The aim of this thesis is to study how the use of the body in roller derby is related to gender and social class. The investigation is based on five qualitative interviews as well as seven observations of practices and games (bouts).    The theoretical frame is founded on theories by Young (2005) to get an understanding of women´s use of the body, Skeggs (2000) to relate femininity and respectability to class, as well as Bourdieu (1984), both as a background for Skeggs (2000) theory, as well as giving an understanding of the relation between participating in sports and social class position.    The investigation demonstrates, among other things, that the derby girls do not identify with the positions they find within sports and the informants have also changed their view on and relation to their own body through roller derby. The informants have also been able to demonstrate to others, as well as themselves, that their bodies do manage challengeable physical exercise. Bruises are physical capital within roller derby and a sign of criticism against the respectable femininity entering other fields.    The informants brake the female pattern of movement Young (2005) identify, at the same time as the “outside world” reminds them of their position as women related to the respectable femininity norm (Skeggs, 2000) they do not identify with. The informants express a position as outsiders, both within the sports world as well as not fitting in the respectable femininity norm, which is expressed through roller derby. The derby players are trying to find a place where they fit from the position of women and hence also from the social class perspective, in relation to that roller derby is a source of capital as well as the capital brought in matters.

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Sports as a social institution reflects and reshapes social values and power relations in broader society, including gender relations. For instance, the ways in which bodies are used in sports produces gender; as such sport has been shown to reaffirm men's power over women and ritualize and embed aggression, strength, and violence into the male body. Roller derby, which is a full-contact, highly physical sport, offers women the opportunity to renegotiate these stereotypical gendered and embodied ideas of gender. Drawing on bodily theory, contact sport, and self-defense literatures this study explores how female roller derby players undergo such negotiations of femininity and womanhood and how one's body plays a role in this. This was done through the analysis of 17 semi-structured interviews with female flat track roller derby players in the United States. Findings show similarities to self-defense where skaters' notions of womanhood and femininity are transformed through a variety of ways and these are related to experiencing bodies in new and transgressive ways. One key finding demonstrates how these transformations are complicated by biological narratives and understandings of violence. These results speak to larger implications of gender, embodiment, and women's physical liberation. / Master of Science

Identity is not fixed but rather performed through interactions. The eminent philosopher and gender theorist, Judith Butler famously investigates performativity in her research on gender. Butler asserts that “gender is not a performance that a prior subject elects to do, but gender is performative in the sense that it constitutes as an effect the very subject it appears to express” (314, emphasis original). She believes that gender identity is performative because it constitutes itself though actions, gestures, and speech. This project seeks to investigate the performative nature of roller derby personas, highlighting the identities of the characters in the movie Whip It and the comic series “Slam!” to help students learn to perform an academic identity in writing. Reading roller derby texts through the lens of performativity can be a useful pedagogical tool because it helps students see that a writer’s identity can be carefully crafted into an academic persona. In this project, I examine these texts to discover how roller derby personas are constructed and performed. The texts introduce freshmeat skaters to roller derby and explore how their new derby persona is negotiated and informed by the derby community. By creating a new persona, the characters are able to constitute it through their performance. Students in First Year Composition are undergoing a similar process to the freshmeat skaters: they are learning to craft an academic identity when they enter the university. Ultimately, a performative academic identity can lead to greater agency both in and out of the classroom because it helps students take a stance and control their performance as writers.

Lacing Skates and Unlacing Corsets: Gender Play and Multiple Femininities in Roller Derby and Neo-Burlesque. Contemporary roller derby and neo-burlesque, as an athletic sport and a framed staged performance respectively, each provide a space that encourages gender play through interactions between participants and audience and the role of physical body. In this thesis, I discuss how each activity allows for a multiplicity of feminine identities and commentary by performers on the social and cultural expectations of women. Drawing on performance theory, ritual theory, and gender studies, along with fieldwork, I explore how this commentary comes from participants simultaneously critiquing and embracing those expectations in their performances through costuming, use of the body, and the presence of an audience who interpret the events.

Despite a long history of participation in sports, women have yet to gain equal access to this male-dominated realm. The national sports culture continues to regard them as marginal, if not invisible. For more than a century, women athletes have struggled against a subordinate status based on rigid definitions of female sexuality, an emphasis on white middle-class standards of beauty, and restrictive cultural expectations of motherhood. This dissertation, however, reveals a vital story of feminist women who have consistently stretched the boundaries of gender and have actively carved out their own identities as women, athletes, and mothers while playing an integral role in the development of sports. Drawing on oral history, archival materials, and a wide range of other sources, I provide a comparative analysis of women's experiences playing basketball and Roller Derby. These two sports have included women from their outset and at different times both challenged society's restrictions on women's femininity, sexuality, and physical abilities. One of my major objectives is to explore and explain the tension between women's representation and agency, between cultural constructs and women's lives, between images of women and their individual identities. Both women and men struggle for self-definition in the world they inhabit, and they often surmount formidable obstacles on the path to change not only themselves but also the ideals against which they measure themselves. In a culture that champions individualism, women "sweat" their identities because they want to be themselves, yet realize that self-definition is still shaped by a powerful set of cultural ideals and pressures about what it means to be male or female, man or woman, boy or girl. While these women sporting pioneers pushed their way into the public limelight, they worked to prove that athleticism could in fact be a part of the female identity, even while that identity was continually in flux. But until American society is ready to accept women as viable athletes, realize that athleticism can be a feminine and masculine quality, and allow women to play multiple roles, women will continue to sweat their femininity.

