectives—an assemblage of frames—an articulated context for my New Zealand cultural citizenship as inscribed in/on my body. With this interweaving in mind, I will proceed to develop how I employed each of these methods—participant observation, interviews and [auto]ethnography— individually.

Participant Observation

In this study, I engaged in the participant observation of a local (a mid-sized city in the

U.S. South) open men’s rugby club. This is an explicitly physical cultural studies project and, as such, participant observation “implies not merely ‘observation’ but also the embodied presence of the ethnographer. Clearly we cannot engage with the social actors we work with without physical co-presence; the element of ‘participation’ is a bodily one” (Atkinson, Delamont &

Housley, 2008, p. 140). Therefore, my engagement in this space was as a player-researcher. In this interaction, my role fluctuated between ‘participant-as-observer’ and ‘complete participant’

(Hammersley 1995). This was because of some discrepancy between my researcher Self and

82 rugby player “Self”. Although I wanted to commit to the rugby experience, and am a keen athlete to begin, I was attuned to many questionable practices as a result of my studies. As such, I kept a reflexivity log in which I recorded and discussed role changes and other reflexive issues.

Such a perspective differs from that of Schacht (1996). In his participant observation of rugby, Schacht (1996) details his involvement as that of ‘active membership,’ a level of engagement where “researchers participate in the core activities in much the same way as the members, yet hold back from committing themselves to the goals or values of the members” (p.

552). I believe this perspective is an oversimplification of both my goals as a researcher and those of the participants I played beside. Whilst I acknowledge that my researcher self was always present, and that my personal politics meant I did not always conform to all the values of this rugby space, should I have held back from committing myself to winning games? Must I be covert when making friends? Surely that is a form of unethical practice in itself. As this is primarily a study of my embodied cultural citizenship as in dialogue with other bodies in space, I see good reason in surrendering myself to this culture. I am aware that my own bodily performance shapes the research encounter, but is that not the point? To recognize the body as central to fieldwork “both in terms of how our body becomes part of the experience of the field and in the necessity (albeit often implicit) . . . to learn the skills and rules of embodiment in the particular social setting” (Coffery, 1999, p. 73). Surely, then, full corporeal submersion is a requirement of autoethnographic work, as I will elaborate in a latter section. However, as a requirement of both the autoethnographic process and physical cultural studies fieldwork I endeavored to retain a self–awareness of researcher and the research act in order to reflect on how my body “frame[s] and [is] framed” by the analysis I undertook (Giardina & Newman,

2011, p. 18).

I gained access to this research space through the coach and management. This access point arose due to my social and sporting contact with many senior level club personal. Upon making entrée I attended as many events as possible, both formal and informal. This included an average of two trainings a week in season, eight matches (five at home, three requiring up to two hours travel). I also attended multiple social events, routinely after matches. During these engagements I attempted to develop rapport with the players and management. Although I did not have any particular strategy upon entering this space I believe my personal skills and a wealth of experience on sports teams put me in good stead. Indeed, like the rest of this project I engaged in the social aspects in a way that was comfortable and reflective of “myself.” In saying that there were instances of negative behavior that I tried to avoid. I do not believe this jeopardize my “position”, and after all, this is as much a study of my body as performing and as such I will stay “true” (however redundant I may have shown that word to be) to what I value.

One challenge faced was the recording of field notes. I combated this by taking short notes on my cell phone, directly after matches and practices and as the opportunity arose in other circumstances. I then wrote these notes up into more detailed observations when I returned home from the training sessions and matches. These notes were compiled of both observation notes

(descriptions, places, people, links to literature, cultural context) and personal notes (personal feelings, struggles, doubts or self-reflections – my voice). Finally, I applied for and received IRB approval for the currently proposed project.

Autoethnography

A key representational/empirical strategy of this project took the form of an autoethnography. This method was employed because of its potential to explore how my body is

a site for the production of cultural citizenship and masculinity. This is a project intimately tied

with identity—as multiple, mutable, and performed. Therefore, I gravitated towards performative

ethnography as defined by Spry (2011):

A critically reflexive methodology resulting in a narrative of the researcher’s engagement

with others in particular social contexts. Performative autoethnography views the

personal as inherently political, focuses on bodies-in-context as co-performative agents in

interpreting knowledge, and holds aesthetic crafting of research as an ethical imperative

of representation. (p. 498)

A central consideration when undertaking an autoethnographic project concerns the researcher’s subjective position in relation to the topics, narratives, and subjects being researched. Spry

(2006) develops a location she terms ‘performative- I’ as a “plural and performative researcher project” (p. 502). This performative-I disposition encourages the location of self in relation to others, the understanding of subjectivities as negotiated, and thus, a co-performative creation of meaning within particular contexts. In addition, experience is understood as partial and problematic. Furthermore, performative-I requires researcher accountability. The autoethnographer must be “dedicated to doing reflexivity even – and especially – while knowing it is never enough, never complete, never finished” (Spry, 2011, p. 505).

Thus, through my reflexive engagement in the practices in and around rugby I generated a performative autoethnography in which I employed performative-I practices. Through my personal and observational fieldwork notes I constructed a narrative detailing and interrogating

my experiences of; social interactions, performativity, physical confrontations, and reflexive

issues—all with a sensitivity to my how my rugby playing cultural citizen body was being

located and produced. However, I am aware that experience is not scholarship. As Gingrich-

Philbrook (2005) states, “However much one applauds autoethnography’s artistic and social

intentions, those intentions do not themselves secure artistic results” (p508). Thus, we require

more than emotion in autoethnographic writing, Gingrich-Philbrook (2005) calls for; alternate

theory, aesthetic practice and epistemological projects. Therefore, I have an artistic and scholarly

responsibility in the narration of these experiences. Indeed, if this account is designed to

construct the frames and discursive moorings through which my embodied cultural citizenship(s)

is/are anchored than I have a theoretical obligation to evoke the theory in an illuminating and

productive fashion. But also, and perhaps importantly, it is imperative that these frames—of

nation, of father, of phallus, of coach, of team, of the man playing outside, of fear and pleasure—

be constructed in a way that makes the constraints and privileges afforded to subjectivities and

bodies visible. As very real, as actually constraining as unfairly privileging.

Interviews

In this project I make use of interviews as an important empirical tool for exploring and interrogating cultural citizenship processes. Although the use of interviews in themselves is not a particularly novel idea, I use interviews in order to analyze the (re)construction and

(re)production of my-self. Therefore, in utilizing the goals and assumptions of the constructivist paradigm I go some way in optimizing the premise of relativism in the production of truths.

Whereas, conventional notions of research methods see subjectivities as a disturbance, and notions of relativism best ignored, I attempted to access these concepts to explore how my body and identity was constructed and produced by others. Therefore, I implemented interviews with teammates and the coach under the premise that the cultural assumptions, demystifications, and productive experiences that they held, and which change, as a result of their lived experience

influenced my experience in this space of heightened embodiment and masculine culture.

Specifically, I drew on Ahmed and Hall to look into how representations that my teammates and

coaches held of me worked to constitute my Kiwi, rugby-playing body. This could apply two

ways. First, through the symbolic construction of my body as a text—inscribed with cultural

citizenship. And second, by affording or constraining my body into particular mobilities, spaces,

and points of contact. For example, this second, material construction of my body was apparent

in the positions that the coach assigned me to play, or the various expectations teammates have

of me.

Not only did constructivist foundational assumptions justify my use of interviews, they

also structured how these interviews took place, how they were analyzed, and ultimately, what

forms of knowledge I produced. I partook in semi-structured interviews20 (verging on

unstructured), with open-ended questions to acquire in-depth knowledge on my teammates

experiences of rugby and perceptions of my New Zealand, male, rugby-playing body. In short,

the topic of these conversations was primarily me, my body, and my rugby-playing style. In terms of setting, these interviews took place in formal, predetermined locations (e.g. coffee shops, restaurants, and participant living rooms/dinner tables).

The participants I selected for these interviews were recruited based on a mixture of criterion and convenience sampling (Markula & Silk, 2011). In terms of criteria, the participants

20 These interviews would be considered semi-structured in the way that they were conducted in order to get to particular themes. My opening question tended to be a version of “how did you get into rugby.” After this initial consistency the interviews tended to play out in a more unstructured, verging on conversational manner. However, it must be made apparent that I was sensitive in the way that I moved these conversations towards particular themes. The themes that I emphasized included one’s rugby identity, masculinity, the place of rugby in American culture, my participants reasons for, and perceptions of playing rugby, and importantly their perceptions, expectations, assumptions and evaluations of me, my rugby playing, and New Zealand rugby in general 87

were men that I had played rugby with, or who are tied in some respect to my rugby self; for

example, teammates, and coaches. Furthermore, being a masters project, I limited my sample to those participants that could be purposively accessed for the best potential insights. Generally this meant those that I played with, and developed a level of rapport with which to facilitate the interview process. Thus, I interviewed eight teammates and the club coach.

During interviews with these men, I acknowledged the role of my subjectivity and my

position of power as researcher. This entailed using open-ended, conversational questions and

adopting a role as an active participant in the form of epistemic interviewing (Brinkmann, 2011).

As a proponent of this method of interviewing, Brinkmann (2011) critiques what he refers to as

doxastic social science interviewing where “the researcher is a spectator, a voyeur, who

observes, sees, and hears the intimate details of the respondents” (p. 70). As such he develops the

notions of epistemic interviewing—drawing from the Socratic method—as a way to examine

ethical and political issues for social good. This is a view that is tied with Atkinson’s (2011)

perspective on committed public praxis. Specifically, this method involves challenging

respondents to give reasons such that “interviewers become participants in, rather than spectators

of, the production of social life” (p. 71). Thus, while keeping to the main interest of the

interviewee’s meanings, I collaborated in the production of information. In this I aimed to

understand knowledge as located, engaged, and “forged from solidarity with, not separation

from, the people” in research (Spry, 2006, p. 315). Thus, I aimed towards enacting social change

in my interaction with participants. In this respect, I understood my collaboration as sharing the

feeling of vulnerability entailed in divulging personal experiences and perceptions; a feeling of

particular vulnerability in the hyper-masculine space of men’s rugby.

Specifically, I uncovered the participant’s perceptions of American versus New Zealand rugby and my space within this discourse. Such an emphasis also provided the framework for a thematic analysis of the interview material as outlined by Markula and Silk (2011). This involved an identification of the themes that arose in conversations around this topic. In addition

I was primarily concerned with linking, contrasting, and developing these themes in relation to my autobiographical experiences. Finally, I connected this analysis back to issues of embodied

cultural citizenship, subjectivity, and performativity. Thus producing an autoethnographic

account informed by the co-production of meaning central to rugby as a full contact team sport

where bodies assist, avoid, and collide.

CHAPTER FOUR

DATA ANALYSIS

In the literature review of this thesis I developed a theory of cultural citizenship. This theory draws its foundations from Hall’s writings concerning the theory and method of articulation, the crisis of identity, identification, cultural identity and diaspora. Identities, for Hall

(1996d) are “the result of successful articulation or ‘chaining’ of the subject into the flow of discourse” they are “positions which the subject is obliged to take up while always ‘knowing’ . . . that they are representations, that representation is always constructed across a ‘lack’ . . . and thus can never be adequate” (p. 6). In an attempt to expand upon, and give empirical depth to, this conceptualization of cultural identities, in this chapter I am concerned with mapping the articulations that form the complex structure that constitutes my cultural citizenship. I offer a series of vignettes that I feel provide an important insight into instances where my cultural citizenship was apparent in the physical culture of rugby in the United States; where it was invoked, performed, expected—above all, instances in which it was (re)produced. Hence these portraits—at times interlinking and contingent, others standing alone—are constructed from interviews and [auto]-ethnographic accounts. They aim to create a dialogue between the way others frame my Kiwiness and my rugby body, and how I negotiate, perform, and [un]knowingly subvert these frames.

This is a project seeking to embody and live radical contextualization, and as such I attempt to invoke multiple aspects into each experience (a synthesis of description, thoughts and interview fragments). I see each of these instances, each of these articulations, as a meeting of my New Zealand past, with my migratory, physical present. A body perpetually in motion, that is captured “on route” to another space or position A body grounded in motion and mobile whilst

90 static. A body becoming: performing cultural citizenship and, in the process, constituting a subjectivity in relation to multiple corporeal-discursive positionalities.

In order to undertake this mapping project, I will begin by detailing the context of my participation in this study with a brief description of the South City “Raiders” Rugby Football

Club. After this I will introduce some of the actors at South City. Although not intending to be an exhaustive sample, these actors represent many who I thought to be most influential21 in my participation and therefore important to the current project. After this I move to the crux of my

‘findings.’ As such these next sections employ techniques such as vignettes, multiple voices, temporal distortion and performative writing to begin constructing a “pastiche” of my cultural citizenship in rugby.

I begin by detailing the first encounters I had with South City by putting my experiences into conversation with interviews in order to show the framing of my cultural citizenship. After this I re-center the project on my body by speaking to moments in which my cultural citizenship was performed and implicated on the rugby field. Finally, I provide a performative interview with an English rugby player to which the notions of this study found particular resonation. Thus

I begin to etch out the context in which my kiwi rugby playing body is (re)produced.

21 I judged influence based on three factors. First, positions of influence in terms of the positions of power an actor held in the club meant that they had bigger part to play in how I was placed in ruby spaces. Second, how close I was to an individual with respect to interpersonal relationships was an important factor in their impact on my experience. Finally, how “close” I was to an individual with respect to our positions on the field was an important factor for how my Kiwi rugby playing body was materially constituted. I believe that this sampling method by influence is more conducive to the current project than other methods such as representative sampling. 91

South City “Raiders” Rugby Football Club (SCRFC)

South City RFC was established in 1975. After stalling during the 1980s, the club

received a boost when the local university club decided to conform to NCAA rules, essentially

meaning that non-students and graduate students could no longer play under the university’s

name. As a result the club picked up again in 2009 with the influx of disenfranchised players.

Two of the current members of the club were involved in this revival: Coach, who helped author

the club’s constitution, and Gary22 a halfback that had played every game for the Raiders up until the 2012-13 season, when he did not play as often.

I joined the club officially in August 2012 but trained with, and played for, the sevens23 program as early as June of the same year. In the pre-season competition (August through

November) the club would have, on average, less than 15 players attend practices (two per week). However, the club could, on occasion, field two full teams for a weekend match. Such was the case in the first installment of the fifteen-a-side season—an intra-club match between an under 23 team and an over 23 team. When I began at the club the members varied in terms of education and employment (a large number of graduate students, some professionals, ex-military and number of blue collar workers), race and ethnicity (majority were white Americans with four

African Americans and five white migrants) and age, 18 to 6924 although the majority were in their 20s. At the beginning, the club’s home grounds were on a middle school field. From my years in New Zealand this was easily the roughest field I had ever played on, worse even than the

22 All names provided are pseudonyms 23 Sevens is a variation on the conventional game played with seven players per side (as opposed to 15) with seven-minute halves (as opposed to 40 minutes, and with the exception of the final which is traditionally played with ten minute halves). Sevens is also played in one or two day tournament format. 24 Neil Burns still plays almost every weekend, swearing that he will walk off the field and quit the moment he scores his first try 92 literal paddock I once encountered—sheep droppings and all—in my youth. But it was flat and it had posts. It was very undersized, but so were most of the fields in our area of the country.

During my time at the club various changes occurred. Perhaps the most significant was the clubs newfound association with a local, predominantly African American university. This had two serious repercussions. First, the university gave us access to a better (still slightly short) pitch to host games, along with access to a turf practice field under lights. In addition, players from the university began trying the sport out and joining the club. As a result, the start of the matrix25 season (late January 2013) saw 30 players consistently attend training with almost one new player every session.

Practices tended to begin with a game of “touch”, a modified version of rugby in which a two-handed touch constitutes a tackle which initiates the ball carrier to “go to ground”—as if tackled—or just play the ball between their legs, depending on the variation we were playing.

Apart from this one “constant,” practices varied considerably in terms of programming, from fitness, to skills, to tactics. However, these training sessions often involved the splitting of the forwards and backs to work on specific aspects of the game. In addition, many practices would end in “team runs” in which the full team would run against an imaginary or makeshift defense.

Training would occasionally have “live” or contact situations during which full tackling and contact was demanded.

The Raiders played matches against teams from other cities and towns both in and out of state. The longest travel time I was aware of was four hours driving, whilst the shortest was one hour. During the pre-season South City also hosted three teams at home and fielded an under 23

25 The “matrix” competition was the competitive part of the Raider’s (and all other rugby club’s) calendars. Each matrix consisted of around five teams. These select teams would play a round robin with the winners proceeding into the post season. The post season was a knock out competition where the matrix winners would play the winners of the other competitions in their state conference, progressively moving through the draw which concluded in a national championship match 93 team against a local university development side. The competitive balance of these games fluctuated, with some teams being significantly outmatched. This was especially evident when teams travelled, as some teams—due to the demand of a day, perhaps two, of travel—would struggle to field a full 15 man squad let alone a competitive one. Many of the games, especially in the pre-season, would see the christening of at least one new rugby player. As such, the quality of rugby was not always high (or even mediocre) by Commonwealth standards. This was especially noticeable in the areas of the game surrounding the breakdown (understandably, considering the changes that the IRB26 implements on almost a yearly basis, leaving even regular players in the dark on occasion).

Regardless of the outcome or quality of these matches they would invariably be followed by some sort of function—on the side of the field, or at a local pub—with beer and food provided. Depending on the teams present, this function would be the site of various traditions,

“awards” and, on occasion, singing. It became apparent during one training that some members of the Raiders prided the team’s social prowess, “we have lost plenty of games but we always win the social,” he exclaimed. However, it seems as though the focus of the South City was turning towards performance on the rugby field during my time at the club. As I write this thesis the South City Raiders are making their run at the matrix season, which they have hopes of winning. After which their season goal is to reach the top four in the country and contend for the division three national title.

26 “International Rugby Board” is the governing body of rugby union and is responsible for codifying the rules of the sport 94

Some Actors at South City

Each of these individuals was influential27 in my rugby experiences at South City, and I approached them for interviews as a result. Their opinions and narratives provide the frames within which my cultural citizenship was (re)produced. As a result this collection is not a purely representative sample but a strategic one; devised in order to best contribute to the overall project. It is worth noting that the opinions of these men were given after at least three months

(in many cases up to six months) of being my teammates, acquaintances, and in many respects, friends. Therefore, a lot of the experiences and perceptions that were divulged were the function of the significant rapport that develops between two people that play and socialize on a team.

However, it may also be pertinent to point out that many of the conversations that comprised the following interview materials were vastly different from the interactions we conventionally shared around rugby. In some respects our level of camaraderie and mateship made it more obvious that this was not a “natural” encounter28. In what follows I intend to give a brief

snapshot of each of these actors, specifically with respect to their histories in, and perspectives

of, rugby. This may include, how they got into the sport, why they continue participation, and

what their roles are in the club. These snapshots are designed to provide an introduction to the

social dynamics in SCRF, and a tentative insight into “American rugby” in general. They also

introduce the relationships I had in this club, relationships that I detail further as this chapter

progresses.

