title: Understanding 'the National Sport for New Zealand Women': A Socio-Spatial Analysis of Netball

authors: Marfell, Amy Elizabeth

subjects: Netball

abstract: Since the early 20th century, netball has been heralded ‘the national sport for New Zealand women’ and it continues to represent one of the few team sport environments not characterized by the interests and participation of men. Created by and for women, netball promotes and preserves a sense of women-onlyness. There is, however, a link between netball and femininity that has gone largely unexplored among contemporary studies of sport.
	This research focuses on the social production of netball space and the ongoing and complex relationship between netball and heteronormative femininity in New Zealand. Drawing upon interviews with 16 recreational players and ethnographic fieldwork conducted over two years, I examine how women experience, negotiate and challenge notions of gender, sexuality, corporeality and subjectivity in spaces of netball. Adopting a poststructural feminist interpretation of Henri Lefebvre’s spatial theory, I demonstrate how the relationship between women’s sporting bodies, space and social relations is mutually constituted.
In this thesis, I explain spaces of netball as reproducing and celebrating particular gendered and sexualized identities and thus, prioritizing a relatively narrow but culturally valued heteronormative feminine athletic ideal. Whilst some women enjoy and are empowered by the social conditions of this sport, the power relations operating on and through netball spaces can also work to subordinate and exclude alternative or ‘other’ femininities and bodies. Yet, as my research reveals, netball also offers opportunities for resistance as some netballers engage in oppositional politics and/or use this space to disrupt normative discourse. This is particularly evident in the ways some players resist the involvement of men, how mothers use netball space to obtain momentary reprieve from the expectations of motherhood, and how pregnant, ‘fat’ and older bodies challenge the discursive construction of the contemporary (feminine) athletic ideal via their participation in this sport. To this end, this research not only demonstrates the social geography of netball in the everyday lives of New Zealand women, but also the potential of theoretical syntheses between Lefebvre and feminism for offering productive new ways to think about the interrelationships between active bodies, identities, space, power and resistance in sport and female physical culture.

text: Understanding 'the National Sport for New Zealand Women': A Socio-Spatial Analysis of Netball Since the early 20th century, netball has been heralded ‘the national sport for New Zealand women’ and it continues to represent one of the few team sport environments not characterized by the interests and participation of men. Created by and for women, netball promotes and preserves a sense of women-onlyness. There is, however, a link between netball and femininity that has gone largely unexplored among contemporary studies of sport.
	This research focuses on the social production of netball space and the ongoing and complex relationship between netball and heteronormative femininity in New Zealand. Drawing upon interviews with 16 recreational players and ethnographic fieldwork conducted over two years, I examine how women experience, negotiate and challenge notions of gender, sexuality, corporeality and subjectivity in spaces of netball. Adopting a poststructural feminist interpretation of Henri Lefebvre’s spatial theory, I demonstrate how the relationship between women’s sporting bodies, space and social relations is mutually constituted.
In this thesis, I explain spaces of netball as reproducing and celebrating particular gendered and sexualized identities and thus, prioritizing a relatively narrow but culturally valued heteronormative feminine athletic ideal. Whilst some women enjoy and are empowered by the social conditions of this sport, the power relations operating on and through netball spaces can also work to subordinate and exclude alternative or ‘other’ femininities and bodies. Yet, as my research reveals, netball also offers opportunities for resistance as some netballers engage in oppositional politics and/or use this space to disrupt normative discourse. This is particularly evident in the ways some players resist the involvement of men, how mothers use netball space to obtain momentary reprieve from the expectations of motherhood, and how pregnant, ‘fat’ and older bodies challenge the discursive construction of the contemporary (feminine) athletic ideal via their participation in this sport. To this end, this research not only demonstrates the social geography of netball in the everyday lives of New Zealand women, but also the potential of theoretical syntheses between Lefebvre and feminism for offering productive new ways to think about the interrelationships between active bodies, identities, space, power and resistance in sport and female physical culture.

year: 2016

title: Work-based Learning: A New Higher Education? [Book Review]

authors: Piercy, Gemma Louise

subjects: book review

abstract: This article reviews the book: “Work-based Learning: A New Higher Education?”, edited by D. Boud & N. Solomon.

