Dr Beccy Watson

This unparalleled collection, international and innovative in scope, analyzes the dynamic tensions between masculinity and dance. Introducing a lens of intersectionality, the book’s content examines why, despite burgeoning popular and contemporary representations of a normalization of dancing masculinities, some boys don’t dance and why many of those who do struggle to stay involved. Prominent themes of identity, masculinity, and intersectionality weave throughout the book’s conceptual frameworks of education and schooling, cultures, and identities in dance. Incorporating empirical studies, qualitative inquiry, and reflexive accounts, Doug Risner and Beccy Watson have assembled a unique volume of original chapters from established scholars and emerging voices to inform the future direction of interdisciplinary dance scholarship and dance education research. The book’s scope spans several related disciplines including gender studies, queer studies, cultural studies, performance studies, and sociology. The volume will appeal to dancers, educators, researchers, scholars, students, parents, and caregivers of boys who dance. Accessible at multiple levels, the content is relevant for undergraduate students across dance, dance education, and movement science, and graduate students forging new analysis of dance, pedagogy, gender theory, and teaching praxis.

This chapter examines methodological practice in feminist leisure and sport scholarship underpinned by a view of “thinking intersectionally”. Despite an increase in publications detailing and/or engaging intersectionality over recent years across social science research more broadly, intersectionality is not yet prevalent in leisure and sport scholarship. Black feminist perspectives are central to informing discussion on the challenges of researching difference and inequalities. The potential and possible ways of thinking intersectionally for future research engagement are explored, drawing on examples from the author’s feminist leisure research practice. The contexts of space and embodiment, as significant aspects of thinking intersectionally, along with ongoing feminist debates regarding reflexivity and insider–outsider issues, are given consideration in relation to how we identify the overall context of our research as well as the multiple contexts within which our research is carried out.

There has been a long-standing debate about what makes research feminist. While methods themselves are not inherently gendered, feminists agree on the need for feminist questions to infuse all parts of the research process. One fundamental tenet in early debate about feminist research and epistemological standpoints was that feminist research constitutes research done ‘by women, for women’ (Stanley & Wise, 1993, p. 30) and, ‘where possible, with women’ (Doucet & Mauthner, 2006, p. 40). However, while the idea that there is a ‘distinctly feminist mode of enquiry’ (Maynard, 1994, p. 10) seems to be widely agreed on, what this might involve is less clear. For example, whereas for many there is a commitment to praxis or to creating social change, others are more concerned with critiquing dominant forms of knowing (see, e.g., Kelly, Burton, & Regan, 1994). Underpinning and complicating this question of a specifically feminist approach is an understanding or awareness of the relationship between methodology (the theory and analysis of how research is approached and proceeds), method (the techniques we use) and epistemology (ways of knowing and what counts as knowledge). And so, for example, early feminist research criticized quantitative methods as contrary to feminism’s epistemological basis (Maynard, 1994; Westmarland, 2001). However, increasingly a range of feminist epistemological stances have been advocated and adopted which provide the basis of feminist “truth” claims (Abbott & Wallane, 1997; Harding, 1991; Maynard, 1994) and alternative knowledges (see Barbour and Beal chapters). It is beyond our scope here to give a detailed explanation of these ongoing debates about the characteristics of feminist research; rather our intention is to alert the reader to this complex picture and the issues that underpin it.

In this first-of-its-kind we bring together close to 50 chapters of new and invited feminist writings on sport, leisure and physical education (PE). This has been an exciting and enjoyable endeavour for us as women working in different higher education institutions spread across north and south England, and New Zealand. Individually we all completed our gender-related PhDs in the late 1990s/early 2000s. We met each other at this time through conference attendance and other academic networks. Since then we have worked together in various settings as feminist academics and advocates. However, this is the first time we have all collaborated on one project.

Through 19 contributions from leading international feminist scholars, this book provides new insights into activating transdisciplinary feminist theories, methods and practices in original, creative and exciting ways – ways that make a ...

