competing discourses

02_IRS 36/4 articles

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© Copyright ISSA and SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA, New Delhi) [1012–6902 (200112) 36:4;425–439; 020551]

COMPETING DISCOURSES Narratives of a Fragmented Self, Manliness and Rugby Union

Richard Pringle University of Waikato, New Zealand Abstract In this article I argue that sports of violence, such as rugby union, can provide a discursive space that allows for production and resistance to dominant discourses of manliness. I do so, in part, by presenting narratives of self to reveal how competing discourses surrounded my youth participation in rugby union in a manner that made it difficult to maintain a coherent sense of self. Through these narratives, I hope that readers can empathize with the tensions and contradictions I faced as a ‘rugby boy’. In addition, I draw on Foucaultian concepts to illustrate how the discourses that initially helped constitute my sense of self also provided a starting point for my eventual resistance against hypermasculine values. In this sense, I highlight how relationships between discourse, power and subjectivities are unstable. Key words • discourse • Foucault • masculinities • narratives of self • rugby union

Since the late 1980s an increasing number of researchers have examined the impact of sporting injuries, violence and pain with respect to the social construction of male identities (e.g. Curry, 1993; Hutchins and Mikosza, 1998; Messner, 1988, 1990, 1992; Messner and Sabo, 1994; Nixon, 1996; Roderick et al., 2000; Sabo and Panepinto, 1990; Sparkes, 1996, 1999; Sparkes and Smith, 1999; Young et al., 1994). These studies have typically examined male athletes who have participated at an elite or serious level of competition. For example, research has examined the understandings of a champion wrestler (Curry, 1993), professional footballers (Roderick et al., 2000), ‘highly committed’ players of rugby union (Sparkes and Smith, 1999: 78), and men who have retired from ‘athletic careers’ (Messner, 1992: 8). Conclusions drawn from these studies suggest that, although sportsmen face many contradictions, they tend to develop stable identities intimately linked to their sport (Messner, 1992; Young et al., 1994). Male athletes involved in contact sports have been found to be unreflexive of past disablement (Curry, 1993; Young et al., 1994), uncritical of the organization of contact sports (Messner, 1992) and accepting of the notion that real men endure pain and injury in stoical fashion (Nixon, 1996; Phillips, 1996; Roderick et al., 2000). The ‘athletic identity’ remains salient even for males who have been permanently disabled through sport injury (Sparkes and Smith, 1999: 86). Hence, the use of violence and the tolerance of pain appear to be valued by many male athletes as ‘masculinizing’ (Young et al., 1994: 176).


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In addition, bonds between male athletes have been reported as partially forged via homophobic and sexist practices (Curry, 1991; Messner, 1992). The male athletic identity has, therefore, been theorized as closely connected to an embodied form of hegemonic masculinity (e.g. Connell, 1990; Hutchins and Mikosza, 1998; Messner, 1992; Messner and Sabo, 1994; Sparkes and Smith, 1999; Young et al., 1994). This culturally exalted form of masculinity is assumed to be linked to the broader subjugation of alternative masculinities and the subordination of women (Connell, 1990). Thus, under the meta-theoretical regime of hegemonic masculinity, heavy contact sports are positioned predominantly as producers of hard unreflexive men imbued with sexist and homophobic values. This conclusion tends to overlook the possibility that involvement in sports of violence can also produce males who actively resist hypermasculine discourses. For example, it was directly through my youth experiences in rugby union (hereafter referred to as rugby) that I eventually rejected the notion that real men take and inflict pain without overt emotional displays. In this article, I use narratives of self to reveal personal struggle with rugby’s influence in the construction of my tension-filled and, at times, contradictory sense of self. I have chosen rugby as the context for these narratives as, growing up in New Zealand throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, the dominating discourses associated with rugby helped reinforce but also challenge my understanding of acceptable ways of being male. Sparkes (1999: 23–4) states that narratives of self ‘are a form of evocative writing that produce highly personalized and revealing texts in which authors tell or show stories about their own lived experiences’. He suggests that well-crafted narratives of self can ‘evoke an emotional response in the reader (and) enhance their empathetic understanding of selected issues’. By presenting my narratives I aim to illustrate that sports of violence can act as catalysts for both the production and resistance of dominant notions of manliness. Readers may also be able to resonate with the problems I faced in growing up as a ‘rugged rugby boy’. And this resonance may help to promote, in a modest way, a reverse discourse of rugby: one that challenges the knowledge that participating in rugby is good for construction of solid manly character.

