Amy T. Blodgett’s research while affiliated with Laurentian University and other places

In this article, we discuss some of the identity challenges presented by Canadian National Team Female Boxers, and their possible implications to the athletes’ well-being and sport performance. Three identity challenges identified by the athletes included: (a) being a female boxer in a masculine sport context, (b) acceptance and tensions surrounding queer identities, and (c) feeling “different” as racial/ethnic minorities. Corresponding to these challenges, intervention strategies are proposed for sport practitioners, comprised of sport psychologists, coaches, and organizational staff seeking to build a culturally inclusive sport environment and support elite female athletes as holistic persons in combative sports through both policies and interventions. This submission is also intended as a catalyst to context-driven explorations and subsequent practical interventions within further elite sport contexts.

The current submission was conceived to broaden the discussion around male athletic identities by exploring the stories told by four members of the Canadian National Boxing Team. The athletes’ stories were elicited through an arts-based method followed by a conversational interview. Stories were then analyzed using an interpretive thematic analysis. Three salient themes were found—fluid masculinity, ethnicity brings an edge to boxing, and expressing identity through language. These themes present accounts that highlight how socially, culturally, and historically dominant narratives can allow athletes to feel comfortable in presenting the identities they might reveal or feel constrained from doing so due to factors outside of their control. The need to develop training and competition contexts that allow for the empowerment of athletes’ individually distinct identities is highlighted as a method to ensuring the positive mental health of elite level athletes.

Objectives: To situate mostly European cultural sport psychology scholarship in a historical backdrop and then to draw on two recent examples from such scholarship to propose future prospects. Design: A review of literature is utilized to situate the recent prominence of cultural sport psychology. This review is written temporally from past, to present, to future prospects. Method: A presentation of scholarship is presented temporally relating to the following: (a) gender scholarship, (b) cross cultural voids in race and ethnicity, (c) situating of cultural sport psychology in present day, with the emergence of European scholars, (d) the topics of intersectionality of identity and acculturation are drawn upon to reveal diverse approaches taken in this line of scholarship and practice, and (e) reflections and recommendations are proposed, calling for openness of perspectives and topic areas. Results: The presentation of scholarship is intended to serve as a form of advocacy for diverse approaches in cultural sport psychology. This advocacy is exemplified through such terms as cultural praxis and decolonization, beyond a broader call for receptiveness for diverse epistemological approaches. Conclusions: Cultural sport psychology is now becoming popular, among both scholars and practitioners. The benefits from such approaches extend beyond advocacy through research to mental health benefits for sport participants and exercisers.

There is a lack of research on the social construction of gender and sexuality in elite women’s boxing and the social psychological implications. Building on research that theorizes gender and sexuality as intersecting identities, this study explored elite women boxers’ (n= 10) identities in relation to inclusion and marginalization on the Canadian National Boxing Team. Constructionist thematic analysis identified a central theme: boxing as empowering and constraining encompassing multiple meanings of gendered identities related to physicality and sexualities. These were tied to inclusion and exclusion. Sport psychology recommendations are made for facilitating sport climates that encourage intersecting identity expression.

This qualitative project is focused on the challenges newcomer athletes revealed when they considered their earliest encounters with a receiving culture during general daily life. Conversational interviews with 24 national and international amateur newcomer athletes were subjected to interpretive thematic analysis and developed into a composite vignette. This vignette unearths three themes revealing hope (theme: opportunities abound); uncertainty and fear (theme: weighing the risks for the journey ahead); and anger, humiliation, and hardening (theme: public stonings). Understanding the fluidities within the vignette will permit practitioners to explore the uncertainties of acculturation and find entry points to support athlete acculturation.