Scraton (1992) asserts in her conclusion to ‘Shaping up to Womanhood’ that feminist analysis of PE (and sport and leisure more broadly) needs to engage more directly with masculinity as a means to understanding the ‘dynamics of gender’. Focusing on young people’s involvement in recreational dance, this paper demonstrates how some of those dynamics of gender are played out, reproduced and resisted by both boys and girls who participate at community based dance organisations. Selective data in the form of research frames are incorporated to illustrate how gender is constructed, enacted and embodied by young people engaged in recreational dance. Masculine and feminine hegemonies are highlighted and demonstrate that gender is both relational and intersectional. This contributes to ongoing analysis of masculinities and femininities as practices and processes imbued with complex power relations for young people.

Feminist researchers, scholars and activists have always been concerned with contemporary issues. At the heart of feminist approaches are critical challenges to gendered inequality manifest in social, political and cultural ideas, policies and practices at particular moments in time. Contemporary issues in feminist thought and political action include a complex array of social problems connected to social inequality. The issues that matter most to feminists differ according to the organization and experience of social life at any one point in time. Some contemporary feminist issues have an enduring quality to them and appear as important across generations or re-emerge in different social and political contexts at different historical moments. For example, perhaps the most pressing feminist issues globally in twenty-first-century life concern: the division of domestic labour, gendered inequality in pay and position in the workplace, media representation of women, violence against women, and the significance of intersectionality and inequality in shaping the lives of diverse groups of women and girls. Yet each one of these so-called contemporary issues has some connection to the historical trajectory of feminist scholarship and activism, and to the lived experiences of women over time. As Reger and Taylor (2002) point out, early feminist campaigns focusing on suffrage, civil rights, reproductive rights and citizenship have provided legislative and political gains for many women yet there remain legacies of these issues still to challenge and resolve in contemporary contexts.

Responding to the statement “why boys (don’t) dance” requires attention be paid to how and why masculinity retains significance and influence. In this introductory chapter, Beccy Watson, Doug Risner, and Sukina Khan provide a rationale for locating dance and dance education scholarship in an intersectional framework; they draw on recent and established dance research to contextualize and introduce the chapters that comprise the edited volume. The review of literature covers three overlapping themes: praxis and critical pedagogy; the dancing body and masculinity; difference and intersectionality. The themes inform the rationale for the organization of the book around the larger categories of education, cultures, and identities. In conclusion, the chapter stresses a commitment to informing practice and theorization across masculinity and dance interrelationships.

Substantive, peer-reviewed, and regularly updated, the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education combines the speed and flexibility of digital with the rigorous standards of academic publishing.

Feminist (leisure) researchers in the 1980s and 1990s argued that the context of women’s leisure was, at best, one of ‘relative freedoms’ (Wimbush & Talbot, 1988), something achieved in the context of multiple constraints (Henderson, Bialeschki, Shaw, & Freysinger, 1989). Some empirical studies in the UK questioned whether and how women had leisure at all, ‘Women’s leisure what leisure?’ (Green, Hebron, & Woodward, 1990) and ‘All work and no play’ (Deem, 1986) being particularly significant contributions that drew on critical feminist analysis at the time. A number of feminists were already connecting leisure, sport and physical education in the early 1980s (Deem, 1982; Hargreaves, 1986) and in 1980 Margaret Talbot made the case for women’s sport to be analysed in the context of leisure (Talbot, 1980). This has had, and continues to have, a profound influence on scholarship in and across our varied areas of interest and analysis (Hall, 1987; Hargreaves, 1994; Scraton, 1985).

This chapter argues that ‘thinking intersectionally’ is a crucially important endeavor for feminist leisure scholarship. Black feminist perspectives are central to the conceptualisation of intersectionality and this informs the chapter throughout; this is not done in an attempt to reaffirm feminist standpoint perspectives (Black and/or other standpoint epistemologies included); rather it is about recognition and a plea to look at leisure (and social relations more broadly) from relational, critically informed positions. Drawing on examples of empirical research focused on leisure as contested space, and studies on masculinity, gender, and recreational dance, the chapter considers how intersectionality, feminism and social justice agendas are bound together in complex and dynamic ways. Thinking intersectionally can contribute to debates regarding fourth wave feminism, and the critically informed basis of intersectionality, to challenge persistent power inequalities, is arguably a key perspective for feminist leisure scholars to engage with.