Theoretical Framework I use Foucaultian ‘tools’ to help make sense of my rugby experiences. Foucault (1972: 49) considers that discourse should be treated as ‘practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak’. And it is ‘in discourse that power and knowledge are joined together’ (Foucault, 1978: 100). Discourse and power, therefore, can be viewed as productive as they constitute subjects, power relations and our social realities. In addition, the discourses available to people in particular social contexts are believed to discursively locate or position them. In this sense, discourse creates subject positions that give subjects varying ability to exercise power. However, given there are multiple and competing discourses, Foucault (1978) asserts that subject positions are never stable. Hence, as the self is a product of discourse it will be constantly in flux, ‘depending upon whom the person is with, in what circumstances and to what purpose’ (Burr, 1995: 40).


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Subjects will, at times, have to negotiate the associated tensions of competing discourses. An advantage of Foucaultian theorizing is that it recognizes how the workings of competing discourses create seemingly contradictory experiences and identities. Davies (1989: 139) states that, this ‘allows me to focus on the contradictions in my experience, not as failures of rational thought but as the creative source of new understandings, new discourses’. Foucault also contends that the intimate relationship between discourse and power is unstable; discourse can produce power while also challenging and undermining its effect. Discourse can be ‘both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling-block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy’ (Foucault, 1978: 101). He therefore highlights the complex relational character of power. Wherever there is power, Foucault (1988: 12) argues, ‘there is necessarily the possibility of resistance, for if there were no possibility of resistance . . . there would be no relations of power’. However, Foucault reports resistance is rarely revolutionary, but more typically related to relations between subjects in specific contexts. Hence, just as power is omnipresent, numerous points of resistance exist within the dense field of mobile power relations.

The Discursive Impact of Rugby Union in New Zealand Rugby has been commonly described as New Zealand’s major passion and religion (Thompson, 1988). Until relatively recently, the sport ‘was culturally central, compulsory for schoolboys, popular’ and an inescapable feature of living in New Zealand (Star, 1999: 231). Since the early 1900s rugby has been typically viewed as ideal for instilling manliness, developing physical strength and ‘providing a suitable channel for (male) adolescent energies’ (Gray, 1983: 29). Even today, dominating discourses of rugby construct the sport as a ‘real man’s game’ and as ‘our national game’. These discourses act to position rugby as a positive social force that helps unite New Zealand. This quixotic set of beliefs legitimates the high profile of rugby within the New Zealand media, its place of importance in schools and in the lives of many New Zealanders. However, these rugby discourses are also reflective of the political dominance of men, albeit a particular type of man: they neglect the fact that until recently only males participated in rugby. Therefore, they problematically act to position females and males not involved in rugby as unimportant in shaping the social life of New Zealand. Park’s (2000) study of 80 New Zealand males with haemophilia helps reveal a specific aspect of the adverse impact of these rugby discourses. She concluded that, although health risk from haemophilia is serious, it was inability to play rugby that ‘was the single most pervasive idiom of distress for men with haemophilia’ (Park, 2000: 446). One teenager, who suffered from the invisible disease of haemophilia, stated ‘I’d rather have my legs cut off so people could see it’ (Park, 2000: 445). Such is the problematic impact of the disciplinary effect of a rugby discourse that informs you, if you are boy and do not play rugby, that you are not normal.


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Dominating discourses that surround rugby in New Zealand are also problematic as they promote celebration of a sport that encourages use of intimidation and violence. Winning in rugby is undoubtedly reliant on use of force and acts of aggression. Rugby, therefore, provides positive sanctions for violence, and players that are aggressive often become highly valued. Ability to withstand and inflict pain have long been lauded qualities for rugby participants, particularly the All Blacks (New Zealand men’s rugby team). The following quotation, about ‘heroic’ All Blacks, helps reveal this sentiment: Fergie McCormick and Colin Meads were ‘hard’ men noted not only for their strength but also for their complete insensitivity to pain. McCormick was known as a man who never left the paddock and . . . (who refused) to concede to his body. . . . Colin Meads played in South Africa with a broken arm. Pluck and refusal to admit to pain has always been part of the All Blacks’ image. (Phillips, 1996: 121–2)

