Sporting bodies, ageing, narrative mapping and young team athletes: an analysis of possible selves

Abstract

Drawing on life history data generated from interviews with young athletes at an English university, this paper explores the narrative maps provided to them by older team members and the ways in which these influence perceptions of self-ageing. Three possible selves associated with mid-life emerged from the analysis for detailed focus. These are the preferred self (Almost past it), the feared self (Hanging on) and the reluctant self (Stepping aside). The implications of each of these selves for the ageing experience are considered. Finally, some suggestions are made as to how the narrative resources of young athletes might be expanded.

Keywords:

• Possible selves
• Ageing
• Narrative
• Young athletes

Acknowledgments

Our sincere thanks go to Brett Smith for his helpful suggestions on an earlier version of this paper, and also to the two anonymous reviewers for their comments.

Notes

1. The self is a complex phenomenon that is conceptualized differently depending on disciplinary perspective. These range from essentialist biological perspectives through to non-essentialist social constructionist, narrative and poststructuralist perspectives (Stevens, 1996). The tendency within the sociological and psychological literature in sport and physical activity is to see the self as an umbrella term that coordinates all types of self-referent statements about the self, from those that are global to those that are specific in content (Fox, 1997). This is the individual as known to the individual and involves the conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions that constitute our sense of ‘who we are’. Who we think we are and how we experience our embodied subjectivity is shaped by the social context. Here, language and culture give meaning to our experiences of ourselves. Within this social milieu individuals take up and are ascribed positions and characteristics that constitute their identities (Woodward, 1997). These identities are fluid rather than fixed and they can be multiple and contradictory, wanted and unwanted, positive or negative or about sameness and difference. Collections of identities make up the self that is itself changeable over time.

2. Having established that the narrative maps of ageing projected by older team members were referred to primarily by young athletes involved in team sports as opposed to individual sports, in order to avoid repetition, from here on the term ‘young athletes’ will refer to those participants involved in team sports only. The need to further explore the process of narrative mapping for young athletes participating in individual sports where contact with older sporting bodies may be limited is signalled in the final section regarding potential areas for future research.