‘Which player do you fancy then?’ Locating the female ethnographer in the field of the sociology of sport

Abstract

This article examines the gendered nature of sport fan ethnographies and addresses the often-overlooked relationship between a researcher's gender identity and their research environment. It seeks to critically explore the debates that surround female researchers in masculine settings, and argues that the position of a female researcher is both enabling and limiting within the scope of data collection on football fans. Drawing on a qualitative data-set that examines football fans of Everton Football Club, observational data collected over the 2012-2013 Premier League seasons are used to illustrate how the researcher reflexively celebrated, negotiated, subverted and at times froze her femininity. The silencing of the female ethnographer in sport research is attributed to the prominent position that both male sports fans and male scholars occupy in the field. This paper advocates for an alternative approach to the study of sports fans that encourages more reflexively on behalf of the researcher. *

The changing faces of fandom? Exploring emerging ‘online’ and ‘offline’ fandom spaces in the English Premier League

“…Regarding fan zones, these are a relatively recent development. Research on EPL fan zones, thus, is limited, although some extremely important work exists (see Richards 2015;Richards and Parry 2020). The gendered boundaries of fan zones found in this research remain central and there are also questions around how ethnicity and disability affect fan zone attendance or experiences.…”

Beers and blurred boundaries: The spatial and gendered organisation of pre-match venues for English football fans

“…A mobile phone was often used for writing down ‘buzz words’, or what Bernard (2006: 389) refers to as ‘jotting notes’ during observations. These, in effect, were short sentences or words that would later act as trigger material and assist in recalling events that had happened during the observations (Richards, 2015). The use of mobile devices by sports fans is now relatively common at sports matches, with many teams and stadiums offering free Wi-Fi and encouraging their use (Turner, 2014).…”

“…It was observed to be mainly occupied by male and female family fans who pass through this space en route to Goodison, usually interacting with the zone for one to two hours before kick-off. Given that this space is primarily created for families and children, inclusion remained predicated on women and girls performing particular types of femininity actions, mostly of a nurturing feminine role type (Richards, 2015).…”

Passing and moving: negotiating fieldwork roles in football fandom research

“…The omission of match-going fans who locate themselves in places outside of those that encourage hyper-masculine “lad culture” (see, King, 1997, Armstrong; 1998; Pearson, 2012) can be perhaps attributed to the prominent position these male fans occupy in research (Dunn, 2014; Jones, 2008; Pope, 2017; Toffoletti and Mewett, 2012). This can further be illustrated in how the ethnographies are written themselves, where often male researchers stress the importance on “fitting in” by adopting the role of one of the lads (Richards, 2015, p. 394, see also, Free and Hughson, 2003; Jones, 2008). In this way, my research diverges from traditional ethnographies of English football fandom because it deliberately sought out a variety of fan subcultural groups.…”

“…Conducting research on a variety of different fan subcultures during this period provided my research with a more holistic picture of fan engagements on match day, and the ways in which different types of fans behaved on route and once inside of Goodison Park. This was important because as mentioned earlier, a large majority of research on English football fandom remains fixated on hyper-masculine male fans, where other fan subcultural groups are often sidelined or perceived as complementary (Richards, 2015). For this reason, my research deliberately sought out a variety of fan subcultural groups, including those belonging to marginalised groups within the sports crowd, such as female, corporate, and family fans (Crolley and Long, 2001; Dunn, 2014; Free and Hughson, 2003).…”