A sport odyssey

摘要

In sport and fitness, personal meanings of physicality are negotiated and contested, and many women are empowered by the self-definition of physicality. Physically active women push their physical and mental limits. In doing so, they also construct and reconstruct personal identity and social conventions. Physicality offers a sense of protection and the perceived ability to ward off potential attack or heal past victimisation. In this personal tale, I employ hybridity, or multi-genre writing styles, to shed light on the construction and negotiation of identities through physical activity and sport. In this paper, I insert my voice and use my experiences to reflect upon the social constructions of sport, gender and identity. I frame sport as an odyssey, a long wandering, in which my personal identities transform in reaction to changing personal, social and cultural circumstances.