This handbook provides an original, comprehensive and unparalleled overview of feminist scholarship in sport, leisure and physical education. It captures the complexities of past, current and future developments in feminism while highlighting its theoretical, methodological and empirical applications. It also critically engages with policy and practice issues for women and girls taking part in sport and leisure pursuits and in physical education provision. The Palgrave Handbook of Feminism and Sport, Leisure and Physical Education is international in scope and includes the work of established and emerging feminist scholars. It will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, gender studies, sport sciences, and sports business and management.

This theme of the handbook illustrates the diverse ways that feminists have made and continue to make sense of gender in sport, leisure and PE. As a collection, the nine chapters examine the intellectual repertoires that have shaped vibrant feminist debates and competing and complementary conceptual approaches to gender, sexualities, race and ethnicities. The chapters identify and elucidate how and why different theoretical perspectives have given direction to empirical study, critical analyses and conceptual development. As a collection the chapters offer a range of approaches and it is this diversity of critical analyses that makes feminist theory dynamic and generative. Some time ago, Susan Birrell (2000) argued that it is the ongoing debates within feminism that help produce the integrity of feminist theory. Instead of viewing the various schisms of feminism as reducing the analytic power of feminist theory, it is argued that the range of feminist points of view work to strengthen the depth and detail of feminist theory, and its potential to provide robust explanations of the intricacies surrounding gendered power relations.

This chapter is based on a dialogue between Patricia Vertinsky and Beccy Watson. It was recorded in the autumn of 2016 and followed an earlier informal meeting in 2015 and some exchange of ideas over email. It captures some rich detail and commentary about Patricia’s academic career, which spans more than 40 years across physical education and kinesiology. Drawing on themes that run throughout much of her work, the chapter demonstrates that there is no simple definition for feminist sport history and/or feminist sport historians. Looking back and very much assessing the present, Patricia’s experiences and her commentary indicate that there continue to be numerous challenges for women working in kinesiology and sport science departments. Patricia provides a critical and insightful account of how and where feminism is needed in these areas as well as documenting some of its achievements.

This paper centres on the dynamic interrelationship between popular music and leisure, drawing on the concepts of soundscapes (Bennett, 2000), urban mythscapes (Bennett, 2002), and symbolic use (Gilroy, 1993). The paper draws from two local authority (public sector funded) popular music projects supported by Leeds City Council in the north of England, Urban Fusion and Urban Breeze which operated in 2007. Qualitative research data gathered via observations and semi-structured interviews is used to highlight the significance of popular music as part of young people's leisure; it also demonstrates how individuals negotiate continuing and evolving involvement with popular music as their 'lifescapes' develop and change. Discussion developed throughout highlights the need for further theoretical engagement with how leisure and popular music interrelate. Consideration is also given to how urban regeneration strategies that often champion popular cultural/arts forms could benefit from incorporating a 'leisure lens' to inform cultural policy initiatives.

This chapter draws on the CREATE framework to explore the REHEAL-C project, supported by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship 2019-2020. It aims to understand British Chinese children’s physical activity, leisure and health-related experiences, which aligns with broader European policy to address health inequalities. On reflection, the CREATE framework resonates with the values and principles that underpinned ethnographic and arts-based methods. The principles of connections, reflexivity, empathy, adherence, transparency and empowerment, demonstrated by the REHEAL-C project, have enabled a more critical and humanistic approach in researching with British Chinese children amid challenges sparked by Covid-19 pandemic and the historical invisibility of British Chinese communities and research locally and globally.