The dominance of rugby helps circulate and promote knowledge that real men are tough and ignore pain. One result of this hypermasculine discourse is the large financial cost of rugby injuries. In the 1997/8 financial year, the cost for rugby injuries was over $NZ25 million: including costs pertaining to two fatal injuries (Accident Rehabilitation and Compensation Insurance Corporation, 1998). However, the dominance of rugby has also produced stern resistance. Feminists have long regarded rugby as a prime site for the production and affirmation of values that help legitimate men’s abilities to exercise greater power than women (Star, 1994; Thompson, 1988). Thompson (1988), for example, asserts that rugby has historically exploited women’s domestic labour while acting to exclude them from a prominent role in public life. In this sense, rugby is discursively positioned as a sexist sport. Furthermore, many have been concerned by the high injury cost and aggressive nature of rugby (Star, 1994). Ritchie and Ritchie (1993: 100), for example, state that ‘other sports may become violent but rugby is violent — remove the violence and you no longer have the game’. Given the interplay of dominant and reverse discourses of rugby it is difficult to understand how rugby impacts on male identities in New Zealand. Nevertheless, I am concerned that the prevalence of rugby helps link and glorify an influential way of being male with sporting prowess, acceptance of some acts of violence, and tolerance of pain. Therefore, rugby reinforces a dominating but problematic discourse of manliness. However, it would be erroneous to believe dominance of this discourse exclusively produces rugby players who are consistently uncritical about violence, pain and relations of power. Although rugby players are often disciplined to be disrespectful of bodies during competition, in other social contexts they are generally expected to be respectful. New Zealand males are increasingly encouraged to drive safely, practise safe sex, be careful with diet and alcohol consumption and be non-violent. Feminism and gay rights have also impacted strongly on contemporary understandings of what it means to be a man. Rugby players under the postmodern condition (Lyotard, 1984) can be regarded as influenced by multiple and competing discourses which come to the


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fore in a pastiche of different social contexts. Relatedly Giddens (1991) suggests that the possibility of maintaining a coherent sense of self is problematic under the postmodern condition. At the least, competing discourses will produce tensions and contradictions for some rugby players. Given the complexities associated with the postmodern condition, Sparkes (1996) argues that narrative inquiry can be a useful research tool for attempting to understand and represent the rich dynamics of subjectivity. Taking heed of Sparkes’s advice, I have turned to narrative inquiry as a means to explore the influence of rugby in the construction of my fragmented identity.

Examining Sport and Manliness through Narrative Inquiry A growing number of social commentators have used and encouraged narrative inquiry as a valid form of writing and researching (e.g. Bruner, 1987; Clandinin and Connelly, 1998; Duncan, 1998; Richardson, 2000; Sparkes, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2000; Van Maanen, 1988). In essence, narrative researchers describe the lives of individuals in an evocative story-like manner, with the desire to engender an emotional response from the reader. Resources drawn upon to construct the narrative are clearly influenced by prevailing discourses. Narratives are, therefore, reflective not just of the experiences of the author, but also of the productive workings of discourse and power. Hence, they can provide an evocative analytical tool for examining how particular ‘frameworks of meaning invite or constrain, celebrate or oppress . . . the dominant storylines that frame body-self relationships’ (Sparkes, 1999: 27). A specific aspect of narrative inquiry has become known as autoethnography or narratives of self, in which authors write revealing texts about their own lived experiences (Sparkes, 1996). A number of researchers, with an interest in masculinities, have constructed narratives of self to examine and represent their own sporting experiences (e.g. Denison, 1999; Messner, 1994; Sabo, 1980; Silvennoinen, 1994; Sparkes, 1996; Swan, 1998; Tiihonen, 1994; Tinning, 1998). These narratives are often related to how the author attempted to maintain a coherent sense of self, given the workings of competing discourses. In this sense, Sparkes (1999: 24) suggests that they help reveal how sport can produce problematic ‘body–self relationships over time’. Tiihonen (1994), for example, vividly tells of his experiences as a male soccer player afflicted with asthma and how this, initially, impacted adversely on his sense of manly self. He emphasizes how he could not separate his views of asthma and sport and how this made him, at times, feel deficient. However, as a narrative of optimism, Tiihonen reflects on how asthma saved him from living a dualistic body/mind divide, and from functioning as a sporting machine with just one identity; that of a sportsman. Hence, Tiihonen portrays how asthma provided richness to his multiple ‘lives’ he might not have discovered otherwise. Sparkes (1996), as another example, tells his body story of rugby success at a young age and the epiphanic impact of a severe recurring back problem. Sparkes’s turn to narrative was, in part, inspired by his recognition that some authors who have examined the impact of illness or injury, have relied ‘upon


