“It’s not what’s intended, but it’s what happens”: Young women’s participation in Sport for Development and Peace in Colombia and the complexity of gender relations Sarah Oxford College of Sport and Exercise Science Institute of Sport, Exercise and Active Living Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Victoria University 2018 YOUNG WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN SDP 2 Abstract For women in Colombia playing sports was taboo for years. However, through Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) organizations, new spaces for female participation have emerged in recent decades. My research questions how girls and young women’s participation in a Colombian SDP organization shapes and constrains gender relations. This research includes six months of ethnographic fieldwork. Sixty interviews and many observations of participant's engagement were conducted in two distinct, low socio- economic neighborhoods where the SDP organization operates. My findings show female SDP participants are challenging gender roles in Colombia. The challenges were done in subtle and sometimes more overt ways with varying degrees of success; often rife with tensions and contradictions. Drawing from a decolonial feminist perspective and using an intersectional/entangled approach, this thesis explores the processes and mechanisms – gendered socialization, accessing alternative femininity, a constrained social bubble – that delimit girls and young women’s participation and perhaps invalidate steps toward social transformation. I argue that although more girls and young women are participating in masculine labeled pursuits, there are critical limitations to social change and female participants demonstrate the coloniality of gender in action. This research offers an in-depth focus on some of the complex and contradictory workings of gender within a sporting context, in Colombia. It also broadly raises some pressing concerns for scholars of gender and sport. Specifically, it calls for more researchers to apply a decolonial approach and for the SDP industry to be decolonized. YOUNG WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN SDP 3 Statement of Originality I, Sarah Oxford, declare that the PhD thesis titled ‘“It’s not what’s intended, but it’s what happens”: Young women’s participation in Sport for Development and Peace in Colombia and the complexity of gender relations’ is no more than 100,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, figures, appendices, bibliographies, references and footnotes. This thesis contains no material that has been submitted previously, in whole or in part, for the award of any other academic degree or diploma. Except where otherwise indicated, this thesis is my own work. Sarah Oxford 15 February 2018 YOUNG WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN SDP 4 Statement of Authority of Access I, Sarah Oxford, author of this thesis titled “titled ‘“It’s not what’s intended, but it’s what happens”: Young women’s participation in Sport for Development and Peace in Colombia and the complexity of gender relations’, submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, agree that this thesis may be made available for loan and limited copying and communication in accordance with the Copyright Ace 1968. YOUNG WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN SDP 5 Acknowledgements Working on a Ph.D. is one of the most bizarre psychological undertakings one can pursue. There is a fine line between pleasure and pain. We Ph.D. students live on this line, wobbling back and forth with little awareness of where we physically stand. As we learn the rules of the changing academic system, we battle between being geniuses or ignoramuses, in bursts. Sometimes we are feeling like the prior and often are feeling like the latter. In reality we may be neither. Spending days reading and writing about personally enthralling topics is an utter luxury. Ask Ph.D. students how many times they have been so totally engrossed in their work that at 2:00 p.m. they continued to write while wearing their pajamas. This is not an experience everyone can relate to but it’s one Ph.D. students know well. Those disgusting days are disturbingly exhilarating. Although the Ph.D. experience often feels isolating, for me, it was not. I’d like to say thank you to my community of researchers, writers and family who helped me maintain my balance on the fine Ph.D. line. In 2012, I gave a presentation at the Bill Huntley Memorial Peace Seminar hosted by the University of Bradford and Rotary International. At the end of my presentation Professor Jim Whitman pulled me aside and asked if I’d considered pursuing a Ph.D. Although I had a research topic in mind, I never thought I was that kind of a student; he insisted I was. The internal imaginary fire often needs external ignition in terms of confirmation. I thank Jim for believing in me, but more importantly for telling me he did. Jim planted an idea in my head and I began asking every Ph.D. student I knew for Ph.D. advice. Common responses beyond securing funding included having passion