The motivation behind the revival and development of roller derby may provide valuable insight to the structure of established sports regarding athlete engagement, drop-out, and well-being. To investigate the relationship of the cross-theoretical concepts, self-reported satisfaction and thwarting of basic psychological needs, and peer motivational climate of 255 high-level flat track roller derby athletes was examined in a cross-sectional design. Hierarchal regression analysis showed low effects of basic needs satisfaction on performance. Basic psychological need satisfaction and thwarting predicted 63% of the experienced task-involved motivational climate variance and 25% of ego-involved motivational climate. Relatedness proved strongest in predicting both types of peer motivational climates. In conclusion, the employed study method, limitations of the study, and recommendations for future research are discussed. / Motivationen bakom återuppväckandet och utvecklingen av roller derby kan bidra med värdefull insikt i etablerade idrotters struktur gällande idrottares engagemang, avhopp, och välmående. Studiens syfte var att undersöka relationen mellan tvär-teoretiska koncept. Med en tvärsnittsdesign undersöks självrapporterad upplevelse av tillfredsställda och nedtryckta psykologiska behov, samt motivationsklimat hos 255 högpresterande flat track roller derby idrottare. Hierarkisk regressionsanalys påvisade svag effekt av behovstillfredsställelse på prestation. Grundläggande psykologisk behovstillfredsställelse och nedtryck förklarade 63% av variansen i det uppgiftsorienterade motivationsklimatet, och 25% av det ego-orienterade motivationsklimatet. Samhörighet visade på störst förutsägbarhet på båda typerna av motivationsklimat. Avslutningsvis diskuteras studiens metod och begränsningar, samt förslag på framtida studier.

The aim of the current study was to examine the differences in sport fan motivation factors between mainstream (Minor League baseball) and atypical (roller derby) fans. Eighty-one fans (40 Minor League baseball and 41 roller derby) completed an 8 question demographic survey, a 26-item Sport Fan Motivation Scale, a 7-item Sport Spectator Identification Scale, and a 10-item Sport Fan Exploratory Curiosity Scale. It was believed that fans of Minor League baseball would be more motivated by the entertainment factor than roller derby fans. While roller derby fans would be more motivated by eustress, group affiliation and family factors at the event than Minor League baseball fans. It was also predicted that roller derby fans would be more curious about new sports than Minor League baseball fans. Results showed that Minor League baseball fans were more motivated by the family aspects of the game than roller derby fans. Additionally, it was found that baseball fans were more curious about new sports in general than roller derby fans. Finally, the study found that roller derby fans were more motivated by the aesthetics of the game than Minor League baseball fans.

In an ethnographic examination of the "modern" roller derby movement that began in the early 2000s, I explore Women's Flat Track Derby in Florida. What does it mean to be a roller derby player? How is she conceptualized and commodified? Or more centrally, how is third wave feminism used as a catalyst of this commodification? In order to fully appreciate, understand, and even embrace roller derby, I look at roller derby leagues as social movement organizations (SMOs) in order to note how they frame themselves and maintain collective identity the commodification of third wave feminism. First, I will explore various facets of the "modern" roller derby movement by way of gender, sexuality, and youth as central themes of roller derby culture and identity. Second, I note how roller derby utilizes rhetoric associated with third wave feminism. Third, I examine how roller derby is conceptualized as a social movement and while doing so note the charity organizations that various leagues support. I go on to explore how cultural capital is used in roller derby as a way to create insider knowledge while appropriating third wave feminism. Finally, I will look at how all aspects of roller derby I discussed illuminate a critique of third wave feminism. It is through these facets that I illustrate how the modern flat track roller derby employs third wave feminist rhetoric to produce and commodify the roller derby player identity.

Dadashzadeh, M. “Att få vara med”. Föräldrars berättelser om barn som spelarroller derby. Examensarbete i socialt arbete 15 högskolepoäng. Malmöuniversitet: Fakulteten för Hälsa och Samhälle, Institutionen för Socialt Arbete,2019.Den här studien undersöker föräldrars upplevelser av barns medverkan i sportenroller derby med fokus på inkludering, och hur det kan skilja sig från andrasporter. Studien är baserad på kvalitativa intervjuer med fem föräldrar som harbarn som är aktiva i en roller derby förening i Malmö, Sverige. Studien finner attdessa föräldrars upplevelser av sporten roller derby är att alla barn är välkomnaoavsett sexuell preferens eller utseende. Studien visar också att föräldrarnaupplever att roller derby är olikt andra sporter när det kommer till inkludering ochhur personer utanför heteronormen blir behandlade. Föräldrarna uppmärksammarvikten av att barnen får se personer som öppet visar att de befinner sig utanförheteronormen och att det kan hjälpa barnen att vara mindre fördomsfulla gentemotolikheter men också att känna sig tryggare i med sina egna avvikelser. / Dadashzadeh, M. “Allowed to take part”. The stories of parents of children thatparticipate in roller derby. Degree project in social work 15 högskolepoäng.Malmö university: Faculty of Health and Society, Department of Social Work,2019.This study examines parents experiences of children´s participation in the sport ofroller derby when it comes to treating everyone equally, and how it differs fromother sports. The study is based on 5 interviews with parents that have childrenactive in a roller derby league in Malmö, Sweden. The study finds that theseparents experience that all children are welcome in the sport of roller derby, nomatter how you look or what your sexual preference is. The study also shows thatthe parents experience that roller derby is different to other sports, in the ways oftreating everyone equally and members outside of the heteronorm. The parentsacknowledges the importance of children to see people who openly show that theyare outside of the heteronorm and that this can help the children to both be lessprejudice against differences and to feel safer in their own abnormality.