27 I judged influence based on three factors. First, positions of influence in terms of the positions of power an actor held in the club meant that they had bigger part to play in how I was placed in ruby spaces. Second, how close I was to an individual with respect to interpersonal relationships was an important factor in their impact on my experience. Finally, how “close” I was to an individual with respect to our positions on the field was an important factor for how my Kiwi rugby playing body was materially constituted. I believe that this sampling method by influence is more conducive to the current project than other methods such as representative sampling. 28 I will detail shortly how various subject positions (i.e. rugby player, researcher) had salience in each of these contexts 95

Coach

Started playing rugby at the age of 19 in 1980 in a small town in Canada, his country of

birth. One of the reasons he has stuck with the sport is that “rugby attracts the sort of people that

I like to be around, you know, honest, hard working . . . we’ve got blue collar, white collar, seem

to mix together quite well, that’s what I like about it.” However, in saying that he was aware that rugby in America is still considered to be some what of a deviant sport: “my experience has been that rugby players are looked at… you know, a little bit off one side of the other right.” The value of South City in this instance being, “when you’re a group, you’re all together off to one side… which is just fine.” His aspiration is to develop SCRFC into the type of clubs he played for in Canada, a young men’s club of influence, charity and fellowship,

and it’s getting there, it’s getting better. More like a, you know, a brothers and arms thing

than it is anything else, the fellowship and the camaraderie and the rest of it comes…

now it started out, these guys were just a bunch of fellas that liked to drink beer, but I

think our little beer drinking outfit has become a rugby team.

In relation to this drinking culture that has traditionally accompanied rugby in America he sees the emphasis changing towards physical fitness and away from socializing at after-match functions. But in his eyes there still remains something to the sociability of rugby that, in a unique way, complements the physicality on the pitch:

it doesn’t seem to matter how hard you hit that guy, you know, how, if he’s bleeding, we

broke a guy’s shoulder last year, he was at the pub, after he had is, got his ah sling over

he comes and we’ll play him again next year, and he’ll be there. And he’s having beers

and we’re buying him beers and, you know, it just breaks all that down, “no hard

feelings,” “we didn’t do that on purpose,” you know, that was a good clean tackle

Owen29

Grew up in “the Valleys,” southern Wales. He began playing rugby around the age of 5 and played through both high school and club avenues that lead to regional representation, and ultimately international representation at the under 18s level. After his identification as an emerging talent he moved to New Castle to play for a professional club. Unfortunately a series of injuries, most notably a spate of concussions, prematurely ended Owen’s rugby career. Sadly, the same injuries still plague his day-to-day life. Owen migrated to the United States where his family now lives, and where he recently took on a more committed coaching role (alongside his occasional playing) at SCRFC. Over time I came to see that Owen was very proud of his

Welshness, and what rugby says about his nationhood and in particular, “the Valleys.” Indeed, he

told particular stories about his citizenship with respect to rugby:

This big solid center ran through me and busted up my shoulder, but when I got up I

showed no pain, out of pride. Then ten minutes later I absolutely leveled another player

on their team, and it was a little bit late, after he’d given the pass, and he was furious, but

I was so proud of the pats on the back and the comments . . . for me it’s not so much that

I’m playing for Tallahassee, I’m playing as a Welshman . . . another example is, I got a

text from a mate saying that they heard about this six-foot-something, two hundred a

sixty pound Welsh outside-half playing for Tallahassee and that he was smashing people.

And I was so proud of that, not so much the fear of me as player but that those ideas were

associated with me as a “Welsh outside-half”

As such he still wants to prove his potential in rugby, which is one of the driving forces behind

his coaching. This also provides an issue of tension for Owen because of the lower levels of

talent and commitment in the United States, “I was very frustrated here, it didn’t feel like I was

29 All names and titles in this document are pseudonyms 97 representing well, even in the coaching role I feel like I need to be involved in good rugby, or at least a certain type of rugby.” However, despite Owen’s recent focus on coaching his passion for the game remained in terms of playing:

If I take another bad hit to the head I might die [because of concusions], but I would still

play. If [my old team] called me up I would go play even if I knew the next hit would kill

me I would play without question . . . even with the kids, well maybe not if I was still

married, but I just feel like I never reached my potential

Miles

Miles30 began playing at the age of eleven at his local club in England. He has played pretty much ever since reaching the first team of his original club (a high level of rugby). He moved to the United States in 2008 at the age of 23, and one of the first things he did upon arrival was locate the nearest rugby club. This was partly because of the culture around rugby as

“a band of brothers”—it is not just a sport in Miles’ eyes.

Sam

Currently the head coach of the local university club Sam began playing at the same university he still coaches at in 2004. However, he took a year off to go to New Zealand and play. He saw this as a learning experience, specifically in terms of improving his coaching. From his experience he sees New Zealand rugby as played at a higher intensity when it comes to contact. But that is not to say that he thinks American rugby is lacking in physicality,

I don’t think they [New Zealand rugby players] are any more physical, like Americans

are probably more physical, but not efficient at being physical . . . I think Americans will

30 Miles and his perspectives on rugby takes a larger role in the later portions of this chapter 98

run into people harder but they won’t run in with the proper um body position so their

energy isn’t transferred as well and they are not as effective or as efficient.

He also found that his American and New Zealand rugby experiences differed in terms of the off

the field cultures:

the North American experience of rugby to me is more centered off the field than on the

field . . . [in New Zealand players would still] go to the clubhouse and grab a couple of

pitchers and hang out, and people would sing songs but they’d just sing normal, popular

songs not these ahh you know, these American songs31.

Sam thinks that this off-the-field culture serves a central purpose to many other American rugby

players,

to me all that stuff comes back to like ahh, who plays the game, you know like ah… in

New Zealand it’s a major sport so like the best athletes play rugby but in the States it’s a

marginal sport its not one of the top sports so its like you’re getting guys that have

probably been out-casted from other sports playing, so they are trying to find their niche,

so how do they solidify their niche? They sing these songs and do all these off the field

stuff to run off real, you know, people that are serious about sports… so that’s my, that’s

how I view the sport of rugby in the States, to be honest

31 Although this singing drinking culture is a significant aspect of rugby in America—potentially the most important aspect of the masculine identity projects of many of these men—I have decided to focus on the more embodied on-the-field aspects of the sport for this analysis. However, it is worth detailing some of this off-the-field culture. The after match function at South City invariably included kegs of beer and traditional award presentations with resulting drinking challenges or on occasion nudity (the player to score their first try is labeled “zulu warrior” and must run around the bar, naked, to chanting, whilst beer is poured over him). In addition, at least one “song” is always sung. The song that is most often sung is “Saturday’s a rugby day” which includes misogynistic themes (despite the fact that it was one of the most “tame” songs I bore witness to). I have often noticed that many people in attendance seem to be put off by these songs. For an account that was disturbingly similar to mine see Schacht (1996; 1997). 99

Regardless of rugby’s issues, Sam sees lots of things that rugby has to offer if it could be

structured as a more inclusive sport.

Sebastian

Although deciding at a young age that rugby would be the sport for him, Sebastian did

not have the opportunity to play until attending college in 2004. His rugby team—at a highly

regarded academic school for the liberal arts—was not taken particularly seriously in terms of the playing aspects (more so the drinking):

When I was in college the perception of rugby players was very negative because of the

particular way that the club at my college was conducted, which I think was largely ah

kind of a reactionary thing to the way that the school was very academically focused, a

lot of people there were very, sort of, you know, nerdy… um including a lot of the rugby

players and it was a way to kind of celebrate the ahh, the id and to, you know, construct a

very aggressively masculine self identity in the face of an environment that requires

everyone to be ahh extremely focused on their academic work

For him rugby offers a great opportunity to meet other people that he would not usually get the chance to meet, and a sport that allows a lot of physical agency. However, he suggests that playing rugby has not had a very good affect on his alcohol consumption. Indeed, he feels that he has to negotiate a culture that is quite aggressively masculine, especially with regards to drinking cultures. Regardless, Sebastian goes out of his way to consume as much rugby as he can, and as such his rugby identity is very important to him. Although he acknowledges. “in the grand scheme of things it’s really not a huge part of my identity ah… you know I spend more time just

writing than I do playing rugby. But I don’t think of myself as a writer”

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Theo

Theo first saw rugby on television around the age of 12, after which he thought it looked like a sport he wanted to play. However he did not get the opportunity to play until college.

Although what originally drew him to the sport were the physical aspects, he now understands the mental aspects of this game. He sees rugby as a worldwide fraternity and as such really enjoys the brotherhood that is part of rugby. He is currently the club president of SCRFC.

Charlie

Charlie began playing rugby in 2003 in the Air Force Academy. An environment that shared a lot of values with rugby in terms of “embracing the suck.” Personally, he liked the team environment of rugby, the camaraderie. In addition, he felt that he was always the guy that did the hard yards—was willing to work—and believes that rugby rewards this attitude. As a result, he thinks rugby appeals to the common man more than other sports. In general, Charlie thinks that rugby appeals to the American culture because “we all want to feel like we are a superstar at some point.”

Charlie is also often the leader in “rugby songs,” especially when South City has home games. He sees these off-the-field aspects as important for bringing the two teams together in that “it’s not very American to congratulate the opposition” so songs serve to “break the ice.”

When I asked him about the questionable themes present in these songs he said:

It’s like rugby songs are supposed to be as dirty and gross and nasty as possible like…

it’s weird because… I don’t talk like that anywhere else, like if I talked like that at work I

would, but the songs that we sing, they’re sort of funny but… in a way it’s almost like…

it’s over the top, because you always have to out do yourself like, the verses that we sing

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in some of these songs are ridiculously vile, so, rugby, while it is fun in commradery can

sometimes lend itself to like… like if there was a girl that I really was dating, I wouldn’t

bring her to rugby, come on now!... would she like to see me up on a table?

I interjected: “So what about like, cause there were girls there the other night. How did…?”

“Oh those were different girls though” replied Charlie through a large grin, almost laughing

through his gestures “come on now!”

This led Charlie to talk about the split that rugby required of one’s social and personal

lives:

you almost have to have two separate lives, rugby in America at least… there is no, the

women that you would have to find that would be able to put up with rugby in its

entirety, from the practices twice a week and the game, the injuries, taking away from,

and I don’t even have kids or family and i’m giving up, can you imagine? Joseph has two

kids, can you imagine how much his wife yells at him [huuuh, with shiver] I can’t even

think about it. so you’ve got that, and then coupled with that, after you’re done whipping

your own ass on saterday you’ve got to get drunk with your buddies and sing dirty songs,

and you want me to chill here and be with you? Can you imagine? No. no lady that you,

not-not even the good ones, at least not, no they-they’d go somewhere else. So we have

to keep those things separate, like, I had a, I had a girl I’d invite to the game, like a girl

I’d invite to the games but she doesn’t come to the social, socials are for… rugby girls32

32 There is clearly something here that requires critical attention. Again I concede that I neglected these issues in favor of the focus on my cultural identity. Here I am trying to show that rugby meant something different to all the people at this club. These men were pursing their own identity projects, positioning themselves in particular ways. Although I am trying to avoid generalizing or making claims, I am trying to evoke how the American identity project in rugby was both, not generalizable but also quite different from my New Zealand one. 102

Although he likes to be a part of this “weird culture” he recognizes it is viewed as deviant by many other people. For example,

while I wear my bruises as a badge of honor, I think other people look at it as… they

actually look down upon, and almost… like in a sense, like they are judging like… like

they look at you like a Neanderthal, you need contact to make you feel alive? And maybe

not so much, I enjoy the fact that rugby is a battle within my own mind but people can’t

appreciate that, on the outside they see me, in a tight shirt and little shorts, trying to hit

somebody else, and that’s all there is

Will

Will first experience playing full contact rugby was four years ago, in his first year of college, for the local university team. He notices some difference between his university club experiences and South City. He thinks that South City has more of a team feel and is more fun, but is less of an athletic pursuit (compared to the university side). Although he doesn’t actually enjoy the contact side of the sport as much, he enjoys how the game moves so much so that there is always something going on.

However, Will does not really like the singing or the off-the-field culture, “I think it’s pretty stupid.” For him the overwhelming theme is vulgar. Although he likes a dirty joke, this is not so much the case when it’s yelled out to the bar. He elaborated by saying:

There was a perception that that is what the culture was around the world and I think that

that became a huge part of it initially when rugby started. So I think the older guys that’s

how they started, for them that’s part of rugby that’s how it’s always been. I think for the

younger guys, it’s not so much about the culture, it’s a practical thing “why are we

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singing it’s stupid,” and you know “and other people think it’s stupid”. And also it think

that along with the singing goes a good amount of drinking, and I think that for the

younger guys… it’s not… I mean… I’m not gonna say that older people like to drink

more than younger people because that’s not true, but I think that, on a sports team it’s

hard to get into… like going out and getting super drunk after you’ve just, you know,

you basically had an eighty minute workout and I don’t… well I know for me, and I

know a couple of other guys that feel the same way, it’s like, ‘I just worked out’ you

know, I don’t wanna go out and just get sauced… it just doesn’t seem like it really goes

together, I think the younger guys are more concerned with fitness and that kind of

translates into that as well… for me anyway

Indeed, he doesn’t see anything particularly manly about these performances. Instead they represent to him a kind of primitive posturing that is based on an outdated way of being a man.

Being a man in contemporary United States is “not acting like a fool” but “being a gentleman.”

Brycey

Currently the captain of the Raiders, Brycey is in his third year of playing rugby. He likes the fact that rugby is a thinking man’s game with flow and physicality. He definitely had pre- conceived notions of rugby as hard-core, expectations that the sport has lived up to “because after every game [he] feels like [he’s] been in a car accident.” However he likes the values of rugby and really wants to help people realize that they can play the sport safely and enjoy it.

Rugby is important for Brycey’s identity but he too is sensitive to the perceptions others have of the sport:

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I want people to know I play rugby, I volunteer that piece of information quicker than I

would something else um but I feel like there is a perception to it, it feels like a cult or

something, I don’t know, it’s weird because you invest a lot of time in it and like it goes

back to the brutality of it I mean even a lot of football players think rugby is crazy

K-Two

Arriving in the United States three months after me, K-Two is also a master’s student in my graduate program. He began playing rugby in New Zealand at 10 or 11 years old after his family migrated to New Zealand from England. He continued to play through his initial years at university. Although he initially played rugby “for fun,” he thinks there may have been some social pressures to play in university. Not so much in terms of explicit pressures rather that, being a rugby player held a fair amount of social capital amongst other rugby players and in rugby circles. As a result he found that his job on a golf course in senior year provided a good excuse to justify discontinuing his participation. However he always planned on playing rugby when he came to America, because

I thought it would be easy and… I was ok back home but I was never a star you know,

my skills were never recognized, it was more like leadership and that not awesome stuff

[chuckle from me] so I always planned to play, a good way to meet guys in a new town

Myself

In the description that follows I intentionally provide a preliminary exploration into the multiple and contesting roles that I take in this project. These three are just a few; they are not exhaustive or exclusive. My aim is to use these various labels as a way of pointing to the

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mutability of identity work and, perhaps of more importance, to bring to light the different roles

we take in research and the reflexive implications this acknowledgement raises. I describe these

roles in such a way that alludes to the salience of my subjectivity(ies). I inhabit these spaces in a

combination of cohering and contesting positions each of which becomes more or less apparent

at any time, yet always present. This speaks to the “messiness” of embodied co-presence in

research. In this project I experienced a complex navigation of social and empirical ties in which

masculinity and citizenship were implicated in ways that were not just sequestered to the field

but were also apparent in my interviews. As it will become apparent, I was still a rugby player

when I—as the researcher—turned on the Dictaphone. And this meant that I was allowed into

some avenues in this research, in terms of what I could ask, what I could share. However, it is

important to note that I also found myself barred from accessing other routes of inquiry. As

chauvinistic as it may sound, I was still a rugby-playing kiwi male, and I found it difficult to

shed that role completely, regardless of how salient my researcher self became.

Chris. Born and raised in Canterbury New Zealand, I started playing rugby at 10 years old for West Melton RFC. Remaining in club rugby until the age of 17, I continued playing rugby for my high school through senior year during which I captained my first XV. I did not pursue rugby at university, becoming disillusioned with the sport and the central place it held in

New Zealand society33. However, upon my migration to a university in the south of the United

33 This is a difficult idea for me to unpack here, although I recognize that this project requires more insight than I can offer. I will begin by confessing that I find very little value in gaining vicarious achievement from association with a sports team. Sport, for me, is for playing, or marveling over other individual or team athletic achievements. I find no reason to support national or professional teams—to celebrate their victories or suffer their defeats. As a result, the mediated dominance of rugby and the blind enthusiasm with which people enjoyed it frustrated me. Why not other sports? Why not the women’s rugby team who remain far superior on the international stage? Some of this resentment also resulted from my own personal experience. During my undergrad I found the social status afforded to rugby 106

States I decided to take rugby up again. Although originally intending to play for the university

side here in the States, I tried the local club as a result of my ineligibility as a graduate student.

The simple and obvious reasons I sought to play rugby included the idea that I might find some

success in a sport that was not as developed in the United States. It also seemed like a way to use

my upbringing in a way that would provide me with some social capital. Simply put, a good way

to meet some fellas in a different country. This role represents the cultural moorings that I

brought with me to the United States. This subject position negotiates a particular brand of

cultural masculinity, and becomes salient in the project of differentiating myself in American

rugby spaces.

K-One. Given this nickname during my initial trainings at SCRFC, K-One (meaning

Kiwi-One) became a recurring (re)production of New Zealand cultural identity in/on/through my rugby playing body. Constituted by both frames that result from other’s perceptions, expectations and assumptions of what a kiwi, rugby-playing male is, and, my performance, negotiation and subversion of those frames, K-One represents a project of Kiwi cultural citizenship in American rugby. I take the role of K-One almost exclusively upon entering the rugby space, such that this notion of self is most salient to the rugby field and the pubs I attend afterwards. K-One is also differently evoked by particular individuals in that rugby space. Team-mates and coaches call me

K-One and in the process project a representation of New Zealand rugby onto my body (at other times I am reminded of where I should be and what I should be doing to fill that projection).

However, K-Two does not conjure K-One on the field (and neither do I construct him in that

players to be annoying. I can’t really think of any other word to describe it. I believe that no small part of this stemmed from jealousy on my behalf. Perhaps my movement to the other side of the rugby/social dichotomy had thrown me. I had chosen my sport (volleyball) but it had no social value comparatively, and that rankled me. 107

way, but for the purpose of keeping a coherent pseudonym I will proceed to refer to him in that

way). Because of our familiarity with the multiple ways one can be “Kiwi”—or perhaps because

of the strangeness inherent in categorizing an-other as “Kiwi”—we communicate with each other by name. In fact, more often than not we communicate with each other by virtue of vernacular and bodily awareness. In this respect, although I may be averse to acknowledging my Kiwi nickname I do play up to it, with perhaps a false notion that Chris is still present and autonomous behind that projection and performance. Indeed, as we will come to see, the projection of K-One has very real discursive implications and, as a result, potentially material affectivities.

