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Applied Sport Psychology: Unearthing and Contextualizing a Dual Genealogy

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University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2005 Applied Sport Psychology: Unearthing and Contextualizing a Dual Genealogy Tatjana V. Riba University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Riba, Tatjana V., "Applied Sport Psychology: Unearthing and Contextualizing a Dual Genealogy. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2005. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/2330 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Tatjana V. Riba entitled "Applied Sport Psychology: Unearthing and Contextualizing a Dual Genealogy." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Education. Craig Wrisberg, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Joy DeSensi, Diana Moyer, Mark Hector Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Tatjana V. Riba entitled “Applied Sport Psychology: Unearthing and Contextualizing a Dual Genealogy.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Education. Craig Wrisberg Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Joy DeSensi Diana Moyer Mark Hector Accepted for the Council: Anne Mayhew ------------------------------------ Vice Chancellor and Dean of Graduate Studies (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) Applied Sport Psychology: Unearthing and Contextualizing a Dual Genealogy A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Tatjana V. Riba August, 2005 Copyright © 2005 by Tatiana V. Ryba All rights reserved ii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Vladimir Fiodorovich Ryba and Taisa Andreevna Ivanika. They are the beginning. iii Acknowledgements I wish to express my gratitude to the supervisor of this dissertation and my mentor, Dr. Craig Wrisberg, and members of my dissertation committee, Dr. Joy DeSensi, Dr. Diana Moyer and Dr. Mark Hector, for supporting, encouraging and pushing me beyond my intellectual barriers to produce my best work. I feel privileged to have as my mentor one of the most dedicated scholars in the field of sport psychology, who introduced me to and taught me about the beauty and excitement of research. My very special thanks are reserved for Dr. Natalia Stambulova, Dr. Lydia Yevgenieva and Dr. Joan Paul, who unselfishly devoted their precious time and shared their unique expertise in order to support and advance my dissertation project. I want to thank my friends and colleagues for shared laughs, stimulating discussions and peaceful silence. Special thanks to my feminist group, Kerrie Kauer, Elizabeth Slator, Karen Applebee, Amy Cotter, Vanessa Shannon, Alexis Lombard, Leslee Fisher, Joy DeSensi and Camille O’Bryant, for always being there for me during this incredibly complex period of my life journey. They helped to keep me (in)sane. The departmental staff, Glenda Dills, Denise Howell, Frankie Stroud, Jo Allen, Earlene Ledbetter, Linda Pryor and Lori Fielden, have done so much over the years to make me feel welcome, supported and appreciated by this institution. I will miss them dearly. My family deserves much more recognition than I can ever put on paper. The pain of separation, missed opportunities and overall sacrifices each of them has endured over the years is something I will always remember. I owe everything to my loved ones. Namaste, Tatiana Ryba iv Abstract In this dissertation, I trace the historical development of sport psychology and draw on multiple fields to rethink its taken-for-granted practices and future trajectories. Influenced by Foucault’s (1977) genealogical approach to historical analysis, I challenge the conventions of linear chronology and provide competing narratives that highlight a set of discursive possibilities for the emergence of the psychology of sport. Though my focus is on a dual genealogy of applied sport psychology (i.e., American and Soviet discourses), I do not offer a new hegemonic discourse or origin story. Rather I attempt to provide a genealogical analysis of the (sub)discipline to show how and why sport psychology discourse has come to be the way it is performed today. Drawing on Foucault’s (1982, 1995) conceptual understanding of the subject and of knowledge production, I approach the work of Avksenty Cezarevich Puni and Coleman Roberts Griffith as two sites of origins of (applied) sport psychology. My prime interest here is not so much in identifying these two scholars’ individual practices as in uncovering the discursive formations of that historical conjuncture that shaped the way sport psychology has come to be conceptualized, theorized, practiced and institutionalized. I situate a dual genealogy of the discourse within global and local (i.e., glocal) particularities of the Cold War culture and socio-political practices in order to interrogate the interplay between the actual events and their representations in scholarly activities, particularly as they relate to the construction of oppositions and tensions between the Soviet and American discourses. I examine the implications of certain exclusions and inclusions for shaping current interpretations of international sport psychology within a broader context of national identity construction, deconstruction and reconstruction. My discourse analysis highlights rhetorical strategies aligned with technologies of institutional power and reveals the role of (sport) historiography in the production of a hierarchical and sealed system of knowledge. Each chapter of this dissertation holds a piece (or a fragmented narrative) of the historical analysis of the psychology of sport. The presentation of competing narratives of the past, the present and the future throughout the dissertation is aimed at “provoking [the field of sport psychology] into new moves and spaces where [it] hardly recognizes [itself] in becoming otherwise, the unforeseeable that [it is] already becoming” (Lather, 2003, p. 5). Finally, drawing on a recent co-authored paper with Handel Wright (Ryba &Wright, 2005), I attempt to articulate the intersection of sport psychology and cultural studies as one of the possible approaches to future work in sport psychology and put forward an argument for an integrated sport studies that includes (applied) sport psychology. v Table of Contents Chapter One: ....................................................................................................................... 1 The Inward Path.................................................................................................................. 1 Literature review............................................................................................................. 9 Purpose of the study...................................................................................................... 13 Significance of the study............................................................................................... 13 Chapters’ overview ....................................................................................................... 15 Chapter Two: .................................................................................................................... 17 Re-telling of the Past......................................................................................................... 17 What is the “linguistic turn,” anyway? ......................................................................... 18 Dealing with this troubling turn.................................................................................... 23 Is (sport) history dead or alive? .................................................................................... 30 And what is discourse analysis, exactly?...................................................................... 32 Is the troubling worth the effort? .................................................................................. 38 Chapter Three: .................................................................................................................. 42 The Sport System of the Soviet Union: The Marriage of Science and Politics................ 42 Historical background of the Soviet system of physical education .............................. 43 Decrees of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Soviet government on the development of physical culture and sport ................................................................... 50 The role of public organizations in the development of physical culture and sport..... 54 VLKSM....................................................................................................................
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