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realist forms of representation . . . that produce . . . a peculiarly disembodied account of intense bodily experiences’ (p. 465). Through telling his sporting story, he helps reveal the fragility and vulnerability of his masculine self and the problems that ensue given the rigidity of the discourses available to him as an athlete with a chronic back problem. He therefore raises critical concern about the lack of alternative discursive resources that injured sportsmen can use to reconstitute a healthy sense of self. Messner (1994), also concerned by the fragility of self, tells of the indignities faced as his manly dream of being a top basketballer faded. His tale reveals how he problematically linked his identity with his performances (or lack of) on the court, and of the inner conflicts given his immersion in a misogynist, homophobic and ultra-competitive sporting culture. He states that his story would have had a happy ending if he had realized the futility of linking his sense of self to competitive practices — but, ironically, he reports he has not. Messner’s narrative highlights the difficulty of rejecting the influence of dominating discourses. In contrast, Sabo’s (1980) narrative tells of how he eventually abandoned the prime discourses that underpin American football. He reflects how his ‘success’ in football transformed his body, through physical and mental disciplinary regimes, into a machine where his sensitivity was hidden by armour of physicality. However, this armour did not prevent the ‘broken noses, fingers, toes and teeth; torn muscles, bruises, bad knees, and busted lips; and the back problems’ (p. 76). Sabo concludes: . . . had I never ‘made it’ in athletics, had I never gone through the gristmill of the experience, seen through the myths and embraced the actualities, I wouldn’t be the same person today. I might still be chasing the kind of masculine ideal athletic success held out to me. It feels good to be out of the race. (Sabo, 1980: 77–8)

Sabo portrays how his involvement in a sport of violence did not transform him into an embodied version of hypermasculinity, but forced him to question the value of heavy contact sport and to reinvent himself. I empathize with these narratives and suggest that they convey the complexity, insecurity and fluidity of the male sporting self. Thus (for me), they provide vivid representations of the contradictions and tensions of sporting experiences, and hint at the need for ongoing negotiations of self. However, these narratives allow many possible readings. Swan (1998: 149) suggests that, in order to gain a depth of understanding from narratives, readers require a particular attitude: ‘not that of the detached observer seeking objective knowledge via a dispassionate reading’ but one that synthesizes the ‘use of emotion and intellect to experience the events being described’. In many respects, the ability for readers to be emotionally ‘grabbed’ depends on the skill of the writer and the experiences of the reader. Nevertheless, as narrative can rouse emotions in an academic context this helps constitute it with the capability for being a powerful research tool. Narratives not only have the ‘potential to challenge disembodied ways of knowing’ (Sparkes, 1999: 25) but they can also stimulate readers to critically reflect on the discourses that have helped produce their own sense of self and relations of power. Therefore, narratives concerned with problematic links between sport and manliness can promote alternative discursive resources to help challenge domi-


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nant understandings of what it means to be manly, and the commanding positions that aggressive sports hold in many countries. These political possibilities, in part, inspired my turn to narrative. In my following narratives, I aim to highlight how my contradictory rugby experiences created problems that eventually helped produce my rejection of hypermasculine values. The narratives relate to my experiences as a relatively successful youth rugby player: I was repeatedly selected for provincial representative age-group teams, and had the ‘honour’ of playing for my High School first XV for three seasons. After each narrative, I use the insights of Foucault to offer my interpretations.

