6533b859fe1ef96bd12b7f74

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Narratives of Men's experiences in Sport

subject

description

The first part of the article describes men's experiences from the perspective of women and the second part presents an interpretation of the sport experience from a male's perspective. The relationship between the two parts, which are critical of masculinity yet simultaneously sympathetic to men, are complementary rather than contradictory. As such, the paper represents a contribution to the emergence of a new conception of women's and men's studies. The article's methodological framework is drawn from the field of women's studies and centres on the recollection and interpretation of one's own life history. The first part of the article is about how masculinity in boys is constructed with the help of sport. It presents selected recollections by male university students about how the cultural processes which reproduce masculinity in men is realized in the case of sport. The methodological basis for the second part of the paper is drawn from the tradition of textual analysis which has become increasingly influential in Finland in the areas of sociology, literature and politics. The article's second part deals with the deconstrurtion of masculinity in relation to the sportsman. It is a story of a man who has himself unfolded the power relations of sport in the context of his life history, his society and a theoretical frame of reference.