Producing Korean Women Golfers on the LPGA Tour: Representing Gender, Race, Nation and Sport in a Transnational Context
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Producing Korean Women Golfers on the LPGA Tour: Representing Gender, Race, Nation and Sport in a Transnational Context by Kyoung-yim Kim, B.H.K., M.A., M.A. A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Exercise Science Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education University of Toronto © Copyright by Kyoung-yim Kim (2012) ii Producing Korean Women Golfers on the LPGA Tour: Representing Gender, Race, Nation and Sport in a Transnational Context Kyoung-yim Kim Doctor of Philosophy Department of Exercise Sciences Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education University of Toronto 2012 Abstract This research focuses on the contexts of Korean women professional golfers’ transnational migration, and the ways that US and Korean media represent those athletes. A theoretical framework informed by sociology of sport, postcolonial and transnational feminist studies was employed to illustrate the contexts of the women’s golf migration, and to investigate how transnational Korean women professional golfers are represented in both US and Korean media from 1998 to 2009. Elite discourses—941 media texts from both nations together with government/institutional documents—were collected, Korean texts were translated into English, and document analysis, critical discourse analysis and intersectional analysis were employed. The results illustrate that globalization and neoliberal capitalism, patriarchy, and colonial and imperial history all help to shape the women golfers’ transnational migration paths. The complex contexts also shape the media representations of the women golfers in the two nation- states. In US media, the Korean women golfers are constructed as a racialized and gendered Other within the context of Orientalism, and selective knowledge production in the media maintains and ensures global White supremacy. In Korean media, the women golfers are portrayed as winners under hypermasculine Western forms of globalization and neoliberal iii reformation of the world order but, at the same time, as keepers and performers of Korean traditional Confucian values. Further, Korean media explain the women’s transnational success as a result of following traditional Korean values and norms; therefore, the women are represented as proud symbols of Korean nationalism and ideal models of productive female subjects in neoliberal globalization. In sum, the Korean women professional golfers are taken up by media in both nation-states as an effective discursive contact zone for making sense of the changing power dynamics of race, gender, and nation under a period of rapid changes of world order. iv Table of Contents ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................ iv LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................................... vii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF APPENDICES ............................................................................................................. ix CHAPTER I. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1 The Research Goals ................................................................................................................. 4 Chapter Outline ........................................................................................................................ 5 CHAPTER II. Situating Asian Women (Athletes) in a Transnational Context ..................... 9 REVIEW OF LITERATURE ......................................................................................................... 9 Globalization and Transnational Sport Talent Migration ...................................................... 10 Transnational Dimensions in Sport Migration and Globalization .................................. 13 Constructions of (Asian) Gender in Popular Discourses ....................................................... 16 Imperial Race Relations in America and the Supporting Discourses ............................. 17 Patriarchal Gender Relations in Korea and the Supporting Discourses ......................... 25 Sport, (Asian) Gender, and Nation in the Media ................................................................... 32 THEORETICAL AND INTERPRETIVE FRAMWWORKS ...................................................... 41 Postcoloniality/Postcolonialism ..................................................................................... 42 Neoliberal/Neoliberalism ............................................................................................... 43 Transnationality/Transnationalism ................................................................................. 45 Discourse and Representation ........................................................................................ 49 Intersectionality .............................................................................................................. 53 CHAPTER III. Methods ............................................................................................................ 58 Data/Data Collection ............................................................................................................. 58 Elite Discourse: Media Texts from US and Korea ......................................................... 59 Elite Discourse: Government/Institutional Documents .................................................. 63 Supplementary Data: Intervidws with Key Agents for the Korean Golf Migration ...... 64 Data Analysis ......................................................................................................................... 68 Data Transition: Translation and the Politics of Interpretation ...................................... 68 Document Analysis ........................................................................................................ 73 v Critical Discourse Analysis ............................................................................................ 74 Intersectional Analysis ................................................................................................... 77 Practicing Rigourous and Reflexive Research ...................................................................... 78 Positionality: Theoretical, Methodological, and Interpretive Positions ......................... 80 Crystallization ................................................................................................................. 83 CHAPTER IV. Glamorous Sojourners: Korean Women Golfers’ Migration and their Transnational Mobility and Flexibility .......................................................... 84 Transnational Golf Flows and Korean Women on the Move ................................................ 85 Economic Imperatives and Dislocations of the Women Athletes .................................. 89 Cultural Logics of the Skilled Golfers’ Migration Choice ............................................. 90 Transnational Connectivities of Golf between Korea, Japan and the US .............................. 92 Political History of Korean Golf and the KLPGA ......................................................... 93 US Power and the LPGA’s Matrix of Global Domination ........................................... 103 Discussion ............................................................................................................................ 112 Multiple Connectivities of the Korean Women Golfers’ Transnationality .................. 112 The Winner-Take-All Structure and (Financial) Insecurity of the Migrants ............... 116 Up/Rooted Korean Golf Migrants—Glamorous Cosmopolitan versus Sojourner ....... 117 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 119 CHAPTER V. “Korean Golf Secrets Exposed”: US Media and Re/Productions of Fluid Orientalism ...................................................................................................... 122 The System of US Media Representation ............................................................................ 122 Ambivalent Representations ......................................................................................... 123 Binary Dualism and Absence-Presence of the US ....................................................... 126 Intersectional Structure of the Representation ............................................................. 129 Discourse Analysis of US Media Representations .............................................................. 133 Agenda and Representational Genre ............................................................................ 133 Style, Modality, and Evaluation ................................................................................... 150 Difference: Discursive Shifts from Biological Determinism to the Biologization of Culture ....................................................................................................... 157 Intertextuality and its Assumptions in the Representation ........................................... 163 Discursive Re/Construction