Triathlon as a space for women’s technologies of the self

Abstract

Through these technologies of the self the woman begins to recognise herself as an active subject or individual with agency and, in this sense, she can be understood to counter dominant discourses of power. Rail and Harvey (1995) argue that technologies of the self release the individual from the control of disciplinary practices and consequently lead to self-transformation. Although sport feminists such as Markula (1995) have analysed how sport acts as a technology of power and domination, few researchers have analysed how sport acts as a technology of the self, particularly from a sport feminist perspective (Ashton-Shaeffer et al. 2001; Guthrie and Castelnuovo 2001; Markula 2003). Chapman (1997), however, has identifi ed such technologies as coping mechanisms within discourses of power, and Wesely (2001) has identifi ed technologies of the self in athletes’ changing body shapes. These fi ndings suggest that sport and, in this case, triathlon can function both as a technology of power and as a technology of the self. It is this contradiction between technologies of the self as empowering and technologies of power as oppressive that this chapter seeks to explore. Such an exploration takes place within the research context of the sport of triathlon.

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