The researcher. A master’s student at a local university, my researcher self intermittently enters into, and out of, SCRFC. Although always present this aspect of my “self” became a more involved actor in SCRFU after the decision to use my participation as a thesis project. Although more often at the sidelines when it comes to rugby, this perspective has lead to me questioning my involvement, particularly after engaging in literature such as Schacht’s

(1997) who concludes, “no longer [can] I aspire to socially accepted and expected normative notions of being a “successful” man; once again, being “superior” to others by aggressively

(sometimes violently) seeking out so-called subordinates to demonstrate this arrogant state of being” (p. 1). This role provides the biggest source of conflict in my rugby playing experience.

Although I am almost never the researcher in the 80 minutes for which a game goes for, occasional breaks in play (especially those with verbal or physical violence) and the activities that surround the actual game (pregame, half-time, post-match speeches) provided instances of silent criticism and detachment. Most often I was in the role of researcher during aftermatch functions. This was especially the case when teams were “singing” or performing other traditions

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such as the “Zulu warrior”34. I found myself awkwardly attempting to detach myself from these spaces, with other players that shared my concerns. However, it was apparent that the projection of K-One was still a factor on these occasions, in that I was a part of the culture by virtue of my presence, a body dirty, with cuts and bruises so obviously a rugby body, and therefore part of the occasion. However, my researcher role did have a bigger role to play in interview situations, especially when I had the presence to employ epistemic interviewing techniques in order to challenge my participants’ views.

First Contacts: Framing Kiwi Cultural Citizenship

In this section I draw on my interviews and autoethnographic accounts to begin to map out the structure of articulations that I aim to construct in this thesis. From the brief introductions of the context and actors at SCRFC, I move to develop some depth with regards to my rugby experiences. In order to achieve this I have structured a series of vignettes. These brief accounts draw upon a mixture of description, interview fragments and memories of thought in order to paint a multilayered account of the articulations and flows at work. As a result of the complex nature of these vignettes I have attempted to stick to a “formula” when representing each layer.

This “formula” is as follows:

Writing that begins on the left margin (or indented from the left margin at the start of a paragraph) predominately denotes descriptive account of the experience. It is the material context in which the account occurred—the “presence” to which the other layers are speaking.

On occasion this account will describe the context of an interview, with which I articulate my experiences.

34 A player is proclaimed as the “Zulu warrior” when they score their first rugby try. At the after match function he is required to run around the bar, naked, to chanting, whilst beer is poured over him. 109

Writing on the first indent is typically; “a quote from an interview” (not-italics, signified

by speech marks), an excerpt from my field notes (italics), my thoughts during that

experience (italics), or reflections on what was occurring (also italics). When using

interview excerpts I have conventionally provided a small introduction to contextualize

the interview and the interviewee. Each of these aspects of the vignette are designed to

“speak to”, articulate with, or provide meaning for the first layer of description.

Writing on the second indent, in turn, is designed to speak to the previous layer of

description. These inserts can take the form of further interview accounts, deeper

level memories, feelings, thoughts or reflections

So on…

I begin with first contacts—as instances of strange encounters, representative assumptions, and generative interactions.

Encounters with Giants: Facing Large Expectations

My first time walking towards rugby practice—from the car park over the poorly kept middle school fields—I was struck by two things. The first, which I made apparent to my companion, was the amount of anthills in the ground, “you guys play on this?” The other, which

I kept strictly to myself, was the size of the half dozen men that were warming up on the field— big boys that kept getting bigger as we got closer. One of those large bodies belonged to Coach.

Field notes: After shaking his hand I have to check mine is still there, big mitts.35

In that initial interaction I was certainly questioning myself. Checking myself, especially my

Kiwiness. I was reproducing that same conversation that I had every time I met somebody,

35 “Mitts” slang for hands in New Zealand. 110 especially a rugby somebody. I was carefully crafting my inflections—carefully positioning myself in the discourse that I knew I was by default apart:

“Where are you from?”

“Um, New Zealand”

“Um.” Interjection. Used to express doubt or uncertainty

“That’s awesome”

“Um” was the key aspect of that interaction for me, I used it to inflect as much

doubt as possible. I infused it with twenty-three years of tall poppy syndrome.36

To me it said, “yes I know what you are thinking, and I am from New Zealand, I

know what that means, don’t expect too much.”

Whereas, for K-Two (although at the time of this encounter he was yet to

attend a South City training or event) the ensuing conversations went:

“Where are you from?”

“New Zealand”

No doubt, or uncertainty. He Says “New Zealand” with

pride because he knows being from New Zealand makes

him better than everyone else on the field. And he wants

them to know it.

“That’s awesome”

I found out later that in that initial encounter Coach was also positioning me. In an interview more than six months after that first interaction—and after many matches, after-matches, and

36 “Tall poppy syndrome” is a social phenomenon in which people of genuine merit are variously discouraged because their talents and achievement distinguish them from their peers. In New Zealand, it has come to be internalized as a valuation for what some might refer to as “severe” humility amongst its peoples. 111

interactions outside of strictly rugby based events (including “Yanks”-giving37 and Christmas in which he invited all those without families around to his home for dinner and company)—we once again found ourselves in a bar, a couple of beers between us. In one of the longer interviews

I conducted (approximately an hour and a half), Coach candidly gave his opinions of rugby in conversational form, confidently, and with plenty of mirth, or equally, gravity as each point warranted:

“it was pretty exciting actually to find that we had some kiwis in town . . . so meeting you

and K-Two was, I really felt like I had something, I really did, and you know I thought

you were a little small, I must admit, and when you said you were flanking and stuff and

you hadn’t you know, had played in High School and stuff like that. Your size, because I

know that North American athletes are typically world wide considered big on the

international stage and almost any sport, you know, and rugby included . . . but again this

is third division rugby, so I figured even if you played high school rugby in New Zealand

then you’d probably be [chuckling] pretty darn good out in division three rugby in

southern United States [laughter]… I don’t think my size and the size of my hand typifies

the regular athlete around here [laughter]”

Later in that same first practice, after some more introductions—after shaking more large hands—we moved into a game of touch38—much better. I was still nervous, but on the field

things were easier. The opponents were still big but touch was my game, made for my body, my

skills.

37 Our foreign take on Thanksgiving, in which we discussed the various things we would give the “Yanks.” With tamer suggestions including universal health care. 38 “Touch,” once more, is a modified version of rugby in which a two-handed touch constitutes a tackle which initiates the ball carrier to “go to ground”—as if tackled—or just play the ball between their legs, depending on the variation we were playing 112

We would play touch every sunny afternoon in my undergraduate city: Dunedin

(unfortunately the climate was not conducive to providing an abundance of worthy days).

The competition was fierce. And, although the skills were not always distributed equally,

everyone had an idea of the tactics and logic of the game in general. Lines were run,

touches were initiated, the dummies were quick, defense was loud and up in a line.39

When we began playing touch is when I started to feel confident for the first time. Although I was still checking myself I felt that I belonged on the field, in the game. Talking came easier, and I began to do it a lot.

In hindsight, a lot of my “talking” was really just speaking, in Kiwi vernacular, the terms

by which I knew touch. These were the same terms that we used to communicate on the

fields in Dunedin (see above). In reality, these terms had no “function” at South City that

day. Only myself and one other person on the team knew what I was talking about.

However, that in it self may have been the “function” of my talk—a way to legitimize

myself. After all, it definitely felt as though the talk and the confidence came together.

The touch game really began clicking for me when I began linking with Owen, who I found later to be a very experienced Welsh rugby player. At the time I thought it might be our commonwealth accents, perhaps it was the way we each held the ball, or the way we moved on the field. Regardless there was some sort of connection

“Straight away we connected, we were running lines off each other,40 [we] knew where

each other should be and trusted that they would be there for the pass”

39 None of these terms is really important to understand for the purposes of this thesis. However, it may be worth noting that these phrases constitute a particular vernacular that is a) not overly common on American rugby fields b) privileged as a sign of knowledge c) thrown around with ease and perhaps a sense of performance by foreign players 40 Here Owen is referring to the way that a player with and/or without the ball will run an angle at a gap with the purpose of a) having the player in possession give the pass such that the runner is practically 113

However, I later found that Owen had heard I was in town from the local

university coach. He told me during our interview41:

“When I heard there were Kiwis in town I really had some hope for the club . . . I’ve

coached in town for years and it’s so frustrating to see the state of rugby in America. I

thought here is an opportunity to build a real rugby team, with some legitimate rugby

players, internationals, and I don’t just mean legitimate skills but foreigners that

understand the culture, and are knowledgeable about the game.”

Perhaps that first interaction—an interaction between bodies in space rather than

subjects through language—was more purposeful than ludic, for the both of us.

Kiwis on Tour: Privilege, Performance, and Perception

The first contact that K-two made with the club was at the SCRFC pub-crawl, barely a

week after my first handshake with Coach.

I was apprehensive about another kiwi coming to town. It put into perspective the

stereotypes I had been playing up. Another New Zealand male, one who had more

experience on the rugby pitch would surely show me for what I was, show how a real

Kiwi played rugby.

We were at the first bar of the evening, barely through our second drink and enjoying the

conversation with another dozen or so fellas. Names easily given and quickly forgotten. Faces

the only metric for distinguishing between players I had encountered before from those that were

new to me. Coach came over placing a hand on each of our shoulders, making a small group of

through the gap already, or b) tying up the defense and freeing space for the player in possession or other players. Running good lines is premised on an understanding of three-dimensional dynamic space, the flow of the game, and the requirements for making space. 41 I introduce the context of Owen’s interview later in this section. I refrained from including it here because I felt that the narrative was very complex as is 114 the only people I knew by name at that time—sequestered for a few seconds from the rest. He said:

“I’ve got a ten and a fifteen jerseys to be filled boys, debate amongst yourselves and get

back to me”

Ten is the number conventionally worn by the first five, also called the fly half and

outside half. “The heartbeat of the side and arguably the most influential player

on the pitch. Almost every attack will go through the fly half, who also has the

responsibility of deciding when to pass the ball out to the centres and when to

kick for position. The fly half must orchestrate the team’s backline, deciding what

rehearsed moves to put into action and reacting to gaps in the defense[sic]”

(www.rfu.com)

Fifteen denotes the fullback. “Lining up the entire back line, the full back is the

closest thing that rugby has to a sweeper in defense[sic]. But they also receive

deep kicks from the opposition, so they must be comfortable catching high balls

and launching attacks from resulting possession” (www.rfu.com)

Six months later I asked K-Two about his first experiences over lunch (all you can eat on campus made for hurriedly stuffing ourselves while the other answered/asked/spoke with eyes drawn distractedly to the imminently consumed platefuls). I considered us pretty good mates by this stage and it showed in our laughter as we reminisced over those circumstances, those formative days. He was incredulous at being offered the two most important positions in the backline, perhaps even the field, before he had even made an appearance at training:

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“there is an expectation for kiwis to be good at rugby, regardless of their experience. I

don’t even know if they asked me, I just said I was a kiwi and could pass the ball with a

spiral42 . . .”

In my later interviews I asked other actors at the club if they had any expectations about

K-Two or I as New Zealanders. The following accounts are based off the interviews that I conducted with South City actors. As a result I reverse the flow of the vignette such that the interviews speak first and my recollections provide the secondary layer. My aim in this is to show how my teammates expectations, assumptions and perceptions articulated with my rugby experiences.

In the same interview I described early with Coach, over the same beer even, he spoke highly of another kiwi rugby player he “put up43” in Canada:

You’re reputation precedes you, that’s for sure . . . certainly when I think of New Zealand

I think of rugby (Coach)

I interviewed our Captain Brycey, in a Cuban restaurant, over lunch. We had a centrally-located table outside. It was busy, loud—hard to focus. And awkward, two men sharing lunch in low- seated chairs, when they are more used to leaning on a high top.44 As a result I stopped recording

when lunch was served to eat (something I did not do during most of the interviews). We chatted

about things of interest—his upcoming wedding—the script gone. When the conversation turned

back to rugby it was easier, a discussion between two invested, interested people. It reminded me

in some ways of his captaincy style. It is hard to buy his pre-game “psych-ups”. They are too

forced for me. Instead he is a leader by example; seemingly impassive on the field to some, but

42 A rugby pass is executed with two hands on the ball, from the hip, and should spiral through the air in flight. This helps the ball maintain its trajectory, distance, and speed 43 To let someone live in your home 44 Called a “leaner” in New Zealand this is referring to tables which are designed to replicate the height of a bar top for drinking. 116 you can see the emotion he puts into his play—a passion which he readily acknowledged. When

I asked him about his expectations of me he said:

“I actually kind of wanted you to be vice captain or something you know, I would take

the forwards and you would take the backs, which seemed to be where things were going

. . . I guess I had expectations of you guys being better players than the rest of the team

and the rest of the other players and I guess you could attribute that to you being from

New Zealand I think that ties directly into your cultural stereotypes, ah, I did expect you

two to be playing on a different level to the rest of the guys”

These expectations Brycey had seemed to be reinforced by my actions,

“. . . when we were practicing, doing a drill or playing or something other guys were

participating but maybe kind of quite just going through the motions. I noticed that you

were trying to pick the guys up “come on boys lets go” you know, and took a little bit of

control I feel like, over the drill and, which was good . . . I perceived that you had a lot of

experience playing which may or may not be true. But I felt like you could be useful”

This led to Brycey attributing me to particular roles,

“I wanted to learn from you, I remember consulting you a lot even in practices and in

games trying to work stuff out . . . I just kind of wanted to go with what you thought was

like comfortable, like I felt that in a way I was kind of yielding to your opinion on the

matter because I felt like you knew more than me”

I certainly feigned it. Basics I could do. Such as explaining and demonstrating a

“piggy ball”—its function, what it was designed to achieve. Other times I was

asked questions I did not know the answer to: “when should I box kick?” “Where

should I stand when defending the blind side?” That is of course not to say that I

117

did not answer. I gave an opinion in all cases, often more confidently than I felt.

This was, after all, part of my role.

Another player to speak about the expectations and assumptions of Kiwi rugby players was

Theo. Theo played outside me in the backline and he often gave me a ride to training on

Tuesdays, so we had a pretty good rapport. During our interview however, I could not help feeling like our conversation (over lunch again) was more of a plug for rugby, for the club, rehearsed and given by a member of the senior management (which he was). In saying that, I do not really have any doubt that he told me what he believed. It just felt like the ideas of brotherhood and inclusivity came up a lot. His response to my questions of assumptions, expectations and privilege was:

“I think with the rugby team you were probably… welcomed a bit differently than

maybe… a new… American player might be welcomed to the team, it’s still… I mean

joining a rugby team is still… kind of a special thing for everybody . . . but maybe people

were more ready and willing to accept people from New Zealand knowing the great

tradition of rugby that comes out of New Zealand . . .”

…I remember clearly when Coach first offered me a position at full back. It was

the very first practice I went to. Before he put fly half and full back on the table

for K-Two and I at the pub-crawl (I ended up playing fly half for the season). His

proposition ended with, “[we’ve] never had anyone who knew what to do with the

ball, if you are interested”. I replied, “I’ll have to work on my boot”—what I

believed to be a classic kiwi answer. My field notes for that day read, “shit, how

the fuck do you play full-back?” I had played in the forwards my whole life, I

didn’t really think I knew anything. But I had an accent, I was athletic enough, I

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could pass competently and I had “chatter”. Ultimately, my teammates and

coaches bought my performance but there were certainly many times when I

wasn’t buying it…

Theo continued with regards to Kiwi privilege…

I think it [being a new Zealander, with an accent] does play a roll um… I mean I wish it

didn’t necessarily, and not that it does with you guys, I think you both came with a lot of

skills and a lot of abilities that… ah helped you to… to make the first team, and to, to

make the spots that you have. So… I don’t think there’s been any unfair treatment here,

but I do think it does affect other people. Like when… you as fly half are calling out play

calls and your opposing fly half, maybe as a younger guy, a less experienced guy, I think

that automatically… kind of puts a fear in them, or a uncertainty in their skills and

abilities because they are playing against somebody who they may believe has been

playing a lot longer than they have even if they didn’t start playing until they came into

America, you know. So I do think it can have an effect and I do think probably that in

certain clubs there are… favoritism aspects, but I don’t think that’s happened to you

guys, I think you… both came prepared to fill the spots that you are in (Theo)

I also interviewed Miles, an Englishman with more than 15 years of rugby playing experience,

over dinner and a drink. We were good mates—bonding over similar rugby histories (“it’s too

hot, rugby’s meant to be played in the cold,” “hard out bro”), games played together, and the

occasional night out. These nights tended to revolve around our nationalities in “playful”

competition with each other. He tended to leave me behind when it came to spirits (“soft kiwis”), but I was happy with my resounding beer pong victories. During this interview we both recounted the formative moment of our relationship. An argument on the field in which we

119

recognized in each other a mutual respect for the other’s rugby knowledge and leadership. When

I asked him about his first perceptions of me, he replied:

“as soon as I heard your voice and like heard the accent I was just like “great, Kiwis” you

know, New Zealand’s sport is rugby, yea they have other sports but that’s what they are

know for, the All Blacks, so these guys can play you know like obviously young and in

shape good to go and they are keen so I was just… but you never know what to expect . .

. until you see the first training session with the hands or tackling someone”

Fieldnotes, August 14: Realized how bad I really was today. Got put in first five

(fly half), running the backline, didn’t even know where to stand. Turns out your

outside foot is meant to be up—helps you keep a straight line—have never been

told that. We ran through about 20 times until I finally realized I was passing off

the wrong foot—how fucking amateur is that? The back coach asked me at some

stage “you used to play flanker? seven?,” I replied affirmatively to which he

nodded, saying “me too”. Obviously he knows. Worst thing is, I yelled at Cody

because he was so slow. Get over yourself and get your own job sorted first.

When did you turn into this? What gives you the right to order people around, and

be a smart ass, because you are a Kiwi. Yea Right.”45

Owen,46 a Welshman with an even greater history of rugby—breaking into the professional scene

in his younger days—also had the perception that foreigners were the only players that really

understood rugby. I interviewed him about a month after Coach, in the same table. We had

talked a lot about rugby before, on many social occasions organized in and outside of rugby

circles. His views concerning rugby tended to regard men as essentially Spartan by nature—in

45 This was an allusion to a popular advertising campaign by Tui breweries in which they would use the sarcastic inflection of “Yea Right” to comment satirically on a range of common jokes. 46 Owen was the first player that I had a connection with in my inaugural touch game at South City 120

need of contact, competition and physical interaction. And although we disagreed on some of

these aspects we could discuss many issues critically. When I asked him about his expectations

of me, he replied,

“it was great to have someone finally meeting my expectations, even more than I

expected, in skill in knowledge about the game, ability… well except kicking I guess, I

would have assumed you could kick better, at goal especially”

Kicking was indeed my shortfall. “Obviously I can’t kick particularly well,” I

asked Coach, “is that something you would have expected?”

Coach: “Yes. Very much so”

Coach: “Well you know I say that, I answer that with a yes. . . but a flanker’s47 not

supposed to kick . . . so having said that, yea that’s just because you

stereotypically say “well this guys a kiwi” right, so I figured he can do

everything right, I was surprised, because with the amount of rugby I

would have expected you to play, I thought you would have had a run at it,

but um… ah… yea, you do, you do pigeon hole people from time to time”

During the interview I have described with Brycey, after we had eaten, when the conversation became less forced, he talked about how he felt like he knew people better after playing rugby with them. He passionately spoke of rugby as a survival situation, where one’s instincts are measured. As Coach would say “the proof is in the pudding.” Based on that form of judgment, I asked Brycey how he perceived me on the rugby field.