This paper centres on the dynamic interrelationship between popular music and leisure, drawing on the concepts of soundscapes (Bennett, 2000), urban mythscapes (Bennett, 2002), and symbolic use (gilroy, 1993). The paper draws from two local authority (public sector funded) popular music projects supported by Leeds City Council in the north of England, Urban fusion and Urban Breeze which operated in 2007. Qualitative research data gathered via observations and semi-structured interviews is used to highlight the significance of popular music as part of young people's leisure; it also demonstrates how individuals negotiate continuing and evolving involvement with popular music as their 'lifescapes' develop and change. discussion developed throughout highlights the need for further theoretical engagement with how leisure and popular music interrelate. Consideration is also given to how urban regeneration strategies that often champion popular cultural/arts forms could benefit from incorporating a 'leisure lens' to inform cultural policy initiatives.

Readers should also refer to the journal's website at http://www.informaworld.com/rqrs and check volume 2, issue 2 to view the accompanying video clips. This will appear as ‘Supplementary Content’ to this article. This paper examines video diaries as creative, visual methods and considers their value as a complementary and innovative method in qualitative, social science based, research on sport. Data are presented from a university basketball team and live links to video diaries are incorporated to contextualise and illustrate three key themes of the everyday, identity and the body. Evidence suggests that the players embody varying levels of ‘visual capital’ that inform their understanding and ‘production’ of these visual, ethnographic representations. Video diaries are assessed as a potential response to a crisis of representation facing researchers, demonstrating how this form of narrative data, in the context of visual methodology, is an interesting development for qualitative research in sport.

In the UK in 1989 Joan Smith, the acclaimed feminist journalist, novelist and human rights activist wrote her book Misogynies. Some 25 years later women activists and journalists continue to make public the level and depth of everyday sexism and misogyny in many of the world’s societies. More recently, Laurie Penny (2014), UK columnist and editor, writes powerfully about sexual freedoms and social justice for women and girls around the world. Both women offer texts that appeal to a readership beyond the confines of academia. As such they provide modes of feminist political intervention into popular culture. In this theme of the handbook, we aim to provide similar contributions through a focus on feminist activism and feminist praxis as opposed to explicit feminist theorizing and conceptualizing.

This paper focuses on women's leisure in city urban space. It draws on feminist discourses around ‘difference’ and cultural geography that explores public space as a gendered, sexualized and racialized arena. Empirically the paper discusses two case studies of women's leisure in the city: older women and ‘young’ mothers including a specific sample of South Asian mothers. The research suggests that although there is an obvious plurality of meanings attached to leisure and a plurality of sites where this takes place, thus providing evidence of the fragmentation of women's experiences, there remain a combination of structural factors that have varying influences on women's leisure opportunities in an urban context. The challenge for leisure studies is to complement its already multidisciplinary base by drawing on work that opens up the complexities of space, not merely in the recognition of ‘new’ lifestyles and the conspicuous consumption of leisure but also, as a site for the maintenance and reproduction of complex power relations, in this instance, primarily those of gender and ‘race’. © 1998 Taylor © Francis Group, LLC.

The academic field of what in the UK has been termed “Sport Studies” is a multi- and inter-disciplinary field of teaching and research including the natural sciences (including physiology, biomechanics, motor learning), social sciences (i.e. sociology, anthropology, politics, and economics), and humanities (e.g. history, philosophy). Despite this breadth, many researchers and students working outside positivistic paradigms have had to fight to gain legitimacy for their approaches. For sport feminist researchers, this has been further complicated by a long-entrenched culture of masculinity that operates at many levels from the gendering of the work-place and curricula to the promotion and adoption of particular methodological assumptions and practices. Early sport feminist researchers and activists challenged the male-dominated world of sport, and of sport academe. They showed that women’s lives and experiences mattered. There continues to be a vibrant body of sport feminist research which challenges the “normative” disciplinary boundaries, methodologies, epistemologies, and power relationships within sport. In this chapter, four cis-gender white women feminist researchers who have been active as researchers, postgraduate supervisors, and in feminist praxis, reflect on the potential for and challenge of a transdisciplinary feminist framework within sport-related studies.

