Doing feminist physical cultural research in digital spaces: reflections, learnings and ways forward

ABSTRACT

In this article we draw on our varied experiences of conducting feminist sport and leisure scholarship in digital spaces to offer some reflections, learnings and ways forward for navigating the challenges of digital and social media research. The paper outlines our methodological and ethical relationships to doing feminist research with and about women and girls, taking Margaret McClaren’s activist lens as a starting point to consider issues of positionality and reflexivity when researching lived experiences of gender in digital spaces. We then analyse our own actions across four dimensions of the research process: (1) connecting with communities and participants, (2) conceptualising and managing data, (3) navigating the ethics of representation and (4) vulnerabilities and self-care. In sharing our learnings from a range of projects, this paper offers insights into the methodological implications of conducting digital research on the moving body, as well as practical considerations for those doing feminist research on sporting and physical cultures in digital spaces. This article contributes to emerging conversations amongst qualitative sport and physical activity researchers about the challenges of digitisation for feminist engagements with power, context and situated knowledges.

KEYWORDS:

• Qualitative digital methods
• feminist research
• women’s sport and physical cultures

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the Critical Femininities network and Eli Renaud for the opportunity to discuss ethical feminist research in digital spaces.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kim Toffoletti

Kim Toffoletti is Associate Professor of Sociology at Deakin University, Australia. Her research examines women’s experiences of sport and leisure, with a focus on media representations, sports fandom, and women’s use of social media for sport and physical activity. Recent books include the co-edited volume (with H.Thorpe and J.Francombe-Webb) New Sporting Femininities: Embodied Politics in Postfeminist Times (2018, Palgrave).

Rebecca Olive

Rebecca Olive is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences at The University of Queensland. She is interested in the cultural politics of sport and physical activities, with a focus on feminist and cultural studies theories. Her current work explores the politics and possibilities of other-than-human encounters through sport and physical activities, including in online spaces.

Holly Thorpe

Holly Thorpe is Professor in Te Huataki Waiora School of Health at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Her research interests include the moving body, gender, informal sports, and women’s health. She continues to find much inspiration in the challenges of working across disciplines, engaging with social theory, and exploring feminist methodologies.

Adele Pavlidis

Adele Pavlidis is an ARC DECRA fellow at the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research. She is interested in the ways feminist theory, methodologies and concepts might intervene and create personal, social and cultural transformation. Adele focuses on sport and leisure contexts as exciting, affective and potentially liberating sites for troubling gender norms. She is the author of two co-authored books, Sport, Gender and Power: The Rise of Roller Derby (Routledge, 2016) and Feminism and a Vital Politics of Depression and Recovery (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) and numerous peer-reviewed journal articles.