Objectives: The project responds to calls for research that attends to issues of cultural diversity within sport and that facilitates expanded understandings of socially constructed identities. The intersecting identities of elite female boxers are explored in terms of how they shape experiences of marginalization and well-being within sport. Focus is on constructions of race and ethnicity, language, and religion. Design: An intersectional lens grounded in social constructionism was integrated with a cultural sport psychology approach to espouse the complexity, fluidity, and multi-dimensionality of the athletes’ identities as the product of intersecting narratives. Methods: Mandala drawings and conversational interviews were employed as open-ended data collection processes that enabled the participants to share their identities. Portrait vignettes were then developed as creative nonfiction to elucidate how identities dynamically intersect and shape sport experiences. Results: Five portrait vignettes layer together to show issues of identity expression, oppression and White privilege within the boxing context. The stories provide contextual insight into the ways in which athletes continually construct and negotiate identities in relation to dynamics of difference and sameness. They move fluidly between identities that are valued and identities that are marginalized, moments of open expression and moments of concealment. Conclusions: The research contributes to social justice missions within sport by illuminating how certain identities result in individuals being dis/advantaged, socially excluded, and discriminated against. Possibilities are revealed for challenging social inequalities and facilitating more inclusive sport spaces that resonate with who athletes are as holistic, multifaceted people.

This study explores a composite vignette of athletes acculturating in a national sport system. The research questions were: What acculturation narratives did the athletes’ construct when they considered the notion of their receiving culture’s national sport system? And within these; what are the key challenges in relation to support that the athletes storied about their receiving culture’s national sport system as they sought to acculturate? The research was framed in critical acculturation (see Chirkov, 2009a, 2009b). The fluid process of acculturation is illustrated using creative non-fiction presenting one unifying voice presented within a composite vignettes (see Spalding & Phillips, 2009). The three themes in the acculturation vignette were as follows: (a) nothing but love – a nationalistic romance, (b) losing my romance with nationalism, and (c) dollars in exchange for newcomer results. This project reveals how immigrant elite athletes can move between distinct narratives that can contradict one another.

Abstract: Objectives: This project responds to the call for athletic career development and transitions research that centralizes the constitutive role of culture in athletes' experiences (Stambulova & Alfermann, 2009; Stambulova & Ryba, 2014). Within, we explore the cultural transitions of Aboriginal hockey players (14-22 years old) relocated into "mainstream" (Euro-Canadian) cultural contexts to pursue dual careers as students and athletes. Design: The research was framed as a cultural sport psychology initiative. The project was rooted in local Indigenous decolonizing methodology, which was brought forward via a participatory action research approach. Methods: Mandala drawings and conversational interviews were employed as open-ended data collection processes that enabled the participants to share their stories and meanings through their own cultural perspectives. Vignettes were then used to present their accounts. Results: The participants' careers as athletes and students were precariously navigated within larger cultural tensions to: (a) deal with a loss of belonging in the Aboriginal community; (b) break down negative stereotypes and attitudes that Aboriginal people are not able to "make it"; and (c) give back to the Aboriginal communities they relocated away from. Conclusions: Through a culturally resonant mode of knowledge production, the research uncovers contextual understandings of the cultural transitions experienced by Aboriginal athletes, revealing how this transition intersects with and shapes their dual careers. The project offers insight into the central role of culture in shaping athletes' dual careers, and provides impetus for more idiosyncratic approaches to be adopted in future research.

Objectives The purpose of this project was to explore the acculturation challenges of Aboriginal athletes (14–26 years) from Canada as they moved off reserves to pursue sport within non-Aboriginal (Euro-Canadian) communities. The project was also aimed at contributing to the acculturation literature in sport psychology through an Indigenous decolonizing methodology. Design University academics partnered with Aboriginal community researchers from one reserve to facilitate an Indigenous decolonizing methodology rooted in practices from the local culture. The project was articulated as a form of cultural sport psychology. Methods Mandala drawings were used to facilitate conversational interviews with 21 Aboriginal athletes about their experiences relocating off reserves and the acculturation challenges they faced as they attempted to pursue sport within Euro-Canadian contexts. A local Indigenous version of an inductive thematic analysis was then conducted. Results The acculturation challenges of Aboriginal athletes coalesced into two major themes: (a) culture shock (which occurred in relation to the host culture), and (b) becoming disconnected from home (which occurred in relation to the home culture). These themes illustrated how the athletes’ sense of identity and place were challenged and changed, as they (re)negotiated meaningful positions for themselves in and between two cultural realities. Conclusion This project centralized a culturally resonant mode of knowledge production embracing local Aboriginal ways of knowing. This approach facilitated deeper insights into athletes’ acculturation challenges, which contextualized the complexity and fluidity of the acculturation process.