This article examines the operation of diversity policies and practices in the sport of football using textual material from Government initiatives, club websites and interviews with club community based workers to suggest that new identity positions are being put into discourse. Sport and in particular football has become a site at which, rather than being classified as dangerous territory where fans have to be controlled, new, responsible, self-regulating citizen selves might be created.
However, identity positions that I suggest are emerging both conform to and resist the apparatuses of governmentality which generate them and my research indicates that while there is some transformation taking place, the possibilities of new identity positions cannot be simply read off from the policy statements. Transforming identities are accommodated through discourses of charity, utilitarianism, and human rights, ranging from more paternalistic understandings of community within charity discourses to the political activism and equality based practices of human rights.
Editor's comments - [ Sport has become the target of policies and interventions categorised within the framework of cultural diversity, social inclusion and social cohesion. This paper addresses some questions about how identities might be transformed and what identity positions might be being made available through the introduction of strategies for promoting diversity in the context of sport; using the example of football. ] Reference this?Cryer, J. (Year). This page title in italics. Retrieved date, from <this page's full URL>
In the text: Cryer (year)
Reference : Woodward, K. (2005). On and Off the Pitch: Diversity policies and transforming identities?. Milton Keynes: Open University
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 diversityfootball.pdf | Woodward, K. (2005). On and Off the Pitch: Diversity policies and transforming identities?. Milton Keynes: Open University |