Perverse Pleasures in the Tackle That winter day, early into my first rugby season as a nine-year-old, I remember well. At our after-school practice, even though the ground was still hard and dry, Mr Griffith decided we needed tackling practice. He told us that if we wanted to be future All Blacks we needed to learn how to tackle hard. ‘A good tackle’, he barked, ‘is low and hard, round the bugger’s legs so it knocks him to the ground. And remember, the bigger the bugger, the harder the bugger will fall.’ We used to like Mr Griffith because he was the only teacher we knew that would swear in front of us, but we were also a little scared of him. Mr Griffith finished his instructions on tackling by asking Duffy to demonstrate his skills on a large green tackle bag. ‘You,’ he said pointing to Duffy, ‘the tall bugger, show us how you can knock this bag to the ground.’ Duffy got positioned in front of the tackle bag, yelled out ‘Gigantor’ — which made us all laugh — and then charged down and dived on the tackle bag. The bag ended up on top of him and we laughed some more. However, Mr Griffith said seriously: ‘You silly bugger, you don’t want to finish with the bag on top of you, or you’ll get hurt, you wanna hurt the opposition. Now, all you boys form a line and have turns at knocking the stuffing out of the bag.’ Ordinarily I hated tackling, but running and tackling a big soft bag posed no threat. In fact, I got unusually ‘fired up’ and hit the bag at speed. ‘Good tackle, Pringle Boy’, Mr Griffith bellowed. ‘But anyone can knock a tackle bag to the ground, we’ve got to be able to do it to the opposition. Now where’s that big bugger’ he said looking around for Duffy. ‘Here, take this ball and run up and down the half way line to give the boys some real tackling practice.’ Duffy took the ball, and when Mr Griffith wasn’t watching, did a funny run — a bit like a gangly chicken. Again, we all laughed. One after the other, at Mr Griffith’s command, we each had a go at tackling Duffy. The first few boys wrapped their arms gently around Duffy’s waist and slid them down to his ankles — but Duffy stood standing each time. I got to the front of the line and our coach said, ‘Pringle boy, show us how it’s done, remember hit him low and hit him fast’. Gripped, part by adrenaline and fear of doing it wrong, I ran at Duffy and dived at his unprotected legs. My arms gripped his bony knees, and then I heard it, a distinct and loud crack. ‘Bloody good tackle, Pringle boy’ Griffith yelled from the distance. But


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Duffy yelled louder. He screamed agonizingly in pain. At first I hoped he might be joking. ‘Are you alright?’ No answer. I then repeated it more anxiously, ‘Are you alright? Hey, come on Duffy, please get up.’ But he ignored me. He was writhing — almost uncontrollably — on the ground. His head shaking from side to side and his face tightly grimaced and ghostly white. ‘My leg, my leg’, he finally stuttered between deep gasps. I looked at his leg, as the rest of the team gathered around him, and saw the bulge just above his socks and a small white ‘thing’, smeared in blood, poking through his skin. I felt sick. Duffy looked down at his leg for the first time, his eyes widened and his crying halted, as long-term fear consumed his face and replaced the immediacy of pain. It was a long 20 minutes before the ambulance arrived. In between my own tears I tried, repeatedly, to tell Duffy ‘It was an accident, it was an accident, you will be okay, you will be okay.’ After the ambulance left, Mr Griffith attempted to comfort me: ‘Don’t worry son, you did nothing wrong, it was a good tackle. Next time you could even get lower down. That big bugger should’ve been able to take it. Now if only you can tackle the opposition like that.’ That night I slept terribly. I dreamed, repeatedly, that Duffy had somehow died in the ambulance and I was responsible. Every time I realized I was dreaming I tried to wake myself and think of something nice — like birds chirping on sunny days as my Dad had once suggested for bad dreams — but this vivid image of Duffy’s white bone, this jagged white bone that got bigger and dripped blood in my wild sleepless mind, obsessively filled my thoughts. When the morning finally arrived I talked my Mum into taking me to the hospital. At the hospital I was relieved to see Duffy calmly sleeping. Duffy’s Mum sat next to him and smiled at me. I thought she would tell me off when I confessed I broke his leg. But she thanked me for visiting and took my get well card. She told me that Duffy had a cyst on his leg that the doctors believed had weakened his bone and caused it to break. Seeing my further look of relief, she emphasized again ‘Oh no, don’t you worry, it wasn’t your fault dear. These things just happen.’ When Duffy finally came back to school, three weeks later, with his leg in a white cast covered in signatures, I still had a strong sense of guilt and remorse. But these feelings were now perversely mixed with the pleasure I had gained from my new-found status as a hard and tough tackler, a rugged rugby boy. This is a story of conflicting discourses and the tension they produce. In my nine years of life I had been generally encouraged to ‘play nicely’ and ‘don’t be rough’. In essence, I was normalized to be respectful of others. However, in my first season of rugby, I was disciplined to inflict pain: ‘hit the bugger low’ and ‘knock him to the ground’. Rugby discursively located me in a problematic position, to be good at rugby I had to reject my respectfulness training. And this caused initial tension. This is also a story of subjectification. My tackle that broke Duffy’s leg caused guilt, yet I was not punished for my deed. On the contrary, when confessing my ‘crime’ to my father, he replied with a hint of a smile ‘it must have been one hell of a tackle’. My coach, older brother and some of my teammates were also strangely impressed. These reactions were produced by the discourses


