ABSTRACT
In this paper, I use interview data drawn from ethnographic work on a Division 1 collegiate cross country team at a large midwestern university in the United States to demonstrate the ways that possessive individualistic discourses around hard work are embodied in classed subjectivities. I find that middle class women, the products of concerted cultivation, tend to focus on the display of hard work, and have anxiety around the value of their production of a hard-working identity. Working class women tend to treat the experience of being disciplined as an athlete as a fortunate opportunity to build physical capital, using the hard work to benefit them as athletes rather than to build their identities. These different attitudes, affected by social class, interact with a dominant discourse around hard work demonstrating the interaction between agency and structure when it comes to forming identities.
5. Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.