Chapter 1: Thinking About and Outside the Box: A Critical/Queer Approach to Researching Sport Organisations

In this chapter, I use a critical sociological lens to look at ways sport organisations and scholars could think about and practice gender equity in institutional contexts in the United Kingdom. Sport clubs or organisations shape the participation of those involved in the sport and those working in and for these organisations as volunteer, coach, manager, referee, director, board member, etc. Differences in organisational forms and settings inform ways sport organisations think about sport, gender, race, abilities, sexuality and class relations. These ways of thinking may enhance and/or resist the use of sport equitable practices. Organisations are constructions, however, and not fixed objects but always in flux and becoming. In this chapter, I use a critical/queer perspective to make visible and question organisational processes that may contribute to the exclusion of women and minorities in sport governance. I specifically focus on the normative embodiment of leadership, dominant heteronormative practices and diversity as an organisational value. I suggest several ways in which attention to these processes could be part of a critical research agenda that focuses on initiatives that promote gender equity. I end with a few examples of what such an approach might look like.