Female Chinese and Māori Sport Participants’ Embodied Experiences of Risk, Pain and Injury

Abstract

Risk, pain and injury are intrinsic elements of sport and physical activities. In this thesis, I explore the under-investigated experiences of sport-related risk, pain and injury of two groups of non-Western women in New Zealand. Neither the participants (Chinese and Māori women) nor the sports (table tennis and outrigger canoeing, known as waka ama in New Zealand) have been given sufficient attention in the prior studies of these experiences. Prior studies have consolidated the strong associations between the phenomena of risk, pain and injury and the high-performance male athletes in Western mainstream contact sports. Nevertheless, the problems related to this focus include: underestimation of sport participants’ efforts and sacrifices at various levels; marginalization of women’s experiences in sport and physical activities; and neglect of non-Western sport contexts and cultures. The existing knowledge of the field has thus provided only a narrow understanding of this ubiquitous risk, pain and injury in sport. To gain richer and more nuanced understandings, I recognised the need to explore sport participants’ diverse social identities (age, gender, ethnicity and cultural belonging) and their levels and types of participation. Two prime research questions were proposed: what interplay of influences (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity, cultural background and sport culture) have shaped Māori female waka ama paddlers’ and Chinese female table tennis players’ embodied experiences of risk, pain and injury? And, how have discourses and power relations interacted with participants’ embodied agencies to shape these experiences? Findings analysed via Merleau-Ponty’s and Foucault’s theorisations demonstrate that gender identity is not the only salient influence, but interacts with other factors, such as age, ethnicity, and cultural background. Both groups interpreted their pain and injury from lifecourse perspectives, in which their experiences and attitudes underwent changes as they proceeded through life. Additionally, female Māori waka ama paddlers drew on Māori tikanga [correct procedures] to interpret their attitudes to risk-taking behaviours, while female Chinese table tennis players’ experiences were shaped by Chinese cultural discourses of hard work and/or Western discourses of model minority. In contrast to prior studies, which tended to render athletes as inactive and passive on the theoretical level, my findings suggest that participants’ embodied experiences were contextually, discursively and subjectively shaped. Findings show that participants also resisted and negotiated with the social structures through their bodily awareness and actions. This study also provided empirical evidence to support a claim that Merleau-Ponty’s and Foucault’s theorisations of the body can be used in a complementary manner, and that an embodied approach and the investigation of intersecting influences are important for producing more diverse, multi-dimensional and nuanced understandings of risk, pain and injury in the sociology of sport.