The chapter contributes to leisure scholarship by extending the current understanding of Chinese diasporas’ leisure experiences and practices in the UK, Australia, and Aotearoa/New Zealand. The discussion in the UK explores how the intergenerational flow of habitus of some British Chinese children's leisure experiences is shaped by a range of discourses related to Chineseness, race, gender, and social class. Chinese New Zealanders hold diverse views on masculinities, with Confucian gentry-class masculinity continuing to influence perspectives on the body and masculinity in sports. The discussion of the Australian context argues that Chinese migrants’ engagement in sports is tied to various forms of Asian cultural habitus as part of their ongoing home-making endeavour to (re)create a sense of belonging during their long-term migrant incorporation process. This chapter sheds light on the governance of multiculturalism as ‘living-together-in-difference’ in leisure, encouraging us to re-think the relationship between sports participation, migrant integration, and civic participation.

In the summer of 2007, Bollywood (and the International Indian Film Academy Awards) came to Yorkshire in the north of England and public spaces in cities such as Leeds were used to host various events relating to South Asian culture. The focus here is on the South Asian Festival at Roundhay Park and shifting uses and perceptions of public leisure spaces. We argue that a conceptualization of space for leisure can be effectively utilized to acknowledge how leisure spaces are constructed across racialized, classed and gendered social relations. We consider how thinking intersectionally can inform our understanding of the ways in which leisure and space are intertwined and indicate the salience of further, future work for leisure scholars engaging with critical issues of difference.

This paper reflects critical engagement with the development of feminist analyses of leisure and sport and more broadly debates within feminist theory and research epistemology and methodology. It focuses in particular upon the methodological issues raised in researching the leisure lives of South Asian mothers, examining critically the role of the white researchers involved. It argues that an approach based upon reflexivity with responsibility is a useful starting point from which to confront the dominant positions of white researchers within leisure and sport discourse. Comments from the research participants are used to contextualise debates surrounding the shifting boundaries of insider-outsider dynamics within the research and an assessment of how confronting whiteness is possible within the dynamic nature of feminist leisure theory and research.

The challenge of understanding and researching the intersections of complex multiple inequalities has been a key focus for a range of social science disciplines over the past two decades. This paper considers the potential use of intersectionality for engaging more critically with the multiple interconnections of power, identity and discrimination. It outlines some key tenets of intersectionality: as a theoretical perspective; as a methodological approach and as a somewhat elusive and often more loosely termed ‘framework’. It proposes some possible contributions that intersectionality can make to leisure scholarship, and, importantly, offers an assessment of leisure’s potential to contribute to wider debates on intersectionality. We argue that thinking intersectionally is a useful means of analysing leisure as a dynamic interplay of individual expression and the social relations within which leisure occurs. This is demonstrated through reference to two examples where ‘thinking intersectionally’ can inform analyses of leisure, one on public leisure space and the second on leisure and embodiment.

This paper reflects critical engagement with the development of feminist analyses of leisure and sport and more broadly debates within feminist theory and research epistemology and methodology. It focuses in particular upon the methodological issues raised in researching the leisure lives of South Asian mothers, examining critically the role of the white researchers involved. It argues that an approach based upon reflexivity with responsibility is a useful starting point from which to confront the dominant positions of white researchers within leisure and sport discourse. Comments from the research participants are used to contextualise debates surrounding the shifting boundaries of insider - outsider dynamics within the research and an assessment of how confronting whiteness is possible within the dynamic nature of feminist leisure theory and research.

This chapter draws on the CREATE framework to explore the REHEAL-C project, supported by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship 2019–2020. It aims to understand British Chinese children’s physical activity, leisure and health-related experiences, which aligns with broader European policy to address health inequalities. On reflection, the CREATE framework resonates with the values and principles that underpinned ethnographic and arts-based methods. The principles of connections, reflexivity, empathy, adherence, transparency and empowerment, demonstrated by the REHEAL-C project, have enabled a more critical and humanistic approach in researching with British Chinese children amid challenges sparked by Covid-19 pandemic and the historical invisibility of British Chinese communities and research locally and globally.