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that constitute rugby as a man’s game, players as tough and aggressive, and specific acts of violence, such as the rugby tackle, as legitimate even honourable. These discourses also constituted my ‘perverse pleasure’. However, the organization of these discourses simultaneously acted to marginalize other ways of ‘being’ a boy. Within this exclusionary matrix of subjectification I was interpellated into the subject position of rugby player. By the end of my first rugby season my subjectivity was tied, in part, to rugby: I had become a rugged rugby player — one of the boys.

Posting the Travel Card The worst thing that I ever did as a kid was also bound up with the rugby culture. It happened when I was about 11 or 12 and it involved my friend Theo. Theo was a little different from the other kids. He was tall and gaunt and couldn’t kick a ball without screwing up his face and poking his tongue out. And even then he’d often miss the ball. And when he ran he was sort of hunched and his head jutted out and his arms flailed from side to side. Nevertheless, for a while he was my best friend. He lived just down the road from me and I’d spend many hours at his house talking about our favourite subject: how aliens must have sparked human evolution. We often played the piano together and even made up songs and gave them pretentious Italian names such as Adagio. His Mum would always make nice afternoon teas of orange juice and Dutch treats. And we would sit in the sunny study room eating and playing chess. We never played sport, although we would swim naked in their private swimming pool. Sometimes his parents would join us in the pool and at other times even their friends, the Moulders, and their daughters. But we never had swimming races or ran around the sides of the pool or jumped dangerously. We always followed the rules at Theo’s place. However, my friendship with Theo was only part of my life. My other friends were different and I’d do different things with them. We were often getting into trouble, like the time at Dean’s place that we took his bed mattress outside and put it next to the trampoline — for added protection in case we bounced too high after we jumped from his roof. Or the time we dared each other to steal something from Woolworth’s. Tony went first while we waited outside. Soon we saw Tony running out of the shop with a small green tennis ball and right behind him was a security guard. We’d arranged to meet at the 3 o’clock bus, but Tony never made it. Most of our spare time we would spend endless hours playing games of cricket or soccer down at the recreation reserve or sometimes basketball in Tony’s driveway. These games were serious fun but they weren’t as important as rugby and attempting to make our school team. If we could make the team as first formers we knew that we’d make it in other ways as well. After the school rugby trials, the coach read out the lucky boys’ names. ‘Number 8, Anaru Wills, Half Back: Tony Morris, First Five’ then he paused, as if still making up his mind, ‘Richard Pringle’. Tony and I were ecstatic but did our best to hide our joy. The rugby practices were always hard and made worse


