'I Can Be So Much More Than I Think of Myself': Girls' Sport Participation and Discourses of Power and Agency in Windhoek, Namibia

Abstract

This study explores the impact of sport on the lives of 15-19 year old female participants in the Physically Active Youth program in Namibia by examining how they reinforce or resist dominant gender discourses in their lives through their reflections and conversations on sport and by highlighting discourses of agency that emerge from their perceptions of the role sport may play in their economic and educational futures and their own personal growth and development through sport. In the struggle to resist multiple oppressions within intersecting frameworks of race, gender, class, and age, this exploration of girls’ reflections on sports reveals the normalization of dominant discourses of gender and heterosexism through sport, but also evidence of emerging critical consciousnesses and questioning of the broader processes influencing girls’ participation in sport.