Climbing magazines from the 1970s to the 2000s, originating as a product of male dominated climbing cultures, provide a rich illustrative source for embracing visual methodology. Working as a multidisciplinary collective of four across history, art, sociology, we are using photomontage methods to interrogate the photographic representations, absences and stark invisibility of women and women climbers held within our climbing magazine collection. We engage collage as our means of working with the magazine imagery and representations therein. Situating art making at the kitchen table, Dada artist Hannah Höch (1889-1978) invites us to trespass towards a collective, resistant leisure activity. We do so by workshopping to deconstruct, disassemble and reassemble our visual artefacts to speak back and through the ways women’s bodies are objectified, and materially and discursively play out against exclusive leisure. Identifiable representations of women appear in the magazines which chime with complexities of absence, sexualization, and conditional inclusion. We chat and discuss and unobtrusively transcribe our emergent commentaries. Our visual methodology therefore invigorates the examination of women’s status within climbing culture past and present, across climbing and non-climbing audiences, revealing resonances between past and present attitudes to women, suggestive that representational strategies continue to impact discriminated groups.

This chapter argues for the continuing importance of feminist praxis in PE. It draws on recent research that responds to calls for more middle-ground theorizing in PE to explore difference and inequality, and for the use of creative methods in research practice with young people. The first example explores black and minority ethnic student teachers’ experiences of their PE teacher education, going beyond earlier, “single-issue” approaches that focus on gender and PETE to address how gender is interwoven with race and ethnicity (and other relations of power). The second example focuses on using innovative methods to understand the diverse PE experiences of South Asian, Muslim girls. In so doing, it challenges dominant conceptions of “femininity” as homogeneous and problematizes simplistic views of Muslim girls’ (dis)engagement. The chapter concludes by pointing to areas where future feminist praxis in PE would be valuable.

Critical conversations concerning if and how dance ‘fits’ within current (dominant) discourse across physical activity (PA), public health (PH) and sport policy are presented here in the form of commentaries from a ‘collective’ research base and individual ‘worldviews’ that includes the director of an established community-based dance organisation, a local authority PH commissioner and three academic researchers (a sociologist, cultural geographer and technologist). Dynamic dialogue between all parties has been encouraged throughout the research process (January–December 2015). From our viewpoints, discursive differences and occasional disciplinary dilemmas are regarded as potentially knowledge producing. We share transcribed parts of our critical conversations to illustrate how evaluating dance as PA represents opportunities for challenging if not disrupting some discursive terrain, whilst concurrently being somewhat constrained by that terrain. Our broader research remit contributes to ongoing debates surrounding ‘what works’ in relation to PA. Our dynamic interactions are thus constitutive of and productive within wider circuits or discourses of policy and provision. Paradigmatic rivalry or epistemological ‘tensions’ may well be hindering attempts to demonstrate that dance does have positive impacts on health. Acknowledgement and engagement with these tensions can arguably inform policy and practice in effective and meaningful ways and contribute further to debates regarding an evidence base seeking to ‘prove’ the benefits of activity-based programmes and interventions as we look across PA, PH and sport.

This paper focuses around the transformative potential of sport and active recreation and is premised on an assertion that sport in its broadest sense is a political project. It draws on three different empirical studies to critically assess ways in which involvement for participants can be (potentially) transformative, transformational and transforming. The first study focuses on gay sport and gay football, the second looks at a recreational football team where the manager is seeking to actualize participation as ‘transformational’ for players to challenge practices of discrimination including sexism and racism. The third study focuses on dance and masculinity and considers how ‘transforming’ practices are embodied and expressed in complex ways. We argue that attention needs to be paid to the nature and type of activities being assessed and emphasize the importance of context-specific empirical research to engage more fully with claims pertaining to transformative potential.

© 2017 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved. Social inequalities are often reproduced in sport and leisure contexts. However, sport and leisure can be sites of resistance as well as oppression; they can be repressive or promote positive social change. This challenging and important book brings together contemporary cases examining different dimensions of inequality in sport and leisure, ranging from race and ethnicity to gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion and class. Presenting research-based strategies in support of social justice, this book places the experiences of disadvantaged communities centre stage. It addresses issues affecting participation, inclusion and engagement in sport, while discussing the challenges faced by specific groups such as Muslim women and LGBT young people. Including original theoretical and methodological insights, it argues that the experiences of these marginalised groups can shed a light on the political struggles taking place over the significance of sport and leisure in society today. Sport, Leisure and Social Justice is fascinating reading for students and academics with an interest in sport and politics, sport and social problems, gender studies, race and ethnicity studies, or the sociology of sport.

