Rethinking Community: Introducing the “Whatever” Female Athlete

Abstract

Community is a powerful construct in the discourses of both feminism and sport, and so it is not surprising that it is a preeminent virtue in attempts to speak about, to, or for female athletes. In its popular conceptions, community is desired and celebrated as individuals coming together based on a solidarity, harmony, or agreement around an essence. In sport scholarship, the specific meanings, implications, contradictions, and effects that govern this particular understanding of community have remained unexplored. Thus, the aim of this article is to use the work of poststructural theorist Jacques Derrida to deconstruct this notion of community in an attempt to open up the concept of community to new theorizations and political uses. It will involve the introduction of Giorgio Agamben’s concept of the Whatever singularity, or in this case the Whatever athlete and its place in new possibilities for community in feminist sport contexts.

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