Not Just Merely Different: Travelling Theories, Post-Feminism and the Racialized Politics of Women of Color

Abstract

When even the so-called “critical” scholarship about women of color and sport, mostly speaks to cultural tropes of difference, the possibility of recovering alternative knowledges becomes limited. For me, uncovering persistent problems from within this field of study, is an essential step to better recovering diverse representations of difference, that are sometimes consciously, and at other times inadvertently, erased. Adding my voice to a number of sport scholars who advocate a decolonising approach, I urge contemporary researchers to theoretically reconsider, and to re-frame, their analysis of difference. In this paper, I do so by utilizing a transnational feminist lens; addressing the transient boundaries of space, identity, belonging, and knowledge production. I specifically elucidate how difference is made, and not just experienced. Through this theoretical intervention, I make an original case for how the “critical” can be put back into critical studies of race, sport and gender.