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Profitable margins: The story behind ‘our stories’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2015

Irene Ryan*
Affiliation:
Division of Sport & Recreation, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

Abstract

Institutionalised sport offers a context of ‘profitable margins’ for gender and diversity scholars in management and organisation studies to understand the intersections of different identity categories. Sport is about gendered bodies which are sorted into overt, pre-determined categories, such as sex, chronological age, ethnicity and disability. The storyline is illustrative of this as it traces a methodological journey and identifies three challenges that evolved in research aimed at exploring the intersections of gender and age in sport. It will discuss how further contributions can be made by placing self as the subject and object of the research through the use of the method known as memory-work. Memory-work is a method theoretically constructed as non-hierarchical, inclusive research. In this article this method is applied from an individual stance which created tensions and unexpected challenges. Despite its limitations memory-work opens up possibilities to those researchers wanting to adopt a multiple lens within gender and diversity research.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2009

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