“I trust you, I mean I don’t know if you think you’re a shit rugby player, I don’t think you

are, but I like being on the field with you because I know when the ball’s in your hands

47 I played flanker through high school. This is a position in the forwards that has fewer set responsibilities but plays an important role in general play in terms of tackling, and gaining and retaining position at the break down. 121 you are going to make a good decision, the majority of the time, I mean we all have our mess ups . . .”

He didn’t say anything specifically; barely even a pause, but I knew exactly what

my “mess up” was. It was our fifth game of the pre-season. We were away, at the

home ground of our biggest rival, whom the Raiders were yet to beat in their

history as a club. It was a good match. We were playing well, winning in all

aspects of the game, bar the scoreboard. However, we were confident. With

possession, and in an attacking position, we were looking to score and take the

lead. The ball came out from the ruck, to me, on the short side. I took it to the line,

eyeing the gap a couple of players out, waiting for someone to run the angle. It’s

my favorite way to break the line. Instead of giving someone the ball and having

them make a hole, let multiple players attack the line without the ball. Hopefully

one will make a hole while the defense’s attention is split between ball handler

and multiple attackers. And ideally, someone will almost be through that hole

before, or as, the pass is given. But that means you have to give a very good, very

flat ball.

I gave it—late. No one had hit the gap as I was hoping. But I gave it

anyway—late. Too late, and not quick enough, to a target too far away. The ball

floated—just a little bit—tailing in the air as I pushed the skip pass. An opponent

snatched it up with ease, ran half of the field and scored to put us out of reach.

Profanities followed. Mouth guard (or “ladies aids” as Coach fondly calls

them) hurled at the ground in frustration. A pointless, solely performative gesture.

I needed to show I was furious with myself. And I was, but not so much because I

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had made a poor decision but because I felt like a one-trick pony. I had success

sure—most of the time I could push the shoulder of my opponent long enough that

a gap would open for me that I could exploit. After that a few mediocre dancing

skills and a fend made to look good by poor tackling would do the rest. But in that

moment I was shown for I what I was. Indeed, I was later told that I had

broadcast that pass for the whole sideline to see. I was so ashamed—a sham.

Built on an accent, and some athleticism.

Rugby Players and Guys that Play Rugby

I interviewed Sebastian four months after meeting him at practice, on campus, where he

works as a teacher. He looked very much like a rugby player the first time a saw him, fully

clothed in rugby purpose gear; shirt and shorts representing his favorite club teams. Indeed,

many of our interactions in our early acquaintance consisted of him asking if I had watched the

latest match in the Six Nations, Heineken Cup, or Super Rugby competitions, “nah,” I invariably

answered, “how was it?” Sebastian would continue to give a detailed, critical, and enthusiastic

account of a match between two teams that I had never heard of before. I nodded, laughed, and

shook my head in the right places, standing there in my ripped plain t-shirt, gym shorts and miss-

matching, shin-length, business socks—sticking out the top of my cheap (yet patriotic48) boots.

Maybe scenes like that contributed to the opinions he shared in our interview:

Men and women who play rugby in the US are, I think, more defined by the fact that they

play rugby than in other countries such as England or New Zealand where rugby is a

more… um is more visible on the cultural radar (Sebastian)

48 They were Adidas, who also sponsor the All Blacks. However, in America it seems as though Nike “cleats” are the preferred 123

The idea that playing rugby was a significant identity project for the Americans in

the team was reiterated by many of the people I interviewed. Brycey, for example,

said, “I want people to know I play rugby, I volunteer that piece of information

quicker than I would something else”

Sebastian continued…

my feeling is that you don’t have anything to prove really coming to our “D” three club

team having growing up playing rugby because ah, you know, it’s kind of old hat to you

playing a sport that you’ve always played. um so, I think you and also K-Two and Miles

from England too… you know, you just sort of… show up and do it, rather than… try

and present yourself in a particular way if that makes sense. Like you know, you’re here

to play rugby so you’re just going to play rugby the way that ah the club wants you to

play rugby to the best of your ability ah you don’t need to sort of, it’s always seemed to

me as though you don’t have to talk about, you know, when you used to play on this team

or that team or you know, something that you remembered from a few years ago

happening because you are just sort of here to play rugby like it’s um it’s sort of… ah… I

dunno it’s interesting because I… I would sort of think of you as a guy that plays rugby,

where as I think of myself as a rugby player, because for me, playing rugby has to define

my identity in a way that perhaps it hasn’t for you (Sebastian)

I asked Brycey what he thought about Sebastian’s perspective, to which he

agreed:

“maybe the difference is you didn’t have to work that hard to earn respect because

it was automatically given to you based on your background, where you came

from you know, do you think there’s any truth to that?” (Brycey)

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There was clearly some sort of discrepancy here between my internal conflicts and negotiations of being a New Zealand rugby player, and how others perceive this identity project. What doe it mean for Sebastian to suggest that I didn’t have to present myself in a particular way, when my own dialogue is saturated with concerns and instances of self presentation? In what ways are similar discrepancies between perception, representation and experience—that I have alluded to in the previous vignettes—implicated in identity projects?

The Logical Place of the Kiwi Body in Rugby

In this section I move towards a “pastiche” of corporeal rugby playing experience. As such I provide a series of vignettes. These are stories that are incomplete but overlap with each other in multiple ways to evoke some understanding of my rugby playing experience; an experience uniquely embodied. I will begin with a small introductory section Rugby Physics,

Two-on-One. This vignette breaks from the framework that I introduced at the start of the chapter in that it is not so much an experience but an introduction to some rugby fundamentals. I then link these fundamental rugby knowledges and skills to my upbringing, and my cultural identity project in the United States. After which I return to the framework I established earlier for structuring vignettes for the remainder of this section. However it is worth noting that I attempt to evoke this opening illustration in the stories that follow to detail how my body interacts with the fundamentals of rugby in often not so fundamental ways.

Rugby Physics, Two-on-One

The simple laws of rugby physics state emphatically “the ball is always faster than the man.” As such, the draw and pass is the fundamental skill in rugby. Boil down backline offense

125 to its simplest form and it is really a whole lot of two-on-ones. Or at least that is what you are trying to create—a two-on-one scenario where you draw the defender such that, by giving the pass he is already committed to you and your teammate—now in possession of the ball—is through the defensive line. Any good coach will drill into you the notion of the draw and pass.

The timing—just long enough to commit the defender. The draw—keep your line, even cut in- field, don’t run your teammate out of space. The pass—on the money.

The simple laws of rugby physics state emphatically “the ball is always faster than the man.” As such, when defending alone against two attackers it is crucial to pick an option and go for it, this is usually the attacker currently in possession of the ball. And it is even more crucial to finish the tackle. Any good coach will drill into you that one of those bodies needs to go to ground with you. This often means making a late tackle—perfectly legal, as long as you are committed. If the attacker draws, passes, and is not tackled then he continues to be a support player. This is a failure because your opponents still have the power of two against one in the scenario in which your team has a cover defender. And maybe any great coach will drill into you that one of those bodies needs to go ground, hard. Smash! the guy that gives the draw and pass— light ‘em up, cut him in half. At the very least he might think twice about doing it again, he might flinch, he might give the pass too early, he might just clean shank49 it when he sees you bearing down on him again.

My father50 taught me the simple laws of rugby physics, “the ball is always faster than

the man.” He coached my team for a couple of years, around the age of twelve. I took it

49 Shank is a slang term designated to a resounding failure when attempting to perform a skill. In terms of a pass a shank may be used to refer to the ball going in the wrong direction from intended; either forward, behind the player, straight at the ground, or out of his reach. 50 I acknowledge that introducing a memory from home at this time seems to break quite strongly with any chronological flow. However, my aim here is to tie cultural moorings of masculinity and citizenship with embodied skills and knowledges in the production of my rugby performance in America 126

for granted at the time, but came to realize later that he was a very good rugby player in

his youth—playing in the outside backs in the highest level of national competition. As a

result I have always felt some disappointment that he put me in the front row as a child—

hooker to be exact. The spot where nobody wanted their kids to play. A spot he knew I

would play without complaint, being his son. I have tended to attribute my rugby

inadequacies to the fact that I played in the forwards since, a position to which my body

was not suited.

Not long before I left for the United States I found myself throwing a (rugby) ball around

in the back yard with my dad and my sister, something I can never remember doing. My sister

was brushing up for an up-coming seven-a-side competition with a regional women’s team.

Dad: “Do you think you’ll play [rugby] in America?”

Me: “I might do”

Dad: “you should”

Me: “yea?”

Dad: “probably go all right with some ball handling,” “jump straight in the backs”

We went on to practice the draw-and-pass; my sister needed a bit of work passing off her left.51 I practiced with intent.

. . . the timing… the draw… the pass…

Sensations of Success

I was riding to my first sevens tournament. My first contact experience in America was looming three hours ahead—my first rugby in four years. I had been to one touch session and

51 Many players, especially beginners tend to favor passing off their dominant hand. Indeed one of the first signs of someone’s rugby inadequacies is if they turn their body to pass off the other side. 127 one cursory sevens training earlier that week, after which Sam, the local university coach and player at South City, had asked if I wanted to play. Sam had picked me up. He was talking rugby, a lot of rugby, a lot of New Zealand rugby, and as hard as I tried I could not keep up.

Crap. My cover is blown. I can’t even talk about rugby, how is he going to expect me to

play the game.

I asked him later whether he picked up on the fact that I didn’t actually know a

much about rugby, that I didn’t follow professional rugby and could barely hold a

conversation back home.

After a good chuckle he replied:

“Um… yeea, a little bit, I didn’t really pick up on the not following professional

but I picked up on that you didn’t know the law as well pretty quick. . . did that

surprise me? No, cause even the Kiwis down there that live in the country didn’t

know who the hell was who . . .”

I’ve been to two trainings. TWO! And I haven’t played for four years! He knows. I can

see him regretting the invitation already. I know I looked ok during the touch session but

that is a pretty classic skill for a New Zealand male to posses.

“. . . when I saw you play I thought you were pretty handy um, and then you told

me you were a flanker and I could see it to be honest like err you weren’t too

confident with all the passing and stuff and that was to be expected and also you

hadn’t played in four years”

I was very conscious of how my New Zealand nationality was setting me up. It seemed at the time it was only setting me up for failure. I was riding to that tournament full of doubt. Full of apprehension. Full of pressure to live up to a idea of rugby that I had been actively trying to

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under perform but an idea that I knew was present in my body, my accent, my nationality. I had

been playing touch, I had been practicing rugby, I had been talking rugby, but could I play rugby? For me proving it always came down to the instance of contact—the tackle.

*******

We made the final of our division in that sevens tournament. I didn’t really have any expectations, in fact I would have undersold our chances, as a result I was pretty satisfied— however tired a day of rugby had made me. In fact the whole experience was quite novel to me.

Despite the fact that this was supposedly my country’s sport, the Americans seemed to be doing a

good job of making their image of it. The tournament was played over three Astroturf fields.

Each scolding hot in the summer sun, hungrily pulling off any skin that slid over its surface. My

knees and elbows looked terrible by the final as a result, dotted in bright red burns, glistening

with oxygenated blood. Burns that would just begin to dry in time to be ripped off in the

following game. Something I have since got used to as a result of playing on hard sandy pitches.

Not an injury to bother about, least of all to try and avoid. But it was exasperating, the way that

they would stick to sheets and chaff on jeans. But the turf was also very quick. My feet were

confident in their purchase, and I was confident in their skills, learned back home.

The final was also played on the center field, with stands and all. Easily the most

professional set up I had ever experienced. Probably not far from the most spectators I had ever

played in front of either. I took the field playing half back, nervous in a good way. At one point

our opponents had the scrum feed, we were just inside their half. The ball flew out their side,

uncontrolled, I was after it quick. I scooped it up on the run, fended of my opposite, and found

myself through the line. One defender to beat, Sam on my inside—copybook two-on-one.

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The simple laws of rugby physics state emphatically “the ball is always faster

than the man”. As such, the draw and pass . . .

I knew what to do. And I executed it perfectly: The timing… The draw… The pass

The simple laws of rugby physics state emphatically “the ball is always faster

than the man”. As such, when defending by one’s self . . .

So did my opponent. Smash! The guy that gives the draw and pass—light ‘em up, cut him in half.

My arms were up and to the left, pointing to my target as I had been taught. His shoulder contacted me up and under my exposed right ribs. I was lifted off the ground—probably by the initial force of contact rather than any lifting on his behalf—and landed heavily.

Pain in my chest.

I…can’t…breath.

Panic. I had no thoughts except the will to breath, to overcome the terrible,

constricting pain in my chest.

I was on my back, a couple of teammates were over me—indistinct, I cannot remember who they were—just that they did not look too concerned, “you want some water”

I…can’t…breath

I know you are meant to relax when you are winded, take slow deep breaths, but I

couldn’t I was gasping, my heart was racing. And the pain… I was surely out of

the game, a shame to make it the whole way to the final only to have to go off.

The pain subsided.

I can breath

“you ok?”

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“yip” I replied, “water” I commanded. Still short of breath. Still sitting down, “give me a hand”

I was pulled to my feet

Doesn’t feel too bad

Began jogging back to half way

We scored. A great draw and pass, my great draw and pass

We lost that game in the final play. Nevertheless I slept well that night, mostly because I was exhausted: five games of seven-a-side rugby in the middle of summer, on AstroTurf, which felt as though it was melting the bottom of your boots (I refuse to use “cleats”). And perhaps more than a little bit of that good sleep came from me proving I could play good rugby—New

Zealand rugby. I was content with my performance. Content with my “self” that had—up until the first tackle of that day—been split. A “self” split between being a Kiwi rugby player and being a Kiwi rugby performer. I was, before that day, a performer who went to practice, could pass, could talk the game—a frame that I had created and negotiated based on the idea that I was also a rugby player. An idea that up until then I was yet to believe. That night my performance was justified; I was a New Zealand rugby player in my eyes at least. And I slept like death, with my knees stuck to my sheets.

But I did not sleep well the night after. Or the one after that. Every time I rolled over I would startle myself awake, body clenched, gasping. I would try to roll back, off of my bruised side using my appendages, favoring my ribs and core muscles as much as possible least that awful pain strike again. And I have not slept that same unhindered sleep since. Since that injury—an injury that precluded me from the full performance of daily activities for two months—I have constantly been injured in such a way that I have to favor some part of my body

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as I sleep. For six months my sleeping, slumbering, relaxed body has been interrupted by

injuries. All of which have been the result of rugby.

Spaces and Bodies of Memory

It was our first fifteen-aside game, about two hours away at a local army base, Fort Tuck.

It was an interesting experience having to show my passport at the entrance to the complex. My

Kiwiness was still very much on my mind as I walked past the other team in various stages of

kitting up52 on the sideline. “G-day”53 I said, perhaps a bit too heavily.

After a slow start to the match, we were beginning to find some rhythm. I was still incredibly embarrassed about a poor kicking decision I had made earlier. A decision that had led to our opponents scoring the opening try. However, I had found some redemption in one very nice pass into space.

As the game continued we found ourselves fifteen meters out from the opponent’s try line, with a break down54 mid-field. The backline was split (half each side).

“K-One” called Owen to my right, “loop me”

A small nod

I called for the halfback’s pass, “ten-ball,” it came out on the dot (on point). I passed to Owen and then doubled around his outside. He straightened and gave the pop for me running on, tying in his opponent and leaving me with a two-on-one: one teammate, on my outside, and one man in front of us, to beat.

52 Getting changed into rugby playing gear 53 As in “good day”, a greeting associated with New Zealand and Australia 54 In rugby, the play is said to “break down” when a player is tackled with the ball at which point a ruck or maul is formed around the ball. 132

The simple laws of rugby physics state emphatically “the ball is always faster

than the man”. As such, the draw and pass . . .

I knew what to do. But…

He was big, solid. A rugby-playing-looking-fella. We were at his army base after all.

The simple laws of rugby physics state emphatically “the ball is always faster

than the man”. As such, when defending by one’s self . . .

…I flinched. My hands did not extend the whole way through, instead coming down early to protect my ribs. I was bracing for impact, only he barely contacted me. He slowed down as soon as he was beat, and would not have touched me if his momentum hadn’t have carried him forward, giving me the slightest nudge

He should have finished me. I was already imagining my ribs and the pain that

they/me were about to experience when I gave that pass.

My teammate strolled over the line scoring easily.

“Great loop,” “great draw and pass” commended Owen, ecstatic at the move and his central part in it.

I began jogging back to half way

We scored, I flinched.

Later I asked Owen about the double round, and whether part of calling that move

was because of the fact that I was a New Zealander and what that implied about

my rugby ability. He replied: “Without a shadow of a doubt. There were only

three people on that field that I would have tried that move with, you K-Two and

probably Tom.”

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I went on to ask whether that was just because of his expectations of New

Zealanders or also because he has played with me and had a fair idea of what I

could do. In his reply he suggested that it was a mix of both, but that “even if I

had never met you, had never seen you pass, I would have called it, just because

you were a kiwi and you were in the ten jersey”

The New Zealand School of Tackling

We had just walked off the field after a loss—still it was a good game, close, and a part from one significant error I was feeling all right about it—when one of the player’s wives said to me, in the presence of her husband and another teammate, “we should send the boys to the New

Zealand school of tackling.”

“Haha, I don’t think you were watching close enough” I responded humbly(ish), despite being ecstatic.

“It seems as though they never get past you,” she continued, “when I see it’s you I know they will be stopped”

These are the sorts of comments I live for. This is the perception I play for. Tackling has

never been particularly easy for me. In fact I’m not sure if it is for anybody. For me it

had to be learned, trained. I had to almost overcome something to tackle. Therefore,

every successful tackle is a personal accomplishment. Nothing defines my game as much

as my defensive performance. To have people attribute tackling prowess to my country of

birth, rather than my own ability and work is—rather than demeaning—the ultimate

compliment. The validation of my efforts and my motivation to perform.

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Coach and I are at the local pub that used to sponsor our rugby team (the interview I have spoken of earlier). We are talking rugby over a table, our third(?) round of Pabst Blue Ribbons in front of us in pint glasses, heavy metal music in the background. We are reminiscing about one of the good wins we had in the pre-season—an emphatic win over a team that convincingly beat the Raiders earlier in the year—when I bring up a situation (two actually) that occurred in the game that related to drills we had been doing at practice.

Chris: something was sticking in my head a lot, about those tackling drills that we were doing—

and… I sort of remember this from back home as well—but… if you’re tackling a guy,

The simple laws of rugby physics state emphatically “the ball is always faster

than the man”. As such, when defending by one’s self . . .

you should make sure he goes down

. . .one of those bodies needs to go to ground with you. This often means making a

late tackle . . .

even if he’s already sort of passed the ball.