for the research topic, being totally committed, and finding a supportive supervisor. YOUNG WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN SDP 6 Near the end of my Ph.D. journey, I now preach these suggestions myself, putting emphasis on the final one. In terms of my academic supervision, I won the golden ticket. I have nothing but gratitude for my principal supervisor, Professor Ramón Spaaij. For four years, he’s been critical, honest, compassionate and empathetic. But more than that, when it comes to personal development, he walks the walk. He has invited me to publish, present and teach with him when I was unsure of my abilities; he has encouraged me to explore theories beyond his expertise; and he has supported me in applying for grants that would permit me to translate my work into the Australian landscape. Thank you, Ramón. In addition, my secondary supervisor, Professor Hans Westerbeek has also been instrumental, particularly with asking me big next step questions and ensuring me that I am on the right path. And, thank you to my external supervisor, Dr. Ruth Jeanes, who has encouraged me to publish with her and given me great encouragement throughout the Ph.D. process. I would be remiss not to give a special thanks to the Sport, Diversity and Social Change reading group, including Dr. Fiona McLachlan, Dr. Brent McDonald and my fellow Ph.D. students who have been an excellent resource for deep and shallow thinking, controversial discussion and lots of laughter. Closer to home, I’m indebted to my husband, Luke Studd, who has never read my work. Since I spend most of my day in my head, it’s always nice to have someone invite me out of it, encourage me to separate my identity from my work and tell me I’m important and loved, despite whatever I have or have not written. Additionally, I’m grateful to my parents, Cliff and Sharon Oxford, and to my grandmother, Etta Lee Idol, for their unwavering encouragement and support for all of my endeavors and for the plane tickets home during my Ph.D. I’d also like to thank Lindsay Clarke and Alexandra YOUNG WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN SDP 7 Moore who have engaged with my theoretical curiosities since we met in 2004. Thank you all for teaching me how to improve and reminding me there is more to life than a Ph.D. Finally, thank you to the Colombians who participated in this research. To Ana, Ana Maria and Viviana, thank you for teaching me Spanish, reviewing my translations and welcoming me into your homes and culture. For Ana Maria, in particular, I will always love and be indebted to your kind family who initiated my note taking from the moment I arrived. They spoiled me, protected me, loved me, fed me and taught me about the path to becoming an ideal woman in Colombia. Thank you to VIDA and to the community members – those working and/or living – in Chévere and Bacano whom I cannot name, but who were instrumental in this research. Thank you for your patience with my Spanish and relentless questions, and for allowing me into your lives and to share your important stories. YOUNG WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN SDP 8 Preface This research began when I entered my first football (soccer) team at age nine, joining a generation of middle-class girls in the United States, whose parents had responded to the Title IX amendment by signing their daughters up to practice twice a week and compete on weekends. It developed in my teenage years while being raised in North Carolina, a place that continues to be racially segregated and class divided. I discovered more when I left NC to attend a multi-cultural and thought provoking (feminist-leaning) boarding school outside Washington D.C. The teachers and my classmates there challenged my thinking, shaping my perspective to look at our global systems as complex and my place within them as possibly complicit. In response I sought ways to make better decisions about my actions while using my privilege to advantage others too. In my 20s I felt a calling to a career in international development within the NGO sector, but I was disappointed by power relations and the encroaching, so-called neoliberal agenda. Working in Cameroon, I questioned how do we create and sustain social change? Perplexed by noticing how much I appreciated living in a system that placed community before the individual, I often asked, what is positive social change? Who benefits from development? I suppose one could argue I was a sociologist with anthropological leanings from the start. Sitting on the river bank in Kilifi, Kenya during my Master’s fieldwork, I asked myself, how might young women’s participation in football – a traditionally masculine pursuit – transform gender relations in a local community? I emailed my friend, Alexandra Moore, who also worked in international development and she responded, YOUNG WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN SDP 9 “That’s a Ph.D.” Frustrated by the international development industry and overarching power systems that I saw at play within Cameroon and the slums outside Nairobi, I convinced myself a Ph.D.