This thesis examines ideas of ‘Yorkshireness’ and how Yorkshire identity is constructed and negotiated for post-punks, with a specific focus on the Bradford group 1919 – the group that the researcher has been the vocalist for since their reformation began in 2014 – and from there a spiralling outward of other musicians of the post-punk era, which is usually considered to be between 1979 and 1984. In taking this approach, the thesis prioritises the voices of artists and groups with mostly limited commercial success and that, while important, have until this point escaped critical attention. Fundamentally, through the lenses of class and post-punk (sub)cultural memory, myth, and music, this research seeks to identify and unpack essential myths of Yorkshireness in constructed notions of self, place, and of individual and communitarian responses to the fundamentally inauthentic environment of the culture industry. Much of the history of post-punk, either from a broad historical perspective or a specifically regional one, is usually written in terms of a specific group of stakeholders. Where the cultural output of the “north” is discussed, it has tended to be centred on Manchester and Liverpool: in Yorkshire’s neighbouring – and historically rival – county of Lancashire. In the post-punk era, where Yorkshire has had critical attention, it has tended to focus either on Leeds’ art-school groups or the electro-industrial acts of Hull and Sheffield. This leaves a substantial gap in knowledge of groups that are resolutely working-class, Yorkshire, and post-punk. Therefore, this thesis takes an ethnographic approach that prioritises the co-production of knowledge with working-class musicians, recorded as accurately as possible in spoken dialect, while autoethnographic field notes document the researcher’s accounts of Yorkshireness in the international post-punk community. This work demonstrates the subcultural characteristics of Yorkshire identity, challenges the hegemony of larger metropoles in musical heritage, and elevates working-class contributions to post-punk discourse, while the ongoing negotiation of the mythologising tendencies of working as a musician provide a key original insight.

This thesis examines the role and importance of football in the lives of players from a Sunday league football club representing a pub in the north-east of England. It considers the extent to which the club provides a context for social change and what influences this. The study employs a predominantly Bourdieusian analysis to consider how various forms of capital are accumulated and operationalised by different individuals within the club to gain status and influence. The thesis also evaluates the researcher’s role(s) within the club, particularly how leadership and social change can be understood as an interdependent dynamic.  Drawing on a three-year ethnographic study, influenced by the researcher’s role as founder and manager of the club, a deep insider status gave access to all aspects of club life. A research diary was maintained, supported by eight semi-structured interviews with two or three participants in each interview, culminating in 21 people in total. Interviews were conducted to explore players’ and supporters’ views, provided first-hand accounts of which forms of capital are valued within the club and directly informed the analysis of how successful the club was in achieving social change. Further, narratives based on the researcher’s experiences, provide insight into embedded and embodied relationships with football.  The thesis concludes that football continues to be a significant aspect of habitus for individuals and the community at the centre of this study. Football shapes and influences dispositions, values and lives. In a wider context, the thesis locates football as an opiate, distracting players and supporters from other, potentially counter-hegemonic, activity. Conceptually, bonding social capital is regarded as critical in the sense of belonging created within the club. Embodied cultural capital is critical in influencing behaviour, status and relationships within the club. The thesis introduces football capital as an emergent concept complementary to other forms of capital. Social change has occurred at the club, helped by adherence to a club Constitution and dialogue with influential members of the club. Data demonstrate that individuals with significant football capital who consciously adopt a sociology of leadership approach can be influential in instigating social change, including challenging dominant dispositions and learned values, with a resulting emphasis on inclusivity and equality and that can be adopted and embodied in a community based football club. It is concluded that the club here, understood as a cultural field, can be regarded as successful at resisting and challenging dominant hegemonies to an extent.