And I remember, I made a couple of [chuckle] quite possibly late tackles in that game…

Coach: …one on the near side of the pitch, right in front of me…

Chris: …that one was quite explicit…

Coach: …you took two of them…

Chris: …yea took two of them out…

Coach: …and you were looking at me too

the whole time [chuckle] I seen you looking up…

[laughter]

Coach: …I think you did that for me, you wanted me to see that… . . . I like the finish hit

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. . . Any good coach . . . And maybe any great coach . . .

. . . [new song on the jukebox, not heavy metal, some old love song]

Chris: I know why I like the finish hit,

what, what do you see the value in it?

Coach …[brap-tap-a-tap-tap-ba-rap-adap-a-adap]

His gigantic hands tapping on the table, in time to a tune, a happy rhythm. Those same hands that swallowed mine when I first came out to play, that instantly reminded me of my inadequacies—especially my size

… that’s a good question

… I dunno,

the first thing that comes to mind is just finish what you started,

I mean that’s what the game is all about,

you expect to get hit… it’s part and parcel of the thing

. . . rugby’s it,

you’re in,

you’re committed,

you’re going to get it… give it and take it… I dunno

just finish what you started

. . .

Chris: finishing the hit—to me—is because

if the guy’s on the ground, he’s not supporting,

you know what if mean?

Coach: You don’t want to be the one on the ground and him not,

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that’s for sure

Chris: I mean the biggest [ha] that one where I sort of tackled the guy after he kicked it and he

happened to knock the other guy over [chuckling as I describe it]…

Coach: …yea that was great…

Chris: …that was a bloody fluke…

[chuckle]

Chris: ...and it was right in front of the [opposition] guys as well,

They were giving me bloody arseholes

Coach: hahahahaha,

Hey listen, I’m one hundred percent ok with that,

I enjoyed every minute of it

Happily getting a bit tipsy, reminiscing over my deeds. Deeds that I feel a little bit guilty

about but seem justified in this bear-of-a-man’s eyes. Deeds that I can logically question

latter, but not right now. Now the joking is too easy, the chatting is simple and fluid.

Rugby seems too fun, and just righteous enough when spoken about it in this way. Not the

most Socratic interview I’ve ever done—I’ve slipped into another role—instead classic

rugby chat dominates our interaction.

Two new young players had come to watch practice. It was mid-way through the pre- season. Coach introduced them to our small training contingent (no more than a dozen) that

Tuesday. He said that he had been in email contact with them for a long time and was excited that they had made it. I assumed each man identified himself as African American. I made the assumption that they had experience playing football. I made the assumption that they wanted to

137 play a contact sport and had turned to rugby as a substitute to football. I made the assumption that they had assumptions about rugby, and particularly about physicality.

Maybe they had watched some highlights on youtube? No doubt New Zealand rugby

would feature prominently in those

The drill was for backline defense. Specifically, working on defensive systems. We had had an issue with this aspect of our game a few weeks ago and had implemented a coordinated structure as a result. The call was on me. If I signaled a fist it meant to come up on the outside shoulder of the player we were marking, quickly, to force them to cut back into the direction our forwards were coming from. An open hand meant up on the inside shoulder. When the fly half (opposite me) passed the ball we would collectively switch to the next man on our outside, forcing the ball and the players across field, combating their overlap, and bringing the sideline into play. Not a perfect system, but we could not always rely on having forwards to take the first receivers so we did what we could. As such, this drill comprised of a makeshift backline—made up of forwards—attacking our backline players. We would call the defense and then run it through against the attacking line. “Ladies aids” in, full contact.

I know what amateur rugby looks like. Tackling upright, jersey pulling, scragging55. I

know “rugby players” love how tough the sport is. I know that the physicality and the

toughness is what they seek to invoke when they mention their participation while out

socializing. It’s why people offer rugby as a fact about themselves before their

occupation. A lot of these notions in the United States come from rugby players thinking

they hold a moral (and physical) superiority over football. The reason why they wear t-

55 Scragging is a term used to denote grabbing the collar on a rugby jersey. Much like jersey pulling only more frowned upon 138

shirts sporting “Football is nice but pads dull the pain56”. I also know how it looks when

these “rugby players” turn to tackling—the aspect of the game where this “toughness” is

enacted—only to tackle upright, pull jerseys and scrag. It’s bad. It’s embarrassing. It’s

talking without walking, as they say. And it looks pitiful compared with football.

My opposite in the drill (the first receiver) was a prop57, solid, but a bit slow with the ball handling. I hit him. I made sure he went to the ground. Again—I put him down. Even when he had given the pass I would tackle if committed, which—because the forwards were not particularly skilled at ball handling, nor were they practiced at running a backline—was most of the time. And my Kiwi-vernacular-laden tongue was going—not posturing, of course.

“The first thing when you say something like that,” said coach when I ran it past him in

our interview, “you know, that’s not your responsibility, to demonstrate how rugby

should be played to a bystander”

It is my responsibility to demonstrate how rugby should be played to a bystander. It is my responsibility to show how legitimate rugby looks, how New Zealand rugby looks. Just as it is my honor to be praised as a New Zealand tackler. The reason why I look to coach as I make a finish tackle. As K-two put it “what does it say about me, as a kiwi? What does it say about kiwi’s in general?” Furthermore, I have to ask what does that say about them—as in the bystander, the spectator, the judge? This violent performance was clearly for the two spectators

(well it was always for “me” and my rugby identity, but only as perceived by the other). It was violent in relation to my assumptions of how a man less-versed in rugby would understand the sport. What would they “see” whilst observing practice? My guess was that a well-placed pass

56 A T-shirt I noted worn by a teammate at an aftermatch function 57 There are two props in a fifteen-man rugby team. With the hooker in between them they form the front row in the scrum. In this position they take the full force of sixteen men colliding through their shoulders and backs. They are invariably large men. 139 wouldn’t be understood, let alone appreciated. A tackle on the other hand—is visceral, communicated through the language of violence. In turn the performance imperatives changed when those that I knew were knowledgeable about rugby were present. For example, on the occasion that Sam (the local university coach) played with us I was more concerned with decision making, which up until that point tended to go unquestioned.

Kiwi Performativity

I am with my compatriot “K-Two”—still over lunch—talking about the first game of fifteen-a-side we played for South City. We had ate most of our fill, stacks of plastic plates in front of us—eating out of habit rather than need. Fullness already attained and surpassed. In that game, K-Two made a big tackle, one of the biggest I’ve seen in person before, or since—and dislocated his shoulder in the process:

K-two: . . . the first game of the season I dislocated my shoulder putting on that hit

Chris: You put on a massive hit

And you hurt yourself

K-two: [the tackle was] A little bit late too

And he didn’t get up

…Smash! The guy that gives the draw and pass—light ‘em up, cut him in half…

Chris: What was going through your head there?

Just making a big tackle?

K-two: I think I missed a few earlier,

And I got a bit frustrated,

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So then when that guy came—and he was just running such a nice line

The simple laws of rugby physics state emphatically “the ball is always faster

than the man”. As such, when defending by one’s self . . .

And I saw that the ball was coming—like as he was passing his hands came up so I could

just get right under his rib cage,

. . . Pain in my chest.

I…can’t…breath.

Panic. There was no thought in my head except the will to breath, to

overcome the terrible, constricting pain in my chest . . .

and yeah my shoulder went in the process [chuckle]

We continued to talk around those experiences. Talking back and forth over a couple of plates of cookies (he’s very nearly addicted to those things, and doing a good job of getting me hooked as well). Considering each other’s words, agreeing and finishing sentences for one another. At other times whole-heartedly disagreeing—with a shrug of the shoulders, another bite.

K-two: in a sort of weird way, on the paddock I feel pressure, but I don’t feel pressure to go back,

like right now I’m not like “ fuck I’m not a kiwi because I’m not playing rugby” but

when I’m a kiwi on the rugby pitch there is pressure for me to perform because there’s an

expectation, I’ve been playing rugby for 12 years these guys have been playing for six

months. Whereas if I completely remove myself from the situation there’s no like internal

regulation going on like I’m not bleeding rugby or anything

. . . the first game of the season I dislocated my shoulder putting on that hit

. . .[the tackle was] A little bit late too

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And he didn’t get up

K-two: I felt like, in doing that tackle I had done enough to justify my place on the team, like I

had had a few good runs before hand, missed a few tackles but then did one that showed

that I knew how to fucking tackle [laughter] and then I could go sit on the sideline for the

rest of the game.

There’s definitely about being seen to be a good rugby player rather than just being a

good rugby player.

. . . and yeah my shoulder went in the process [chuckle]

K-two: It might be that it’s a good excuse for me to be a kiwi that’s not playing rugby, because I

could probably play, I would get more injured but…

Chris: I mean, and that’s what I wonder like, if you just found yourself on the field like would

your need to be a good rugby player just… like you seemed still to be chucking your

fucking body around when you had a like a pretty bad shoulder like…

K-two: …yea that was bizarre…

Chris: …does it sort of change like, do you see what I mean? Your body becomes of secondary

importance pain becomes, as you switch into that space where you know that like…

K-two: yeah, hard out, and that’s probably why I removed myself from that space, to try and get

better . . . now I don’t have to play because I’m injured and that sort of takes the pressure

off

In a way “the tackle” was the perfect way to go out. It is obvious that he was not feigning an injury, “everyone saw it happen.” And he proved that he was a serious, talented, hard-hitting kiwi rugby player. Again, everyone saw it, “it was pretty epic.” Although he obviously was not looking for a way out in that game, he was looking for the tackle. The tackle that reaffirmed his

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right to be in that space, but which also became a legitimate way to remove himself from those

same pressures, to explain his absence.

A Kiwi Smelling Roses: English Embodied Cultural Citizenship in American Rugby

In this section I present, through narrative prose, an interview that I conducted with

Miles—originally born in England. I believe his account is important because he draws many parallels, convergences and divergences from my own experiences. Specifically this interview details many of the aspects important to the intersection of cultural identity citizenship, masculinity and rugby. As such, I have slightly restructured the interview in order to focus on ideas thematically. In addition I believe that my presence is an important part of this interview.

Although my voice does not play the prominent talking part in the following exchange, I clearly designated the path of the conversation in many instances. In a way, I speak my cultural citizenship through his responses. Responses that are eerily familiar to my own experiences and, in turn, eerily dissimilar.

It had been a good couple of weeks58 since I had seen Miles. My recently broken hand

and schoolwork had kept me away from practice and games. However I had heard that Miles had

broken his ankle just after my incident. And it was the first thing I asked him about when I saw

him. “It sucks.” He expected to be out for a couple of weeks longer than me. It was a bit weird

driving with a rugby teammate of six months to talk about a sport that we were so obviously both

restricted from playing. As a result it took some time for our usual “banter59” to come out.

Perhaps our eventual ease was helped by our previous interactions outside of strictly rugby spaces.

58 As in, at least two weeks, not in terms of anything being particularly good about those weeks 59 The playful and friendly exchange of teasing remarks 143

We decided on a local Mexican restaurant to have an interview over some dinner, maybe a couple of “margaronas.”60 We sat outside to try escape the noise (a failed attempt as it turned out). He propped his broken ankle, encased in a brace up to his knee, on a stall beside him. His back was rested against the wall, putting him at an awkward angle where he had to rotate at the waist to get square to the table. I was more comfortable, but not perfectly so. My own brace was resting on the table, the top of a purple scar just showing its head above the black carapace that enclosed my hand and fist. Both our injuries had occurred at rugby practice within the last month.

The New Zealander and the Englishman: On Rugby and Cultural Citizenship

The Englishman had a similar experience to the New Zealander with respect to his initial rugby playing in America. He too experienced expectations from American players who, because he was foreign, “know you are going to be good”. For his first team in America he was even selected to start as fly half. However, this was in spite his preference as a flanker. He talked very nonchalantly, matter-of-factly. Especially at the beginning of the interview. Although he began to speak more passionately about his memories, exploits and motivations at the end, it came across as though he was narrating his life as something that simply was, and could be no other way. At the time I believed it to be somewhat performative. In pursuit of a stoic masculinity.

How else to explain some of the comments he made? But I couldn’t be sure…

The conversation turned to nationhood and identity. After asking what it meant to be an

Englishman in America, the New Zealander continued by asking…

60 A margarona is a margarita with a corona larger turned upside down in it. 144

New Zealand: do you think you play up being English a wee bit here?

England: absolutely

New Zealand: Yeah? Talk about that, cause I think I play up being kiwi a wee bit

After the Englishman discussed aspects of his life such as the horrors he faced every

Independence Day the New Zealander asked…

New Zealand: . . . would you consider rugby to being sort of part of performing…

England: absolutely

New Zealand: …, playing up Englishness? Talk to that a wee bit, if you could

England: um yea, playing rugby, it’s like, it’s just a stigma . . . the British are… an island

race like they fight in the wars and stuff like we’ve never surrendered, and that

leads back to me like… through rugby… I dunno it’s just I feel like as soon as

people say “where are you from?” you say “England” and they say “what do you

do?”, “ I go to school” and then you’re like “I play rugby as well”, they’ll usually

say “rugby?!” and they’ll think it’s a foreign sport, you know, it’s a very tough

sport, and I think It has a… if you play rugby I think it shows a lot of your

character, like how… you can be physically strong, and mentally strong because

you have to play rugby without fear, because if you play scared you’re not going

to last, you know, you’ll get injured, that’s what I’ve always seen it as.

New Zealand: is that saying something about being an Englishman?

England: Yea, I always feel like being an Englishman, especially being on the rugby field,

like, I have a point to prove. Because… because I’m English I need to represent

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my country. I want… I want the first tackle of the game, to absolutely wreck,

destroy the guy I’m playing against. And then I’ll say to him, I’ll say in my

accent, like I smashed him into the ground, I’ll say “don’t run at me again”

because I want him to think, I want to psychologically put in their mind that “that

English guy, you need to stay away from. Because he’s gong to win all the rucks,

he’s not going to miss a tackle . . . I want to psychologically make them pass the

ball earlier than they should if that makes sense

After talking about accents on the rugby pitch the Englishman continued to elaborate on how

British rugby stereotypes influenced his game…

England: So playing a flanker I feel like I have to follow that persona and you know . . . I

feel like personally I have to put the hardest hit on someone. If someone is putting

a harder hit on than me, especially American then… I feel like I’m not doing my

job almost

New Zealand: Yea? . . . would it be fair to say . . . is how much you dominant, or… how much

pain you give or experience on the rugby field does that sort of… do you judge

your game on that? And is part of judging that game judging how much you lived

up to like a, an English way of playing?

England: Yeah, absolutely. I feel like, going back to your previous question, when you

asked if being English I had to represent myself on the field… that’s how I feel

like… if I don’t… I feel like I always have to put the hardest hit in . . . like [if] I

play soft or weak I just… it’s hard to describe I just, I feel like I’ve just let down,

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like I’m not representing my country almost, like when I step on the field I’m

representing the whole of England like… I’ve played in America with some

foreigners, some Englishmen who haven’t been very good and it’s, I almost feel

embarrassed that they are on the same field as me. I feel like if you’re British… or

if you’re from any nationality really, that plays rugby, you have to show what it is

like, most New Zealanders I meet played in the backline because New Zealanders

are known for finesse, even if they are a bit bigger, where we… idunno, it’s hard

to answer that

New Zealand: I understand that, but I mean… if you put on a big hit do you sort of think about

your Englishness at all or is that just sort of…

England: O yeah [head nod]

New Zealand: … and is that sort of a masculinity that’s quite a… thing for being an English

male or something is that…

England: yeah…

New Zealand: …quite valued back home? or is that valued here?

England: back home you played that hard regardless . . . but over here I feel like if an

American runs through me I’ve just completely failed, I can’t even imagine, you

know, a Yank running past me and scoring . . . And I feel like I’m almost

carrying, you know the English stereotype on my back. And that leads to my

game a lot, I feel like I really step up my game when… because you have

something to prove you know, like especially your first few practices, your first

game people expect a lot from you and you have show it, to tell’em, you have to

show like you know “I’m from England, I’m… almost better than you”

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New Zealand: was there a bit of pressure the first few times you ran out on the field like that?

England: … I mean yea I think there’s a bit of pressure but I love playing in pressure . . .

but yea I do feel like there’s some pressure to it you know, if I go on the field and

someone passes me the ball and I knock it on people are going to be like “who is

this English guy showing up?” . . .

Here we can see how Miles’ English cultural identity was implicated in his perceptions and performance of rugby in America. It also becomes apparent that, like me, he found his

English male identity was most important in the actual physical and embodied playing of rugby.

His Englishness was most important in catching a ball or tackling (smashing) his opponent. As a result this next section of the interview delves further into masculine migrant memories of home and their influence on the rugby body.

Charlie Thorne and The Doctor: Migrant Memories of the Skin (and Bone)

Miles: One guy I played with, called Charlie Thorne, before a game in the huddle, you’ve

never… like Americans like to go through the chants and talk and stuff but this guy

would just… he wouldn’t do anything like that, he would just lead by example, just the

stuff he was saying would be short and sweet, you wanted to go on the field and bleed for

him, you wanted to, you know, you played that much harder just to try and impress him.

One game [chuckle] he made a tackle, he was a big guy, played fullback, he made a

tackle, snapped his forearm, went onto the sideline, got a splint, tapped his arm up and

went back out and played the rest of the game. He was… he would just play through

whatever, and that’s the kind of guy you would get up for in your life like I’d do anything

for this guy . . .

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Chris: Do you think about Thorne’s exploits when you play? Is he a motivating factor?

Miles: I think about him when like… before the game… I think Americans try and say too much

. . .

. . . and going through that like I feel like when I get injured, like when I broke my finger,

well when I smashed, I broke a couple of my figures and I tapped, I just, I actually

thought about him [Thorne] and I was like, I said to my coach, even though we were up

forty-something nil, I think you got a hat trick in that game, I got two trys and I was like,

I said to coach “just tape them up and put me back in” and he said “we’re up forty-

something points, I’m not going to do that” and I was like “just do it, I want to get back

on the field”, he waited ten minutes and just because [I] kept pestering and pestering him,

he put me back in the game for another ten minutes, just cause I would shut up…

Chris: ..and you were thinking about that old captain…

Miles …Thorne, yea…

Chris: …was there anything else that like… that’s really interesting, cause when I think about

that, its um… my dad always used to tell stories about this guy that used to play with him

they called him “the doctor”, he was only a dentist but when they like got busted up,

like… when he [my dad] would break his nose, he would just go off and “the doctor”

would just be like [I demonstrated straightening a nose with my thumbs] and like send

him back on so I sort of think about that. Even at practice when I did this… [I hold up my

broken hand] I went over to coach and I said “play around with this a bit” and he was just

like yanking it, cause I thought I had just dislocated something, and he’s like “you want

me to tap it up?”, well I know exactly what “tap it up” means, it means “tap it up and

jump back on”, I was like “yea” I mean…

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Miles: especially, that leads back to your culture as well, I want to show people that I can

have… broken bones or… I mean I’ve played with a torn rotator cuff and it still gives me

bother but it’s not gonna stop me from playing, it’s not gonna… like if I make a big hit,

like, when we played under twenty three versus over twenty threes I made a dump tackle

on Joey . . . and I really hurt my shoulder but there was no way I would show, like when

everyone was cause I was holding it, I could barely lift it, people were saying “are you

ok?” and I was like “it’s just my shoulder” [nonchalantly] and they were like “just stay

out” and I was like “I’m not staying out”. . . I’ll do anything to stay out there, to show,

especially my teammates, being from England that I’m always going to get back on the

field no matter what. I lead by example.

