Sporting space invaders: Elite bodies in track and field, a South African context

Abstract

This article builds on previous work that conceptualizes certain bodies – particularly women and racialized minorities – as ‘bodies out of place’ and ‘space invaders’ – to put forth the notion of the sporting space invader. I argue that certain sporting bodies become sporting space invaders by transgressing sporting boundaries, real and/or imagined. Specifically, this article makes case studies of two South African runners, Caster Semenya and Oscar Pistorius, to illustrate the ways in which certain bodies become viewed as existing ‘beyond’ particular sporting boundaries. The notion of sporting space invaders is specific to time, place and space as focuses the modalities of race, gender, sexuality, nationality and ability as the primary sporting boundaries that render certain sporting bodies as ‘out of place’. Both Semenya and Pistorius were/continue to be framed within the media as possessing characteristics that gave them an ‘unfair advantage’ in their respective events, thus rendering them sporting space invaders. This concept seeks to complicate existing discourse on sport and the body by seeing sporting space invaders as individuals who mark instances of the changing face of modern sport, and thus make room for broader conversations about social justice and sport.

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