ABSTRACT PARROTTA, KYLIE LYNN. The Politics of Athletic Authenticity: Negotiating Organizational Change and Identity Dilemmas in Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby. (Under the direction of Michael Schwalbe). This study examines how members of a democratic organization negotiated growth and change based on differential identity investments and identity rewards. Based on nearly three years of participant-observation, fifty-four in-depth interviews, and archival data from Listservs, websites, blogs, and forums, I show how skaters in a women’s flat-track roller derby league negotiated what it meant to be a rollergirl. I argue that initial identity codes, or rules for signifying a derby identity, were renegotiated as some skaters sought to be recognized as serious athletes and bring the sport to a larger audience. Skaters who embraced a “sexy bad girl” identity and an image of derby as sexualized spectacle resisted organizational change. I show how the rapid growth of women’s roller derby at the global, national, and local levels generated and complicated these identity-related organizational struggles. Finally, I analyze the strategies that skaters and volunteers used to make time for involvement in derby, and how these strategies created inequities that further intensified pressures for change. My research suggests that scholars need to pay more attention to how the extra-organizational environment shapes identity struggles within organizations, and to the role of identity in negotiating organizational change more generally. © Copyright 2015 Kylie Lynn Parrotta All Rights Reserved The Politics of Athletic Authenticity: Negotiating Organizational Change and Identity Dilemmas in Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby by Kylie Lynn Parrotta A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Sociology Raleigh, North Carolina 2015 APPROVED BY: ______________________________ ______________________________ Michael Schwalbe Stacy De Coster Committee Chair ______________________________ ______________________________ Sinikka Elliott Karla Henderson DEDICATION To CL: “K.T.I.L.Y.” To Lillian: if it wasn’t for your bucket list, this probably would have never gotten done. ii BIOGRAPHY Kylie Lynn Parrotta was born outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Kylie moved to North Carolina with her mother and her step-father when she was nine and graduated from Apex High School. Kylie attended North Carolina State University, completing her B.A. in Psychology, and her Master’s degree and Ph.D. in Sociology. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have to begin by thanking the women and men who let me into their lives and supported me in my pursuit to research roller derby. I cannot express enough gratitude to the Star Killer Roller Girls (a pseudonym) for welcoming me into their league and for their unyielding support of my project over the last seven years. If it weren’t for my BFFFie’s obsession with roller derby, I probably would not have followed through with pursing derby for my dissertation. I am especially grateful to the two friends (who unfortunately have to remain nameless to protect the identity of the league) who vouched on my behalf to the board. The two of you not only helped me gain access to the league, but you never tired of answering my non-stop stream of questions, and my understanding of derby is unbelievably complex due to hours of conversations, g-chats, and email exchanges that I had with you over the years. Several SKRG board members were also key informants for me who dedicated a significant portion of their time assisting me with various aspects of my data collection. My travel to away games and tournaments would not have been possible without members of the all-stars who let me share hotel rooms and carpool with them and to the hosting leagues who put me up in “roller housing.” Some of my fondest times in the field were spent in locker rooms and at after parties with these women sharing the excitement, laughter, frustration, and tears involved with roller derby and dissertating. The staff and volunteers of the Mad Rollin’ Dolls, Rat City Rollergirls, Rose City Rollers, Carolina Rollergirls, and Philly Rollergirls helped me gain press passes and access to backstage areas of tournaments, so that I could gain a wider understanding of the derby community. I would like to personally thank Hydra and Bloody Mary for taking the time to iv talk with me about the WFTDA, Justice Feelgood Marshall of the Derby News Network for sharing his insights about the derby community with me, Bob Ray, the director of Hell on Wheels: The Birth of All-Girl Roller Derby, for his willingness to share the film transcript with me, Kat Vecchio, the director of This is How I Roll, for giving me access to the