Doing it for the Queen

Chris: what does it mean to give pain in the name of Britain or…

Miles: …the queen?

Chris: …for the queen, giving pain for the queen, dishing it out, hurting people

Miles: absolutely love it, like it’s almost… when I play against people and they here the accent

and stuff I love it, it gives me fuel for the fire and… when I hit people I think… it’s hard

to describe it’s almost like England versus America, I’m going to show you that we are

stronger and faster and we are smarter at rugby than you are. Even someone twice my

size I can just physically dominate him because I come from the heart of rugby, there is

no way I’m going to stop, I’m always going to try and smash them, do as much as I can

to inflict as much pain on them as possible. Like I want you to like . . . if you go into a

ruck with me I want you to physically… like flinch when you see me running towards

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that ruck, cause I’m representing my, cause you’re going to think “England” “this British

guy is going to smash me, he’s done it before and he’s going to do it again” I want them

to like…

Finally the researcher intervened…

Chris: do you think that’s messed up at all?

Miles: No, not at all

The researcher talked about the societal cost, the exceptional nature of violence and sport, its unjustifiability, his own guilt and the pain he inflicted…

Miles: that guy knows what he’s getting into . . . I’m going to smash you as hard as I physically

can, even if it means breaking my bones as well

. . .

Miles: I have so much built up frustration like, I’m not an angry person . . . but if you come onto

the field and you’re not wearing my colors I’m going to hurt you. Sometimes not legally

as well, I’ll stamp in rucks, I’ll, you know, do what I can, I’ll gouge eyes in mauls

like…if you are playing against me I’m going to do as much physical damage as I can,

and I’m also mentally going to get into your head as well about it, saying, if I run past

you and brake a tackle next time I see you I’m going to be like, I’m going to say loud

enough so you can hear me “that pussy can’t tackle, I’m going to run at him again” just to

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put it in your head that “shit now I have to make this tackle, otherwise this guy is going to

absolutely kill me”

. . .

Chris: Did you always have it? The aggressiveness?

Miles: No I didn’t . . .

Based on my presentation of this assortment of vignettes we can see the complex and messy nature of cultural identity projects. This is far from a coherent narrative. Rather I have constructed a pastiche of experience in which different subject positions become salient at various instances. Some of these embodied experiences evoked contradicting memories; others conspired and conflated with each other. The reader may have been aware of the various themes that emerged, reemerged and at times mutated into something far from what they had initially been. All that is clear at this stage is that my experience was one of multiplicity and complexity.

Therefore, in the next chapter, I move to develop these experiences into themes in order to discuss and theorize my Kiwi cultural identity as performed in and through American rugby.

Specifically, I will work towards a model of cultural identity in which I recognize cultural moorings, representations and framings, and embodied performance interacting in the

(re)production of cultural identity.

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CHAPTER FIVE

DISCUSSION

New Zealand Cultural Identity in American Rugby

In the previous chapter I provided a number of vignettes with the aim of creating a

pastiche of my (and others) rugby playing experience. Rugby in America was somewhat of a

migrant identity venture. I searched it out because of a father’s suggestion61, because I thought I had some idea of what it meant to be a Kiwi in that space, and because it was a physical culture and practice with which my body was familiar. But this rugby space was also one of difference as much as similarity. There were rugby posts but there were also anthills. The pass I learned as a youth needed to be executed with sweaty hands in the heat. Same game, different accents, familiar accents, different vernacular. And I negotiated and performed my identity in relation to both this similarity and difference. I would find validation and solidarity in talking to Miles about how rugby is ‘meant to be played’ in the cold. I kept spouting Kiwi phrases during touch games, even and perhaps especially if only other foreigners could understand me. They were boots, not cleats.

In this way I was positioning myself in this space. This was accomplished by virtue of seeking out rugby to start with, and negotiating the rugby context once I entered it. Importantly, this acknowledges that I brought something with me to the rugby field. I brought into that space those many touch games I played in Dunedin, a draw-and-pass, an accent, “a pass with a spiral”

(K-Two), a cultural identity. I was positioning myself as a New Zealander, or more accurately in

61 This experience was not presented chronologically in my data analysis as I felt that it provided an important grounding for my embodied experiences 153

relation to what it meant to be a New Zealander. However, upon entering this space what it

meant to be a New Zealander was also constructed by others.

The discourse of “Kiwi rugby player” was a product of representation—of the All Blacks,

of encounters such as Coach experienced in Canada with another “Kiwi rugby player”, and

ultimately, my own performance and negotiation of this construct. These discursive framings

took form, in my experience, as expectations and assumptions. Expectations of ability, and

assumptions about knowledge. The expectation that I would take a leadership role, the

assumption that I knew about “box kicking,” that K-Two could play fullback, that I would know

what to do when Owen called for the loop (double round). In some ways these frames did more

than just provide the moorings for my cultural citizenship. They also constituted my body in a

particular way—as a tackler, as an offensive threat. These frames even literally placed my body

materially in space, in ways that my body was afforded particular opportunities or faced with

particular encounters. Such as when I was given the ten jersey before the game, or when Owen

called a loop and in the process called me out as a kiwi.

In turn I performed these roles. I reaffirmed them when I played fly half, when I gave

feedback, when I taught the “piggy ball.” But I also failed to kick at goal, and failed to “talk

rugby” with the best like Sam. And I also negotiated these roles. In a way, many of my

negotiations of these frames, my “Ums,” were my attempt to performatively constitute those

frames in a way that I believed more accurately represented my cultural citizen body—to

dislocate myself, if you will. I under-performed in order to meet those frames when it came to playing rugby. As opposed to perceiving this as a subversion of New Zealand cultural citizenship, I have come to believe that I was under-performing in service of my own cultural identity. My under-performance was performance all the same. For me it meant more to size up

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to the representation of a New Zealand rugby player, a representation that I had co-created and

diminished, than to present myself as a New Zealand rugby player and fail in the process of

becoming. I did not mind if I failed to be great rugby player, I wanted to be an adequate New

Zealand rugby player. The instances that dislocated my identity most notably, that put my self to question, were those instances when I remained a good rugby player, but not as a New Zealand player should be. Times like when I threw an intercept.

Why then, in light of this internal conflict around my rugby identity project, did Sebastian perceive our experiences to be different? Why was he a rugby player whereas I was a guy who

played rugby? Why was he more defined by the fact that he played rugby? I believe it was

because my identity work was more salient on the field. I do not consume rugby in other avenues

of my life. Rugby’s work on my identity, on my body, is more isolated to rugby spaces—maybe

even more concentrated. To turn to my compatriot K-Two’s words again, “on the paddock I feel

pressure, but I don’t fell pressure to go back, like right now I’m not like “fuck I’m not a Kiwi

because I’m not playing rugby” but when I’m a kiwi on the rugby pitch there is a pressure for me

to perform because there’s an expectation.” These frames were most pronounced on the field, my

cultural citizenship mattered most when the ball was in my hands, in this respect everything I did

at South City was performance. Indeed, I was performing, or made to perform, Kiwi cultural

citizenship simply by virtue of being in that space. In rugby conversations my Kiwi cultural

citizenship and my masculinity was evoked by default simply because it belonged in that

discourse. In this respect it becomes apparent why Sebastian did not believe we needed to

present ourselves in a particular way. We did not have to present ourselves in a particular way

because we just were New Zealand (and English) rugby playing men. Our cultural citizenship

and sporting bodies in that diasporic space representatively evoked each other, and framed our

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subjectivities by default. This speaks to the role of representation in the constitution of the citizen

“other.”

A Model for Cultural Identity

At the risk of over simplifying the complex processes of cultural identity projects I

present here a model with the aim of using it as a visual aid to help me show the relationship

between the themes I identified above. This model is loosely based on a synthesis of Hall’s,

Butler’s and Ahmed’s work. I will detail the workings of this model through referring back to

my experience at South City. To begin, these three categories: cultural moorings,

representations/framings and embodied performance, represent the three major influences that

were involved in the (re)production of my cultural identity.

I will begin with cultural moorings, or in other words, what I bought with me into this

identity project. What I am trying to get at with this aspect is how the cultural identity process is

not simply a constitution or a production. It is important to recognize that I bought something

with me to rugby at South city. Therefore my cultural identity in American rugby is a

(re)production in context. For example, my rugby playing experience was a produced out of

similarity and difference. As I suggested, I played on rugby fields all the same but some of these

fields were peppered with anthills or made of astroturf. In addition, Miles and I would often talk

about on how rugby shouldn’t be played in the heat—it was a winter sport. And of course, to me,

they were called rugby boots, not cleats as my Aerican teammates called them. Most importantly

I bought a host of skills, and knowledges either explicitly taught or implicitly learned in New

Zealand that became an aspect of my identity, an identity that was placed into the available

subject positions of what it meant to be a male who played rugby in New Zealand.

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Figure 1. A model for cultural identity showing the interactions between cultural moorings, representations/framings and embodied performance

However, I did not simply construct my own identity in relation to available subject

positions. In a way these positions were created for me, or projected onto me by coaches and players through representation and framing. I found that this tended to occur in terms of expectations. For example, the interviewees consistently spoke of their expectations of me with regards to skills, knowledge, and even rugby culture based on my citizenship62. These

62Further examples of this theme include: Coach offering myself and K-Two the two most pivotal positions in the backline, and Brycey telling me in of his expectations that I would take leadership positions and of his his tendency to defer to me when it came to opinions about the sport 157 expectations created frames with which I constantly negotiating. Therefore, we could use an image of the “ten” on my jersey to epitomize how these representation and framing themes worked—the ten jersey as symbolic of how I was discursively and materially positioned in South

City.

We can see (by the lines connecting the different aspects of figure 1.) that these two themes—cultural moorings and representation/framings—are joined, and thus interact in this model. This demonstrates how my cultural moorings are connected to representations and framings others have of me. For example, this interaction can be seen in how my teammates and coaches are making me what I am through their own lens. It meant something to me to be New

Zealand rugby player, however, others interpreted what this meant in different ways. These different meanings converged, conspired and conflicted to (re)produce my cultural identity.

The final layer of this identity project was apparent in my embodied performance of Kiwi cultural identity in rugby. I detailed aspects of this performance as arising in multiple ways including: taking leadership roles, teaching aspects of the game, and using kiwi vernacular. But perhaps this performance was most significantly apparent in many of the specifically physical aspects of rugby as a sport. In particular, for me, this arose in the act of tackling. This notion of the importance of physical performance was reiterated by Miles and K-Two both who felt that they needed to prove themselves first and foremost physically, in tackling or hitting.

Furthermore we can see how this theme of embodied performance was a negotiation of both of the other themes—cultural moorings and frames and representations (demonstrated in figure one by the connecting lines that run through “Kiwi cultural identity”). For instance, in reference to cultural moorings Miles and I talked at some length about what it meant to play a particular English brand of rugby. In particular we talked about the masculine role models that

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were evoked in our experiences of injury and how these migrant memories led us to react to, and

perform these injuries in particular ways. In relation to representation it became apparent my rugby performance could only thought of in the presence of others. As I have brushed over, the act of being positioned in particular ways and in particular spaces, due to peoples expectations of my kiwiness, meant I was afforded particular physical opportunities or faced particular embodied encounters. In a slightly different note, K-Two commented on how it was just as, if not more important, to be seen as a good player rather than be one. In other words it was important to fit the frames that others had constructed for us through our embodied rugby performances.

It is perhaps worth making explicit that the layers of embodied performance and representation or framing were involved in a reciprocal relationship (as demonstrated by the two- way arrow in figure 1). At times my performance consolidated my position and at others it threw those frames into question. For me this was a process that was almost uniquely concentrated within rugby spaces of performance. It became apparent to me that rugby was a cultural identity project that was in it’s first and last instance embodied, I have never cared particularly about consuming rugby in any of its other forms (such as through the media as demonstrated with my interactions with Sebastian), but to miss a tackle, or to throw an intercept pass, was to throw my very being into question—to miss the subject position I strived for.

Up to now I have detailed how rugby, and by default my masculine cultural citizenship, was a practice primarily performed on the pitch, by my body—and the multiple readings and conversations it evoked. It was an identity so implicitly tied to physical performance, and the representative frames of that physical performance, that it was invisible to most—but received significant investment from my behalf. But there was one serious implication tied to this identity project as a specifically embodied venture. Something that first became apparent when I lay in

159 bed at night, far from rugby, yet favoring my shoulder/ribs/hand/knees. This being a fact I became all to aware of as my playing and research progressed—that pain was inherently linked to this pursuit. As I said, although it was not so important to be a great rugby player as it was to be a New Zealand rugby player, this brand of rugby demanded something of me and my body.

In some ways, I came to discover how, in the production of an embodied, performative identity—bound as it was to frames of cultural citizenship and (aggressive) masculinity—I (was made to) thrust my body into the lines of violence. Put differently, in making my cultural identity on the rugby pitch—a deeply articulative making—I was made to bleed (and make others bleed).

I bled for my manhood, for my country, for the colonial whiteness I enlivened through spinning balls and Kiwi rugby vernacular. As such, I came to know performance and performativity in ways I did not expect (after having read Butler, Ahmed, and Pringle). I came to know identity not only as something that one creates through discourse, consumption, or active hermeneutics— but in deeply physical, corporeal ways.

Chronicling Pain

In order to pursue the role that pain played in the production of cultural citizenship and masculinity, I want to briefly return to a cursory description of the pains and injuries that I incurred during my rugby playing at South City. What struck me most obviously during the compilation of this small section was the difficulty that arose in my attempts to record pains during and around rugby. For example, one comment in my notes reads, “the pain is gone by the time I brush my teeth. I don’t remember when, could have been while eating or searching— preoccupied.” Furthermore, it becomes clear that many of these pains are inconsolable. They differ in terms of their relationship to injury, their meaning, their classification as chronic or

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acute. Indeed, many of these pains (bar some current issues with my shoulder and hand) only

exist on paper, and even then only briefly and incompletely.

Sometime in June 2012. Bruised ribs whilst giving a draw-and-pass, as detailed in the previous

chapter…

We made the final of our division in that sevens tournament . . . My arms were up and to

the left, pointing to my target as I had been taught. His shoulder contacted me up and

under my exposed right ribs. I was lifted off the ground. . . Panic. I had no thoughts

except the will to breath, to overcome the terrible, constricting pain in my chest . . . Every

time I rolled over I would startle myself awake, body clenched, gasping. I would try to

roll back, off of my bruised side using my appendages, favoring my ribs and core muscles

as much as possible least that awful pain strike again. And I haven’t slept that same

unhindered sleep since.

August 23 2012. Hurt my shoulder in contact drill.

It begins to throb. I lean over, not because I’m gassed (I am gassed but it’s best to stand

up straight hands on head for that) but because it feels nice to let it hang. It shakes when

I take a drink of warm water . . .

August 26 2013. Pulled hamstring, not badly . . . continued to play. And…

During training one of the guys I broke through dislocated his arm, I feel pretty bad but it

was just a lazy attempt at a tackle on his behalf.

August 29 2012. General soreness from a weeks worth of pre-season training with two teams

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. . . that sucked, my legs were so god damn tender, it was shocks going up the whole way

to my hips, we were walking/jogging pace. I kept thinking “just jog it off,” “you will get

through it.”

August 30 2012.

Thank god we didn’t do contact today my shoulder is rough, hurts when I reach up to

high cabinets. I have to be careful not to sleep on it

September 11 2012.

Days without pain: 11?

Pain is back tonight and it’s bad. I thought I was past it, didn’t even notice when it came

on. Must have been sometime during the one-on-one defensive drill and its sucking now.

Goes away when we are playing or conditioning (at least in memory) but when we are

standing still it throbs. All I can do is let it hang [these notes are rubbish as a result,

shaking the whole way down my arm]

September 15 2012. First game of fifteen-a-side

. . . just grazed up knees and sore legs nothing bad, almost good pain—the stuff that

makes you feel good for sacrificing a little bit of body to achieve something

September 22 2012. Game at home

. . .pretty epic calf DOMs [delayed onset muscle soreness] and a little wee shiner63 that

no one has commented on yet unfortunately

Octopber 6 2012. Game away.

Got a lame injury. A stray foot kicked me about the knee like a “Charlie horse”.

Troubled me for a week

October 18 2012. Bruised bicep.

63 Black eye 162

Ripped the scab off my arm at training, made quite a bit of mess, not sure whether I am

embarrassed to injure myself in a fitness session or not

October 27 2012. Did my other (right) shoulder in a tackle (or consecutive tackles)

November 17 2012. Last game of the pre-season. Notes from the next day:

I can barely move today, a graze on each hip. legs, shoulders, back, neck, all sore. Took

a knock to the solar plexus which hurts a bit to breath and generally to move. Took a bad

knock to the head, flash, I was a bit wobbly afterwards. Got asked if I was ok. Not sure if

I was really on top of things attention wise. Thankfully I got a break from decision

making when the ball was stuck in the scrum

[Winter break]

January 4 2013

I noticed my shoulder today. It’s been rested about as well as it can, months and it still

troubles me. I’m still worried that it will prove to be my ultimate fallibility, but that I also

won’t be able to coach volleyball and tennis. My last hope is that I will be able to

strengthen it with a months rehab but also in the back of my mind is that I have to make

hits early in the preseason. Everything else comes naturally to me, but contact, the one-

on-one tackle?

January 11 2013. Broke third meta-carpel in right hand…

I was excited before practice that Thursday. We had had a really good high intensity

training the Tuesday before. I felt fit, confident, and I was passing well. We started, as

always, with a game of touch. About 15 minutes to a half an hour into the game I went

163 down to the ground to play the touch. As I put my hand done on the turf my fingers caught and I heard/felt something in my hand snap/crack. I looked down and tried to focus on it and move it. I held it in my other hand, quite confident that I had dislocated something judging by the slightly odd angle of my index figure. I jogged over to coach,

“I’ve done something, can you play around with it?”

“index finger?” He replied, grabbing it. I looked away as he started pulling things,

“looks fine”

“yea, I think it might have popped out and back in”,

“looks like it, want to tap it up?” I knew this was coming. He tapped it to another figure and I jogged back out.

I tried to catch and pass but wasn’t doing too well. I told Owen (running the game) that I would help organize the two teams. After a couple of minutes he said “Chris [not K-

One], we need you to play, we need a playmaker out there.” I considered saying something for a second but held it and jumped back in. We played for another hour, the rest of practice. It sucked.

That night I iced it a lot. It was hard to get to sleep; I couldn’t seem to find a place to rest my hand. When I finally got to sleep I woke up an hour later drenched in sweat.

The next day I received a text

Coach: how are the fingers today[?]