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by Anaru. Anaru, a big second former, didn’t like Tony and me, and whenever the coach wasn’t there he would chase and tackle one of us, or give us the ‘dead leg treatment’ by kneeing us in the quads. Sometimes he would pin us to the ground then dribble spit in our faces, but we never complained to the coach about Anaru. After one of the practices Tony and I were walking back with the older boys and one asked me ‘Why do you hang out with that poof Theo for? I’ve seen you going to his place. He’s a bloody faggot. Always got his socks pulled up and shirt tucked in.’ Anaru then yelled out from behind, ‘Pringle has sex with him in his swimming pool.’ ‘Oh bullshit’ I said, ‘You’re the poof always jumping on me.’ As I said this, Anaru tackled me from behind and knocked me to the ground, winding me. ‘Who’s the big poof now, you little first former?’ Anaru smirked. The team laughed and kept walking. Instead of this being the end of our wanting to hang out with the older rugby boys it was the beginning of the end, in the most cruel of ways, of my friendship with Theo. At first we simply tried not to sit next to him at lunchtimes, by swapping where we ate lunch. But he’d always find us. After weeks of trying to avoid him, at school at least, Dean, Tony and I decided to tell him point blank ‘we don’t want you to follow us around at school’. But he didn’t believe us. Then things got worse. One day after school at Tony’s place, I saw he had a travel card for his Auntie who was off to live in Australia. I suggested we could send the card to Theo. Tony saw the cruelty of the idea and laughed. The card said, and I remember it to this day: ‘From the big of us, the small of us, the tall of us, the short of us, the big goodbye from the all of us.’ We signed it, addressed the envelope and put a stamp on it. I don’t remember who posted it, but I can still picture Theo’s face the day after he received the card. He looked at me with sad eyes of disbelief, and although I felt a growing sickness I simply looked away. This confessional tale tells of how I (mis)used rugby as a technique of self. Foucault (1988: 2) states that practices of self-formation can be thought of as an ‘exercise of self upon self by which one tries to work out, to transform one’s self and to attain a certain mode of being’. By cruelly distancing myself from Theo, who was objectified as ‘feminine’, I was aiming to confirm my mode of being as a manly rugby player. Rugby players, in my school, were able to exercise greater power over ‘other’ boys, and girls. They dominated the playground, were applauded in school assemblies and provided with a distinguishing uniform to reveal their status. This ability of rugby players to exercise power was seductive. This is also a story of how discursive practices can produce harmful relations of power. To confirm my sense of self as a rugby player I actively allowed myself to be disciplined by dominating discourses of rugby and manliness. For example, I would not sit too close to my male friends or with my legs tightly crossed; I would ensure my socks were down and shirt hanging out; and at times, I would act ‘manly’ by taking dares, swearing and being physically rough. Although the performance of these techniques of self initially required careful selfsurveillance, they soon congealed over time to feel normal. In this sense, the discourses of rugby placed meticulous control on my corporeal actions.


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Regretfully, an aspect of my technique of self resulted in my bullying of Theo. Hence, the discourses also helped constitute harmful power relations.

The Beast and the Magic Water In the bunker of the changing rooms, under the grandstand, our high school 1st XV coach grunted ‘shut up and listen’. For a brief period, just the sound of sprigs on cold concrete and the smell of liniment pervaded the air: ‘. . . They’ve got a big forward pack, but if we can hold ’em back for the first half, we can roll ’em in the second. But we’ve gotta get the bloody ball to our backs. Bull, you watch their flanker, he’s one tough bastard, make sure it’s tight on the back of the lineout. Robbo you get stuck in from the whistle, no holding back, you hear? And, Pringle, I hope you’ve got your kicking boots on.’ He finished by instructing ‘Now troops, take a minute and think of the tasks you have to perform out there’. Nervous but excited with anticipation my mind wandered. I looked around and once again started to wonder what I was doing here. For some time I had felt uneasy about playing rugby. I didn’t like the arduous training, the continual press-ups, tackling drills and constant pressure to perform. Most of all I was scared of getting hurt. But these were feelings I didn’t share with the boys. ‘Come on Pringle, join the huddle, it’s a minute to game time.’ I snapped back to attention. With our arms draped tightly over each other and jogging on the spot, our Captain talked with a sense of urgency: ‘Remember, if there’s any “trouble” out there we’re all in. We’re a team. We don’t let out teammates down. No backward steps.’ With these words of strategy we left for the field. Early in the match, we won a scrum close to the opposition try line. Our halfback fired the ball, in a bullet-like pass, direct into my hands. That was when I caught my first glimpse of him: a tank with pumping knees, charging down on me. Out of fear, I stepped inside and ducked his swinging arm. And then saw the gaping hole in their defence. Nothing felt sweeter than sprinting with the ball under one arm and eluding the punishment of a tackle. On my way back from the try line with my head held low, hiding the smile on my face, the ‘tank’ stopped direct in front of me. He steered me in the eye and with head shaking, spat: ‘You watch it curly. Next time I’ll fucken nail you.’ He finished by pressing one finger to his nostril, and blew mucus near my boots. A teammate, grabbing him by the arm, said: ‘C’mon Beast, it’s not worth it.’ Once again, intimidation set in. It was not long before we had earned another scrum in an attacking position. I yelled out the planned move ‘Rum and coke’. My fullback nodded solemnly in agreement with his thumb held up. However, from the side of the scrum, I could see the ‘Beast’ looking at me. I didn’t want to be here. The ball travelled slowly from the back of the scrum toward my outstretched arms, as the Beast with eyes wide and crazed sprinted at me. My eyes darted nervously between ball and charging player. And the catch was fumbled. Off balance, I took the full impact of his diving torso in my chest and forearm in my face. My head jolted back and landed heavily on the ground, as the ball spilled forward. ‘Play advantage’, the ref yelled legitimizing the tackle.


