Are we (in)visible?: Toward a critical understanding of Asian women faculty experiences in U.S. sport management

ABSTRACT

Research question

How do Asian women faculty’s intersecting identities influence the ways in which they identify, fulfill, and negotiate their roles in the White and masculine field of sport management?

Research method

We used collaborative autoethnography in which the researchers themselves were the method and the participants for this study. The purpose of using this method was to use systematic introspection and retrospection to understand the researchers’ collective experiences.

Results and Findings

We provide four narratives of the researchers as the findings. Themes from the narratives included masculinized, Westernized sport as an oppressive institution, forever unsettled between insider and outsider, gendered and racialized/ethnicized immigrant women.

Implications

Theoretically, this study extends the use of intersectionality to an understanding of Asian women experiences in the racialized and gendered space of sport. Practical implications include that sport management programs must be designed with Asian and minoritized women in mind and provide relevant resources such as support networks, therapy groups, informal mentoring, and targeted Ph.D. recruiting.

KEYWORDS:

• Minoritized faculty experience
• US sport management education
• critical race theory
• narratives
• qualitative method

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.