Chris: swollen but looks like nothing lasting

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Coach: have a cold beer it’ll be better

Four days later I went to get it x-rayed. Third meta-carpal, big break, three screws later…

January 29 2013

I’m typing one handed; thankfully my left is dominant for writing. I forget about my right

from time to time. When I get a writing block I do my exercises. The doctor told me I have

to keep extending the fingers to regain that full range of movement (why is it that when I

think about how this will effect my life what tends to pop up is my passing target, or

catching a high ball?). The exercises hurt. They hurt a lot at one stage, bringing on a

grimace, a jaw clench. I stopped taking painkillers after the second day because I wanted

to be lucid enough to work. These words have a specter of pain in them, unseen in

electronic text. There is no way of knowing the amount of mistakes that are made typing

with one hand, the amount of time that is sunk into writing, reading with a crutch.

Invisible, is the frustration that causes the “other” hand to sneak into the act, and catch,

and hurt. Those pains are not seen, do they even exist? The burn of the stiches as they

rub. The image I conjure of tendons scraping over screw heads.

February 5 2013

I’m writing about embodied citizenship. My bandage is off today so I can type with both

hands for the first time. I use “type” here in the loosest sense. My right hand, middle

figure keeps claiming my attention with each key push, each over strenuous motion, a

jarring, flashing pain. I cannot but think about it as other/alien/stranger. I think about it

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so much that I make errors, typing quotes takes a long time, and I forget what it was I

was writing because my attention is divided. And the scar scowls at me, just out of my

vision, right there in my periphery. Still fresh, and glaring at me with the angry red line,

catching my attention. My cultural citizenship inscribed upon my skin.

These brief, somewhat incomplete excursions into my experiences of pain in rugby

demonstrate that I sustained a significant amount of pain in my performance of Kiwi cultural

identity in rugby. I provide these experiences in order look into what my pain tells us about

embodied performance and identity. In addition, I will draw upon these experiences later in order

to put them in conversations with theoretical understandings of pain.

Pain and Violence in the Constitution of Cultural Citizenship

I suffered through a significant amount of pain playing rugby. This in itself is not particularly surprising. As I suggested in the beginning of this thesis, success in rugby is premised on the ability of 15 bodies to penetrate, or alternatively stop, 15 other bodies. Violent collisions are at the foundation of the sport. Indeed, we can see how rugby strategy even rationalizes excessive violence in the late tackle, to the point where the infliction of pain becomes a goal towards victory ( . . . he might flinch, he might give the pass too early, he might just clean shank it when he see’s you bearing down on him again.) Therefore, I came to realize that the body’s capacity for pain and violence is a fundamental concern for my New Zealand cultural citizenship project in rugby.

However, pain in this context is performative beyond the rationalized “necessities” of rugby. It becomes implicated in the cultural identity projects of masculinity and citizenship. I felt

166 pain in the execution of one of the fundamental skills that I pride myself in as a New Zealand rugby player—a draw-and-pass, to Sam. I dealt with that pain in the way I knew was appropriate, with water. Just as tape fixed my hand and Miles’ fingers. Just as Charlie Thorne fixed his arm, and “the Doctor” fixed my Dad’s nose (quite poorly, to look at it these days and to hear his collapsed cavities in every chainsaw-like snore). Furthermore, my pained body was (re)produced by others. It became an instrument of violence, worthy of seeking out risk when people commented on the “New Zealand school of tackling.” When Owen called K-One for a loop

(double round) my representative body was put into a space by virtue of being Kiwi; a space of imminent pain; a space where my body—remembering its previous pains and subjectifications— flinched, and called into question my role as a kiwi rugby player. How close did I come to failing in that role? Was it that same fear of failure that led me to rejoin the touch game with a broken hand? Addressed as “Chris” alluded to as “a playmaker.” Going back out there to feel pain during every catch, carry, and pass I performed. To be pained in the requisite acts of being “a playmaker.” To be pained in the process of becoming K-One the playmaker (as opposed to

Chris?).

Yet, the reader may have noticed that pain and violence were implicated in the production of cultural citizenship and masculinity in a far more sinister way than the simple subjectification of the self to physical contacts. K-Two and myself looked for big tackles in the act of becoming, to be seen as a good rugby player. Miles talked about having a point to prove which involved ‘destroying the guy’ he was playing against, putting in the hardest hit, even playing illegally to do as much physical damage as he could. I repetitively inflicted excessive violence on a teammate to show what rugby, and by extension my cultural citizenship, was to two spectators. And this “showing” was not limited to demonstrating the requisite physical

167 contact of the sport. I was constructing rugby and my body within it, in relation to notions of toughness and masculinity. In a way, my identity projects involved the appropriation of rugby’s logical pain, a pain that my body had learned to deal in in my youth, to be subsequently inflicted on others.

However, these violent inflictions became twisted beyond pains original “logical” purpose, exacted instead in the service of masculinity, citizenship, and self. My cultural citizenship imbued my body with a capacity for pain and violence, a capacity and a “privilege” that was put to work to maintain the position of my masculine, Kiwi, rugby-playing body. Seeing as pain has become a significant part of this study I will now move to tentatively theorize its sensations, meanings, and effects as detailed in broader literature.

Theorizing Pain and Injury

Injury and pain are key considerations in sporting contexts (Howe, 2001a). Sport, after all, is premised on the manipulation of bodies such that participation in sport increases the likelihood of suffering injury and pain (Howe, 2001a) and, the injured body becomes a particular issue to those with vested sporting identities. As such, all levels of sports competition have seen the rationalization of pain and injury (and even forms of violence) by players, coaches, and spectators (Young, 2004). Authors such as Frey (1991) and Nixon (1993) have attributed this phenomenon to a culture of the acceptance of risk, pain, and injury that has come to define legitimate participation in sport. Furthermore, Curry (1993) and Roderick et al. (2000) illuminate instances in which playing through pain and injury was valued, glorified and importantly, internalized by athletes in specific sporting sub-cultures.

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Although socialization into sporting cultures must be considered as important for understanding pain and injury generally, literature also points to the role of gendered identities in these athletic spaces—specifically, the acceptance of risk and pain as a function, and constituter, of dominant masculinities (Messner, 1990b, 1990c; Sabo, 2001; Young 1993). This, of course, is not to say that cultures of pain and risk are not present in the experiences of female athletes. A burgeoning field of inquiry into physicality, pain and injury in female sporting cultures has acknowledged this observation (see for example, Halbert, 1997; Rail, 1992; Theberge, 1997;

Young, 1997; Young & White, 1995). However, it is unclear as to whether the female athletes pursue, or accept cultures and instances of risk, pain, violence and injury to the extent of their male counterparts (Young, 2004).

Pain and Injury in Rugby

In light of the above studies it can be proposed that pain and injury must be critically considered in sports contexts. Indeed, White (2004) argues that sport sustained injuries present a serious public health problem. It stands to reason then, that researchers of rugby—as a full contact sport with minimal protective equipment—must take seriously the implications of battered bodies in pursuit of the sport. Indeed, rugby is a sport predicated on violence (Messner,

1990), in which the violent use of the body is a presupposition of the goals of the game. Thus it cannot be understood without reference to the damages and pains it places on the bodies of its players. Both damage given, and damage received.

For example, in his preface to Sporting Bodies, Damaged Selves: Sociological Studies of

Sports-Related Injury the series editor, Kevin Young (2004), presents the case study of Stephen64 as an “ordinary” example who suffered seven serious injuries in as many years (17-24) playing

64 “Stephen” is the pseudonym used by Young (2004) 169 rugby, including: a prolapsed disc, torn menisci, a dislocated thumb, and a torn ACL ligament.

This injury incidence is also reflected at a macro level in New Zealand where, the Accident

Compensation Commission paid out NZ$22.9 million for rugby injuries in 2001 (White, 2004).

Furthermore, Howe (2001a) divulges that none of the 36 professional rugby players in the squad he studied were able to avoid injury or pain. This prevalence of pain and injury is, as we have highlighted, not unexpected due to the physical, confrontational nature of the sport.

As such, rugby shares the dangers of contact with other “combative” sports such as gridiron football, rugby league, and ice hockey (Messner, 1990c). However, Marshell et al.

(2002) provide injury rates three times higher in rugby65 than US collegiate football66, results which they attribute to lack of protective equipment. It begs to question, how have scholars sought to understand pain in rugby?

Howe (2001a) provides an ethnography of pain and injury in Pontypridd RFC, a professional rugby union club in Wales. Ethnography was considered to be a valuable method for the study because such an approach allows pains to be recorded as they occur, and before they become ‘forgotten’. In addition, Howe’s (2001a) position assisting in the treatment room gave him access to ‘privately’ experienced chronic pains.

All 36 players in Howe’s (2001a) study experienced pain and injury over the course of the study: “[w]hile some players suffered serious knee, shoulder or neck injuries, all players due to their involvement in the game were from time to time confronted with more common sprains, strains, bruising and cuts” (p. 301, note 1). Howe (2001a) argues that the experiences the players had of pain and injury in Pontypridd RFC were constructed as the result of the clubs distinctive habitus. In this case, Howe (2001a) uses the term habitus—as popularized by Pierre Bourdieu—

65 Dunedin club rugby in New Zealand from the RIPP (New Zealand Rugby Injury and Performance Project) study of the 1993 season (see Bird, et al., 1998) 66 Data extracted from the NCAA ISS (Injury Surveillance System) database for the 1993-1994 season 170

to refer to “habitual, embodied practices that collectively comprise and define a culture” (Howe,

2001, p. 292). Of importance for Howe (2001a) is the impact of the process of

professionalization on the club habitus and in turn the personal and social experience of pain and

injury. Specifically, the acute pain associated with an injury was interpreted by the professional

players as more chronic because of the greater importance of bodily performance in the elite

athletes. In addition, publically-experienced pain served a function for the players. They used it

as a fault to blame for poor performance, or alternatively, as a way to earn distinction through the

notion of personal sacrifice. It is also important to note that experiences of pain (e.g. severity)

were relative depending on the importance of performing and other contextual factors. The

authors conclude that the accepted risk of acquiring pain and injury was part of the professional

influence at Ponytpridd RFC.

Malcolm and Sheard (2002) also look at the influence of the professional turn on pain

and injury in rugby. Their empirical data is provided by 42 in-depth, semi-structured interviews,

conducted with; coaches, directors, club doctors, physiotherapists and players in elite English

rugby. They conclude, in contrast to Howe (2001a), that professionalization has not led to a greater acceptance of, or pressure to play through, pain and injury in rugby. However, Malcolm

and Sheard (2002) found that players were still disposed to playing through pain. Indeed,

Malcolm and Sheard (2002) acknowledge a ‘culture of risk’ inherent in elite level rugby, they

just argue that this culture existed before professionalism.

In this line of thought, Liston, Reacher, Smith, and Waddington (2006) question whether

the ‘culture of risk’ is limited to elite sport. What about non-elite rugby? If this culture was

present in non-elite rugby it would infer that playing hurt is indeed more deeply rooted than

financial and commercial pressures. Thus, Liston et al., (2006) draw upon 38 questionnaires and

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11 semi-structured interviews with non-elite rugby union and league players. Based on their results, Liston et al., (2006) suggest that if these players could play through injury, they would.

Interestingly, this analysis seems to paint non-elite rugby as being even more inherent to the culture of risk than the elite rugby population presented in Malcolm and Sheard’s (2002) study.

Clearly there is something more going on here than a desire to play through pain to secure financial rewards. That was certainly not the case in my experience. Furthermore, I believe it would be a simplification to suggest that pain and injury are a function, and therefore experienced as a result, of sporting sub-cultures of risk. In this way it is a simplification to reduce pain as a function of masculinity, or as the result of a cultural citizenship project. I believe it will be useful, at this time, to develop a more sophisticated theory of pain and injury.

One, I suggest, that can allow us to think about pain as a product and producer of cultural identity. Thus, I broaden my view outside of rugby and even outside of sport.

Pain, Isolation, Appearance, and Power

One of the foremost texts on pain is provided by Scarry (1985). She analyzes the body in pain in the ‘apparatus’ of torture and war, the political complications of pain in these instances, and what this tells us of human creation; namely, the making and unmaking of the world. Her first proposition delves into the nature of pain as inexpressible. Scarry (1985) contends that pain’s “triumph” is its ability to create an “absolute split between one’s sense of one’s own reality and the reality of other persons” (p. 4). Pain is unsharable, it destroys language. Such that,

“to have great pain is to have certainty; to hear that another person has pain is to have doubt”

(Scarry, 1985, p. 7). Furthermore, pain is exceptional when compared to all other internal states.

For example, as opposed to love—which one has for an object or other—pain takes no object,

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has no referential content but as a result, demands the project of objectification into avenues of

rationality (we can see this project enacted in the pursuit of diagnoses).

It is logical that, despite pain’s refusal to be expressed there are many reasons (the project

of objectification for one) as to why we may want to translate an essentially private experience

into public discourse. This secondary form of pained communication leads Scarry (1985) to her

second proposition: that pain’s inexpressibility has political consequences. She asks, “How is it

that one person can be in the presence of another person in pain and not know it—not know it to

the point where he himself inflicts it, and goes on inflicting it?” (Scarry, 1985, p. 12). Indeed,

pain’s inexpressibility relates directly to the difficulty with which it is politically represented.

Such that torture comes to be described as a method of information-gathering: it is known from the perspective of those that stand outside. Hence our failure to express pain—“whether the failure to objectify its attributes or instead the failure, once those attributes are objectified, to refer them to their original site in the human body [by analogical verification]—will always work to allow its appropriation and conflation with debased forms of power” (Scarry, 1985, p.

14).

Finally, Scarry contends that the political consequences of pain’s inexpressibility reveal by inversion the essential nature of “expressibility” or, the nature of human creation. This contention arises from the way in which torture, at once language destroying, is also implicated in the deconstruction of the prisoners voice through the process of interrogation. Torture is (as is war) then a mime of un-creating—a structure of unmaking. Therefore, pain is implicated in the making, and unmaking of subjects.

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Leder (1990) refocuses pain in terms of corporeality as part of his broader thesis on the

phenomenological67 study of embodiment. In which he explores experiences of corporeal

absence, questioning why, “the body, as a ground of experience, . . . tends to recede from direct

experience” (p. 1). In general terms, our normally functioning, healthy body, is invisible to our

daily subjective attentions. In other words it disappears. We can observe this phenomenon whilst

recalling experiences of playing sport. To use Leder’s (1990) example of tennis, our attention is

on external factors—the flight of the ball, our opponent—very rarely do we attend to our body.

In fact, corporeal awareness (for example, thinking about technique) tends to be either

detrimental to our performance, or, as a conscious decision to attend to our physical errors.

This is where pain enters ideas of bodily absence. Leder (1990) suggests that by virtue of

its “concretization of the unpleasant” or aversive nature, pain causes an affective call for the sufferer (p. 73). Pain summons one’s attention, a forcible reorientation. A compulsive, sensory intensification, like no other bodily experience. It is through this function—as a reorganizer of lived space and time, others and self—that pain realizes its “phenomenological import.” First, pain, as Scarry (1985) demonstrated, is an un-sharable, entirely interior experience. Leder (1990) stresses that this intentional disruption is divergent from experiences of pleasure. Pain alone

“tends to induce self-reflection and isolation” (Leder, 1990, p. 75). Pain also induces a spatiotemporal constriction: “We are no longer dispersed out there in the world, but suddenly congeal right here” and often here is in a particular body part (Leder, 1990, p. 75). In addition, this body, or this part takes on an alien-presence—becoming-it as opposed to “I.” At this point

Leder (1990) finds it important to distinguish again between pain and pleasure, or neutral self- experience:

67 Phenomenology is a philosophy based on the assumption that reality consists of experience as perceived by human consciousness. 174

There are admittedly certain pains, such as that of the athlete pressing his limits, that are

congruent with life projects and has positive significance. (“No pain, no gain”) Yet this is

the exception rather than the rule. In most cases pain is an unwanted and aversive

phenomenon that forces itself upon us against our will. Moreover, it threatens the very

routines and goals by which we define our identity. Aversive, involuntary, and disruptive,

the painful body emerges as a foreign thing (p. 77).

Pain’s final hold over the human condition is its ability to exercise a telic demand. Our goals, actions, and future aspirations become concerned with being free of pain. Therefore through the experience of pain, or similarly injury, illness or malfunction, the body dys-appears:

dys, in Greek, signifies “bad,” “hard,” or “ill.” (It is the opposite of eu, the prefix

meaning “good” or “well.”) As discussed, the body frequently appears at such times

when it is ill, confronts the hard or problematic situation, or in some way performs badly.

(Leder, 1990, p. 87)

Finally, Leder (1990) alludes to the relationship of the body to self-identity and power. The dys- appearing body becomes susceptible to the Other’s intentions. This occurs as the subject comes to regard his or her pained body, the alien-presence, as object and thus assumed into the Other’s project. Hence the infliction of pain makes the body a setting of “microphysics” of power68.

Morris (1991) on the other hand, whilst acknowledging the importance of the body, suggests that pain can only be fully understood with regards to its historical, cultural, and psychosocial construction. Thus, for Morris (1991), pain emerges at the intersection of bodies, minds and cultures. In this respect, our contemporary crisis of (chronic) pain is created and sustained by traditional medical conceptions of pain—conceptions that misinterpret pain as a symptom, or simply a sensation. The danger of this crisis, that pain increasingly becomes

68 Here Leder (1990) is drawing upon Foucault in Discipline and Punish. 175 meaningless—modernist pain. In opposition to this perspective, Morris (1991) constructs pain as

“an experience that also engages the deepest and most personal levels of the complex cultural and biological process we call living” (p. 7). Therefore, Morris (1991) calls for a revision in the ways we think about pain. Specifically, knowledge about pain needs to take into account the bond pain shares with meaning:

The point I want to emphasize is that humankind—across culture and across time—has

persistently understood pain as an event that demands interpretation. Pain not only hurts

but more often than not it frustrates, baffles, and resists us. It seems we cannot simply

suffer pain but almost always are compelled to make sense of it. (Morris, 1991, p. 18)

Thus, we experience pain only as we interpret it. Although it may capture us (Leder) we also capture and shape pain. It is more than neural signals—more than a body phenomenon. But as a result, pain remains mysterious. In the aura of Scarry (1985), Morris (1991) asserts that, “[t]he person in pain belongs to a world that no one else can entirely share or comprehend” (pp. 76-77).

Morris (1991) also contends that we use pain—whether it be consciously or not—for specific purposes, both social and personal. In relation to masculinity, Morris (1991) states:

From boot camp to football practice, we use pain today, in whatever diminished and

misguided ethical sense, to know whether someone is a man—or to know what kind of

man he is. Pain inside a culture of manliness provides an apparently indispensable test of

courage and machismo. If you are a man, you must be tough; if you are tough, you must

be able to withstand pain. You must also be able to dish it out, particularly to women . . .

Thus the typical hardboiled detective earns his reputation by slugging or shooting almost

as many broads as he beds. His maleness shows up as a variant of spouse abuse: a

supreme indifference to female pain. (p. 181-182)

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Here pain is part of the “rite,” the passage to a new stage of (masculine) being. Morris (1991) also shapes pain as “the universal instrument of force” (p. 184). He points (through Scarry’s

1985 work, and Kafka’s In the Penal Colony) to torture as a mechanism of state power.