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I was dazed, face down with pain coming in sharp bursts. The Beast pressed my head further into the ground as he used it for leverage to stand. He then turned ‘gentlemanly’ and helped me off the ground with the words ‘C’mon mate, up you get’. The salty taste of blood saturated my mouth. With the tip of my tongue I explored my now jagged two front teeth. And gingerly touched my dirty fingers on my cut lip and cheek. With enthusiasm for this game destroyed I walked off the field. My coach came running: ‘What are you doing? We need you out there.’ ‘I can’t play anymore. My teeth are broken, my cheek is numb, and my head is spinning.’ ‘That’s no good mate.’ He fleetingly looked at the eager eyes on the bench and then quickly back at me. ‘Open your mouth let’s have a look.’ With this he put his fingers into my bloody mouth and tried to wiggle my teeth. I recoiled from the sharp pain. ‘They’re solid’ he diagnosed, ‘they won’t fall out, just a couple of chips missing, no problems.’ He then took his crumpled hanky from his pocket and started to wipe blood and saliva off my face. From behind, my assistant coach — my geography teacher — tipped water from a bucket on my head, then slapped me on the back, ‘Now get back out there and win this game.’ Angry with my coaches, confused as to why I should continue to play, and in pain, I jogged back onto the field of ‘play’. However, by the end of that winter, I found the courage to quit playing rugby. In this story I illustrate the acceptance of violence and pain that existed within my high school rugby team, and how this acceptance produced tension. The prime tension revolved around my fear of getting hurt and my enjoyment of select aspects of rugby culture, such as the thrill of running with the ball. Tension was also produced through being unable to express my fear of pain. Rugby ‘men’ were expected to be hard and unconcerned by injury. And, as my subjectivity was tied to the discourses of rugged manliness and rugby, a public critique of these discourses would also have been a critique of who I was. Hence, the dominating discourses of rugby silenced expression of my fears. This is also a story that alludes to Foucault’s (1978) notion about dominance and the possibility for resistance. I highlight how when I was injured, for example, I became angry and confused and I have hinted that these emotions eventually resulted in my withdrawal from rugby. Although not detailed in my narrative, the tensions experienced in rugby did contribute to a cumulative epiphany that eventually resulted in my rejection of hypermasculine values, particularly the notion that real men are consistently tough, aggressive and unemotional. This epiphany was also fuelled by reverse discourses of rugby that positioned the sport as violent and sexist. These discursive resources in combination with my tension-filled experiences of rugby eventually produced my solitary act of resistance towards the dominance of rugby — I quit playing.


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Final Thoughts These narratives of self illustrate, hopefully in a manner more than a few readers might empathize with, some of the tensions and contradictions I lived growing up as a ‘rugby boy’. I aimed to problematize rugby as a sport revolving around ability to inflict and take pain — and contribute to the further circulation of a reverse discourse of rugby: a discourse that constructs rugby as a game of violence. Finally, I hope that my narratives help reflect how relationships between discourse, power and subjectivities are unstable. Although dominating discourses of rugby and manliness initially helped produce my ‘manly’ sense of self, the disciplinary nature of these discourses produced tension that resulted in my eventual rejection of hypermasculine values. ‘Discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it’ (Foucault, 1978: 101). In this sense, I argue that sports of violence can provide a discursive space that allows for the production of and resistance to dominant discourses of manliness.

Acknowledgements Thanks to Dixie Dolejs and the reviewers for their helpful and encouraging comments on an earlier draft of this article. Thanks also to Pirkko Markula, Wendy Drewery and Jim Denison for the many helpful conversations.

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Richard Pringle is a lecturer in the Department of Leisure Studies at the University of Waikato. His teaching areas include sport sociology, pedagogy and research philosophies. Address: Department of Leisure Studies, University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton, New Zealand. Email: [email protected]

competing discourses

competing discourses

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