film before it was released, and to Tim Patten of the San Francisco Bay Bombers for the hours he let me spend listening to stories and memories from his four decades in derby. My analysis is stronger because of the context that all of you provided. My dissertation project would not have been possible without the care of my committee over the years. My academic interest in subcultures was sparked in Stacy De Coster’s undergraduate Juvenile Delinquency class where she delivered theoretical perspectives with a side of witty humor. Thank you, Stacy De Coster, for guiding me along the journey of obtaining all of my degrees at N.C. State. Sinikka Elliott was always so willing to give feedback on non-dissertation projects and provided unyielding encouragement on the job market. She pushed me to think more critically about gender both in my dissertation and in my work on sentencing disparities. I would like to thank Karla Henderson for serving as my Women’s and Gender Studies committee representative and for her literature pointers early on in my writing. Finally, my dissertation would not be what it is without the guidance and mentoring of my dissertation chair Michael Schwalbe. I am grateful to him for so much over the years, but especially for exposing me to symbolic interactionism, developing my feminist identity, forcing me to be self-reflective, for making me a better sociologist, teacher, researcher, and for changing the way that I perceive and interact with the world. v Additionally, I owe several thanks to other professors and administrators who helped me through this process. I want to thank Jeff Leiter for always letting me pop into his office to talk about org theory, Ron Czaja for making me dork out over research methods and for the “seatbelt checks,” Bill Smith for always being encouraging (even the trash talking about the Penguins), and Barbara Risman for planting feminist seeds and for telling me to, “Take a deep breath and work on one thing at a time…and it will all get done.” The support of Donald Tomaskovic-Devy, Michael Schulman, Barbi Honeycutt, Becky Rufty, and especially Dottie Dubose-Blum kept me on track to pursue my goals. Also, the staff of the Sociology & Anthropology Department helped me navigate the bureaucracy over the years, including Judy Cline, Garrett Hobbs, Neko Everett, Marcie Mock, John Craig, and particularly Bruce Cheek. I received a dissertation research grant from the N.C. Non-Profit Institute and the Stanford Lyman Memorial Scholarship from the Mid-South Sociological Society. These funds made it possible for me to hire Josh Sloan Wells and Anne Pawlak who did the most speedy, precise transcription work for me. A slew of friends and family lent me their eyeballs, shoulders to cry on, ears to vent in, and consumed beverages with me to assist me through the dissertating process. Throughout my graduate school journey I wasn’t always sure if I should thank Shannon Matthews, Spencer Hope Davis, and Christina Costanzo Mendat or curse them for being responsible for my decision to attend graduate school. But, now that the end is here I’d like to thank them, especially Spencer, for all of the guidance and words of encouragement over the years. A special thanks has to be given to the Little family (especially Mattie) and the vi Spano family (especially Mikey) for always taking me in for meals and celebrations. Both families practically adopted me and made sure I had family support in NC even after my own family moved. Several pals, such as Greg Fulkerson, Zach Brewster, Kimya Dennis, KT, Pete & Kim, Joy Piontak, Angella Belotta, Jon Brauer, and definitely Bill Hall and Jen Gathings (stat sig, friend) offered social and emotional support along the way. Members of my cohort— Olena Antonaccio, Sarah Rusche, Heather Shay, Gretchen Thompson, RV Rikard, Dustin Avent-Holt, Brandy Farrar, Kendra Jason, Lizzy Seale, and Rena Cornell Zito—were central during so many different parts of my grad school experience. Katrina Bloch was assigned to me as a mentor and I could not have picked a better person to help me navigate graduate school and dissertating. She is painfully loyal and honest and has improved my writing and ideas on this project and others. My neighbor, Terry Smith, gets a shout out for knocking on the window to check in on my writing, for keeping me on task, and for reminding me, “It is what it is.” And, I’m grateful to “Wonder” Joy Powers for always making time for me (and my belly) when I made it back to NC. Kris Macomber, Tricia McTague, and Amy McClure gave me accountability, making me stay on top of my data collection and analysis in the early years, but continued to help along the way. Kyle Green, Jason Sumerau, and Matt Ezzell offered feedback on early drafts of my chapters and pushed me to develop my analysis further.