However, perhaps his most interesting suggestion—one reoccurring throughout his critique on the medical sciences—is that, our focus on explicitly painful acts such as torture, in fact blinds us to the uses of pain as an instrument of force in daily life. Instead we need to “employ almost a novelist’s eye in order to uncover the [painful] implications of acts and choices so small that we rarely stop to observe them” (Morris, 1991, p. 186-187). In addition, we need to acknowledge the multiple meanings and purposes that pain serves, beyond signaling injury. Finally, he contends that through this exploration we can learn from pain in such a way that leads to cultural change.

In this proposal Morris (1991) evokes the image of the dancer who avoids “merely stiff passive resistance . . . to use pain as the medium for a fluid, creative performance” (p. 195).

I believe that these theorists provided us with a dialectical relationship between pain and culture. Pain as Scarry (1985) and Leder (1990) describe it, is pre-social. Pain destroys the language—the basis for human thought and social interaction. Pain has an affective call over the body (Pain summons one’s attention, a forcible reorientation. A compulsive, sensory intensification . . . a reorganizer of lived space and time, others and self). The pain and panic of the tackle under my ribs overcame my ability to be calm. Just as my hand would interrupt me whilst typing. Indeed, the very fact that I knew an aspect of myself as “my hand” demonstrates the becoming-it of the alien presence that was my pained appendage. Therefore, pain is inherently implicated in our notion of subjectivity as how one knows about oneself.

As Scarry (1985) points out, pain is implicated in the making and unmaking of subjects.

In turn, Foucault argues that experience results in the subject—as opposed to any subject

177 presupposing experience. Therefore, I argue that pain provides us with an empirical concept that is not reducible to culture. However in saying that, Morris (1991) argues that we still need to think about pain regards to culture. Specifically, with respect to the meaning of pain. Therefore, I propose a conceptualization of pain that moves past its common portrayal—as an (undesirable) outcome of cultural processes—towards pain as an affective, embodied experience. An experience that has meaning and as such has implications for culture. This means thinking of pain as an experience engaged in “the deepest and most personal levels of the complex cultural and biological process we call living” (Morris, 1991, p. 7). Pain then, is both a product and producer of masculinity; of cultural citizenship; in this case, of my cultural identity

Pain and/as Intersubjectivity

My experience of rugby in the United States was intimately tied to a project of cultural identity. One, which focused on the frames of masculinity and New Zealand citizenship. In this instance my becoming took on many of the aspects detailed by Hall. South City RFC was a diasporic rugby space of similarity and difference. A space where parallels to rugby-at-home provided me with grounding, but where novelties worked at the same time to uproot me—each providing articulations for my identity work. In turn, my identity and body was articulated into the discourse of New Zealand rugby player, the representative frames of which I negotiated. In addition, Butler demonstrates how these negotiations were based on performance (or under- performance) and as such were implicated in the constitution of my self. Indeed, this identity project was primarily situated on the level of embodied rugby performance, concentrated in rugby spaces.

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However, I believe that my experience and bodily conduct came to be more closely in line with Ahmed’s notion of intersubjectivity. This can be seen first in the ways my body was

(re)produced by my intersubjective relationships with teammates and coaches. For example, in their discursive construction of the citizen “other,”—K-One. K-One’s rugby-body (perhaps the only body he had) was positioned in certain places on the field, was attributed with particular abilities and afforded certain privileges. However, I believe it is significant that these

(re)productions, (re)constitutions, and (re)positionings were affectively experienced by the body in/as pain. And even more importantly, many of the painful encounters that gave rise to this affective experience were encounters between bodies, between subjects. Pain in this respect was shared or implemented from body to body. Therefore, based on our brief excursion into literature on pain we can make some cursory suggestions as to the role of pain in the (re)production of self and other—pain as intersubjectivity. Scarry (1985) suggests that pain is implicated in the making and unmaking of subjects. Indeed, Leder (1990) argues that pain’s bodily appearance results in the subject coming to regard his or her own body as an alien-presence. This in turn insinuates that the pained body is assumed under the Other’s project. In the painful encounter of rugby such a relationship must be considered as pertinent and as such a site of relationships of power between bodies.

When I was hurt I was made aware of my body, its fallibility. A fallibility of the very embodiment upon which my cultural identity was reliant. As I have suggested, my cultural identity and masculinity were concentrated to the rugby field, and performance there on— specifically the tackling—what does it mean for the rugby body in this space to be the ultimate source of disjuncture? The body—in pain—is established as the affective source of a critical cognitive dissonance. The body as the source, and final crisis, of identity.

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However, as Morris argues, we must also attend to pain’s cultural and historical

construction, not just its phenomenological import. We can clearly see that pain has different

meanings depending on its source. The previous studies on pain in rugby have tended to

privilege the pains that result from injury. Indeed, this is likely a result of the unsharable nature

of pain which requires it to be grounded in something material and functional—such as a broken

bone—in order to be understood. We could suggest then, that the graduations between different

pains are in reality discursive differences. However, this is not to say that these discursive

interpretations are not important. For example, it is clear that Miles held pain as the result of

injury as an important aspect of his cultural identity project: “like when people say “how’d you

break your ankle?” I say “playing rugby” they are always like “ooo that’s a tough sport” and I’m

always so proud that “yea it is, you know.”

Pain in this respect must be considered an important part of the production of identities,

particularly those implicated in heavy contact sports. This suggests that embodied painful

encounters provide a “hinge”69 (Elias, 1987) around which culture and biology articulate, a site

in which the (re)production of the self and the body are intertwined, reciprocal, and ultimately

synonymous. And once more, such an encounter is an intersubjective (re)production of the body

of the self and the other; where an affective intersubjectivity manifests at the point of contact.

Perhaps K-Two’s tackle—one from which the “other guy” did not get up, and he himself

dislocated his shoulder—is a new way of thinking about how the stranger’s body and the body-

at-home are reformed together.

69 Elias (1987) uses the notion of a hinge to speak to the dialectic relationship shared between profoundly material and symbolic phenomenon. For example, Atkinson (2012) applies the notion of the hinge to discuss how “abject fluids like sweat matter, quite centrally, in the production of cultural meaning in Ashtanga yoga” (abstract). 180

Pain and Power in Rugby

How does this notion of pain as intersubjectivity allow us to look at the workings of power and/in cultural identity? And in particular, in the context of rugby? As I suggested earlier in the literature review I believe Ahmed’s theories provide us with a tool to think about how the broader historical and cultural context is played out in the power relations between bodies. In this respect we can see how embodied performance is implicated—through pain—in the microphysics of power operating between bodies, as opposed to just constituting the self and the historical context in which performance is possible (as Butler may suggest). Therefore, we can apply this notion in readdressing the literature on masculinity in rugby. Light and Kirk (2000),

Muir and Steitz (2004), and Schacht (1996) clearly show that there are dominant notions of masculinity at work in the production of rugby identities which have implications for rugby performances. However, Pringle and Markula (2005) identify how individual subjectivities in fact negotiate the discourse of rugby masculinity such that dominating discourse is not simply reproduced.

In their analysis pain did not provide masculinizing experiences for all the men. Indeed, pain from injury became one of the prominent reasons as to why many of the interview subjects discontinued participation. However, they conclude:

the interview accounts suggest that concern about rugby’s position of social significance

is still clearly warranted. The state of domination of rugby and its discursive links to

masculinities, particularly during teenage years, indirectly acted to limit alternative

resources to limit resources for the construction of respected masculine subjectivities

while also limiting margins of liberty to express discontent towards rugby and dominant

masculinities (Pringle & Markula, p. 491)

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Here Pringle and Markula (2005) Show how discourse is influential, though not determining in

the construction of subject positions with regards to rugby. In some ways, the current study can

be situated where theirs leaves off. This is a study into how these subject positions influence

embodied experience.

I believe the current study has gone some way to explore the influence of identity

projects—and as such the subject positions available in discourse—on embodied performance.

Such that, subject positions and positionalities produce particular relationships between bodies

and space, relationships in which pain is implicated. However, I suggest that pain in Pringle and

Markula’s (2005) study presents itself in an overtly textual manner, as something to be

discursively negotiated. Rather I think we should question what it means to think of pain as also an affective, sensory, phenomenological experience. To follow Leder (1990) in his conclusion:

The tendency to thematize the body particularly at times of disruption helps establish an

association between corporeality and its dysfunctional modes. The body is seen not only

as the Other to the self, but as a definite threat to knowledge, virtue, or continued life.

Dualism thus reifies the absences and divergences that haunt our embodied being. (p.

108)

Here Leder (1990) is arguing that one origin of Cartesian thought is found in the disappearance of the lived body. Can we, then, think of the role of bodily encounters in the production of discursive structures? In what way does the affective call of the body-in-pain (re)produce the ontological superiority of the mind in the rugby playing subject? And how might this work to reaffirm particular masculine subject positions?

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Coda

In this study I have explored how my own masculinity and cultural citizenship as part of

a broader cultural identity project was primarily constructed around embodied performance.

Such that it was in relation to physical rugby performance that my self was reaffirmed, or at

times, thrown into question. Furthermore, these performances implicated my body’s capacity for

pain and violence in my cultural citizenship. As such, I proposed the notion of pain as

intersubjectivity, concluding that my experiences of cultural identity in rugby were most in line

with Ahmed’s theories. Furthermore, I briefly entertained the notion of the painful encounter as

the site of power relationships between bodies articulated between broader structures of power.

Theoretical and methodological implications can be drawn from this research and the

discussions thereof. It is apparent that pain is worthy of consideration as an empirical concept.

Specifically, with regards to sporting bodies in particular, pain is implicated in the production of

identities. Such a theoretical proposition requires subsequent methodological considerations. For

example, theorists such as Scarry (1985) claim that pain’s utter triumph is in its ability to create

an “absolute split between one’s sense of one’s own reality and the reality of other persons”

(1985, p. 4). In addition to Morris who argues “[t]he person in pain belongs to a world that no

one else can entirely share or comprehend” (Morris, 1991, p. 76-77), and even Carlson, for

whom pain “creates an urgent need to communicate things which no one is eager to listen”

(Carlson, 2010, p. 2). Therefore, I argue that pain needs to be understood from within the body-

in-pain. This is not to demean any previous research but rather to suggest that such a new perspective is important to say the least.

We could follow a simple argument as to why this type of study is important by pointing to logic by which our society generally holds pain to be a negative phenomenon. Pain in this

183 instance is something to be cured, cancelled, diminished. However, such an argument tends to reinforce the notion that pain and culture are separate. Instead the current study pursues the valuable notion that pain and culture are intimately connected. Research under this premise works toward understanding how pain is experienced in the service of identity—how pain breaches the gap between identity and embodiment.

Here I argue that this study opens the door to thinking about cultural identities in different ways. Although I introduced Chapter Four with Hall’s (1996d) understanding of identity as “the result of successful articulation or ‘chaining’ of the subject into the flow of discourse” (1996d, p. 6), I now believe this theorization to be inadequate. Hall situates cultural identities primarily in relation to their discursive constitution and the processes therein. Although he is also sensitive to the psychoanalytical considerations of identification—and as such acknowledges that successful articulation requires investment—his theorization is still primarily textual. I believe that this study tells us something different. We can see—not just how one’s cultural identity hurts—but how hurt, identifies one’s culture. Here I am suggesting a dialectical relationship between pain and cultural identity, but in such a way in which neither is reducible to the other. How then, can we think of my experience when tackled in light of this dialect, and in the process move past the textual reduction of pain? I what follows I will provide a cursory attempt.

First, it is obvious that pain is the result of something, for example, being tackled.

However, we can also see that pain results in something else absolutely separate from that which gave it rise. As Scarry (1985) shows “it feels like…” very rarely represents what caused the pain that is being described. “It feels like a knife is stabbing me in the ribs” very rarely arises out of being stabbed in the ribs by a knife. Instead, the feeling of “the knife” is put there by a tackle.

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The tackle means something, but so does the pain. Hence, it is through our ultimately failed

attempt at expressing pain, that pain is subjected to discourse. Pain is falsely labeled “the knife”,

the processes of which, makes pain (for want of a better concept we could think of pain as pre

“the knife”) essentially un-sharable. And in this way pain is culturalized—articulated into

discourse as “the knife”, the result of a tackle, and an experience in the context of the tackle.

But pain remains before “the knife”, the tackle, the context and discourse. The tackle, and the context of the tackle, mean something to the pain, but the pain will remain as “(pre)the knife”, whether it be a knife that affirms, or dislodges, the embodied subject. In turn, the pain

(pre “the knife”) means something to the tackle and the context of the tackle. Pain makes the tackle material (read matter-real), through the privately experienced

inscription/infusion/enmeshment of the act onto/into/with body. In the case of the tackle taken in

the service of—a mate, a try, a team, a nation, a father—the embodied self feels the tackle in a

way that reorganizes lived space and time, congealing one’s subjectivity right here—on the ribs,

the chest, the pain, and the unresponsive lungs. In this way pain must always be contextualized,

but in some ways it is prior to any context.

For example, although I may bleed for a nation, blood is more than a symbol of

nationalism. I bleed black70 in multiple ways. We have been told many times how discursive

combinations of nation, masculinity, blood and sacrifice construct and limit who it is that can be

a citizen and how their citizenship is valued. We have also been told how blood is cultural; blood

is the relationship of the individual to the community, a result of the penetration of the border, a

vessel for our immunity defense of both the body and the body politic, but also imbued with the

threat of AIDs or the Other. Although when in pain my blood articulates with all these ideas, it is

70 Here I am evoking a popular All Blacks campaign which used the phrase “black is thicker than blood” and showed a number of patriotic individuals bleeding black blood. 185 also something not reducible to discourse, culture or text—something removed from being a man, a citizen, or a member of the community. I constitute my self with the loss of vital bodily fluid. I feel the loss. In the phenomenological, biological, neural response (pain) that makes me attend to this homeostatic rupture—that tells me I should stop the flow, and that I should avoid being pained in this way again—I recognize my identity project affectively and materially. My performance is imbricated into my very being, my cultural identity. My knees remind me—every time I wince, pealing the sheet from the “weeping” sores—that the small pains are my own.

However, these pains also put me in relation to something bigger. They are the result of the same style of rugby played on a foreign surface. A surface that is not conducive to the way my body interacts with it. A surface that tells me this fact every weekend, and every morning for days after. To which; not listening, playing the same, feeling that pain—is a small yet central part of my identity project.

Here I have made a modest effort to think about my cultural identity in way the moves beyond Halls understanding of articulation and discourse. This is a cultural identity, which shares a dialectical relationship with pain. This is a primarily embodied cultural identity which is subject to biological, affective and material (re)production, (re)constitution and (re)negotiation. I will acknowledge that a truly adequate theoretical development requires a greater; breadth of literature, theoretical know-how and empirical substance than I have supplied in this humble thesis. However, if nothing else I hope that this study could open up a broader discussion that moves us beyond textual reductionism in the study of cultural identity.

186

APPENDIX A

INFORMED CONSENT FORM

INFORMED CONSENT FORM FSU Behavioral Consent Form A Comparative Ethnography of Male Athlete Experiences in University and Club Rugby You are invited to be in a research study of adult men’s rugby experience. You were selected as a possible participant because you are involved in rugby in some capacity. We ask that you read this form and ask any questions you may have before agreeing to be in the study This study is being conducted by Christopher McLeod. He is a Masters student in the Sport Management Department at Florida State University. Background information The purpose of this study is to explore the culture of University and Men’s Club rugby union to understand how the practices in each of these clubs relate to each other. We hope that this will lead to a greater understanding of rugby and how men that participate experience it Procedures If you agree to be in this study we would ask you to participate in a 30 minute – 2 hour interview. It will be recorded and transcribed but no identifiable information will be collected. Pseudonyms will be used. Risks and benefits of being in this study The study has no risks. But at any time you may terminate your participation in this study The benefits to participation are not direct, but discussing your involvement in rugby union may help benefit the rugby community in general Compensation You will not receive any payment for your participation in this study Confidentiality The records of this study will be kept private and confidential to the extent permitted by law. In any sort of report we might publish, we will not include any information that will make it possible to identify a subject. Research records will be stored securely and only FSU Human Subjects Committee approved on 9/10/2012. Void after 9/09/2013. HSC # 2012.8887 researchers will have access to the records. The principal investigator is the only individual that will have access to the recordings and transcriptions. The recordings will be stored in a locked file cabinet for one year and then destroyed. The transcriptions will be stored on a password‐ protected computer for one year and then erased. Voluntary Nature of the Study Participation in this study is voluntary. Your decision whether or not to participate will not affect your current or future relations with the University. If you decide to participate, you are free to not answer any question or withdraw at any time without affecting those relationships Contacts and Questions The researcher conducting this study is Chris McLeod. You may ask any questions you have now. However, if you have questions later, you are encouraged to contact Mr. McLeod at

187

[omitted] or Mr. McLeod’s advisor Dr. Joshua Newman [omitted] If you have any questions or concerns regarding this study and would like to talk to someone other than the researcher(s), you are encouraged to contact the FSU IRB at 2010 Levy Street, Research Building B, Suite 276, Tallahassee, FL 32306‐2742, or 850‐ 644‐8633, or by email at [email protected]. You will be given a copy of this information to keep for your records. Statement of Consent I have read the above information. I have been given the opportunity to ask questions and have had those questions answered to my satisfaction. I consent to participate in the study. ______Signature Date ______Signature of Investigator Date ______FSU Human Subjects Committee approved on 9/10/2012. Void after 9/09/2013. HSC # 2012.8887

188

APPENDIX B

IRB APPROVAL LETTER

189

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

I was born in Christchurch, New Zealand. I received a Bachelors Degree in Physical Education majoring in sports and leisure studies with first class honors from The University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. My honors dissertation was titled “what’s with the racquet?” social class and youth sport in New Zealand. Currently a student at Florida State University I am enrolled in the Doctoral program in the department of sport management beginning in the fall, for which I have been offered a Legacy Fellowship. Publications and presentations: McLeod, Christopher, Lovich, Justin, Newman, Joshua and Shields, Rachel. The Training Camp: American Football and/as Spectacle of Exception. Under submission in Sports Education and Society

Falcous, Mark and McLeod, Christopher. Anyone for tennis?: Sport, Class and Status in New Zealand. New Zealand Sociology, Vol. 27, No. 1, 2012: 13-30.

Lovich, Justin, McLeod, Christopher, Shields, Rachel and Newman Joshua. Corporate Biomechanics: On the Quarterback as Biocapital. Under submission in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues

Shields, Rachel, Newman, Joshua and McLeod, Christopher. Life in Three Deaths: Thanatopolitical Biopoiesis and Militaristic Biocitizenship. Under submission in Cultural Studies <-> Critical Methodologies

Newman, Joshua, Shields, Rachel and McLeod Christopher. Fluid Biopolitics: Pathogenic Space, Communal Abscess, and the MRSA Epidemic

McLeod Christopher. Ripped Scrotums, Broken Bone(r)s, and “Territorial Anuses”: A Self- Narrative of Pain, Injury, and Rugby. Presenting at the International Congress for Qualitative inquiry (May, 2013)

McLeod, Christopher and Newman, Joshua. Vital Biopolitics: Physical Culture as Life and Death. Presented at the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport conference (November, 2012)

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