The way we roll: the use of longboards and cameras by girls to roll through the urban outdoors

ABSTRACT

We use a nonrepresentational (NRT) lens to explore the affect generated in the use of an action sport for girls from disadvantaged backgrounds in a short-term Sport for Development (SfD) project. Longboards and GoPro cameras were used to enable adolescent girls from disadvantaged communities to participate in urban outdoor action sport and to be digitally engaged by making vlogs of their participation. We used an NRT framework to explore the ways affects were produced during longboard instruction practices. The data consisted of 36 longboard instruction observations, 22 focus groups and 230 min of selected video fragments with the girls. We show how ‘U on Board’ became an counter pedagogic space and discuss how such SfD projects can create knowledges and pleasure in ways that can open up new possibilities for shaping sport practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Disadvantaged girls
• sport for development
• nonrepresentational theory
• action sports

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We could describe the girls using words such as socially ‘vulnerable’, ‘disadvantaged’, ‘underserved’, ‘marginalized’ or ‘deprived’. We chose to use the word ‘disadvantaged’. Schaillée, Theeboom, and Van Cauwenberg (2015) defined disadvantaged communities as ‘communities that suffer acute social problems such as increasing population densities, low SES, high levels of migration and young people at risk of exclusion of society’. These characteristics typify the neighborhoods where these girls live.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Froukje Smits

Froukje Smits is a senior researcher at the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences. She is also working on her PhD at the Utrecht University. Her research focuses on the wellbeing of youth participants in sport.

Annelies Knoppers

Annelies Knoppers is a semiretired professor at the University of Utrecht. Her research focuses on gender and diversity in sport organizations.