text: Work-based Learning: A New Higher Education? [Book Review] This article reviews the book: “Work-based Learning: A New Higher Education?”, edited by D. Boud & N. Solomon.

year: 2002

title: !!!FR33D0M 0FF SP33CH!!!

authors: Smith, Hugh Lyal

subjects: Poetry

abstract: My title is “FR33D0M 0FF SP33CH”, a play on the saying “freedom of speech”. I write with the intent of voicing tough subjects that others haven’t or don’t, and often exposing things that I wouldn’t tell or share personally. “FR33D0M 0FF SP33CH” consists of 37 poems, 2 hooks and a chorus in this complete album. My earliest piece can date back to 2020 with the latest pieces being written in 2021. They express different visions of day-to-day life through points of view and alternating voices and perspectives. The topics range from anything like seeing a face in the smudge on a wall, to things like love, street styles and why I can’t sleep at night. They are to be read left to right, top to bottom -- but feel free to read them as you see fit, because it’s art after all and what you see is what you see. Those labelled “Mirrored” have been turned upside down to allow reading from either end and show the extent of form and variety my pieces can take. Some things may be explicit or hard to read, but I assure you that they are just certain views from different angles that I believe need to be shared. There is a strong political/cultural component to my mahi, a tough vocal attack on elements of society I believe are flawed and unjust, and an exposure of the addictions and abuses that colonial history and racial inequality lead to – but there’s also an intense celebration of the power of the Māori voice that remains, its beat and pride and resilience and ancestry, joined by a rich musical joy in the songs of the street I grew up in, their rhythms and rap, energy and power. It has taken me a long time to reach this level of writing in terms of technique, rhythm and content. I want the reader to see things through my shades and feel what it feels like to be me with an understanding of why I am and where I come from. To understand that, No, I don’t know everything, and I don’t expect anyone else to. But, Yes, this is what I saw, felt and how I interpreted it. So there it is and this is me, the bro Hugh. A lit ūrikā descendant of Ngāti Kuri, Ngāti Rēhia, Te Rārawa, Te Aupōuri and Ngāpuhi. Bred in the streets I-roam and made home. A dreamer of the future. Last but not least, your son, your brother, your bro and he who wrote the killer book that you are about to read. Churrr!!!

text: !!!FR33D0M 0FF SP33CH!!! My title is “FR33D0M 0FF SP33CH”, a play on the saying “freedom of speech”. I write with the intent of voicing tough subjects that others haven’t or don’t, and often exposing things that I wouldn’t tell or share personally. “FR33D0M 0FF SP33CH” consists of 37 poems, 2 hooks and a chorus in this complete album. My earliest piece can date back to 2020 with the latest pieces being written in 2021. They express different visions of day-to-day life through points of view and alternating voices and perspectives. The topics range from anything like seeing a face in the smudge on a wall, to things like love, street styles and why I can’t sleep at night. They are to be read left to right, top to bottom -- but feel free to read them as you see fit, because it’s art after all and what you see is what you see. Those labelled “Mirrored” have been turned upside down to allow reading from either end and show the extent of form and variety my pieces can take. Some things may be explicit or hard to read, but I assure you that they are just certain views from different angles that I believe need to be shared. There is a strong political/cultural component to my mahi, a tough vocal attack on elements of society I believe are flawed and unjust, and an exposure of the addictions and abuses that colonial history and racial inequality lead to – but there’s also an intense celebration of the power of the Māori voice that remains, its beat and pride and resilience and ancestry, joined by a rich musical joy in the songs of the street I grew up in, their rhythms and rap, energy and power. It has taken me a long time to reach this level of writing in terms of technique, rhythm and content. I want the reader to see things through my shades and feel what it feels like to be me with an understanding of why I am and where I come from. To understand that, No, I don’t know everything, and I don’t expect anyone else to. But, Yes, this is what I saw, felt and how I interpreted it. So there it is and this is me, the bro Hugh. A lit ūrikā descendant of Ngāti Kuri, Ngāti Rēhia, Te Rārawa, Te Aupōuri and Ngāpuhi. Bred in the streets I-roam and made home. A dreamer of the future. Last but not least, your son, your brother, your bro and he who wrote the killer book that you are about to read. Churrr!!!

year: 2021