Tag: Greta Bladh

With a Ph.D. in gender studies, Greta Bladh has taken an interest in what ways gender norms both enables and disables our moving bodies within sporting practices, such as within gym culture. As such, issues concerning inclusion and exclusion have been a focal point of departure, which also extends to a current project concerning public outdoor gyms in Sweden. Currently, Greta Bladh holds a position as lecturer and postdoctoral researcher in sociology at Mid Sweden University.

Mari Kristin Sisjord’s Women in Snowboarding (Routledge) is the first book to examine the role ofwomen in the origins, development and contemporary landscape of snowboarding. Focusing on organised and professional snowboarding, it explores the significance of women as participants, coaches, leaders, and high-profile sport stars. Greta Bladh is quite happy with the content as the book accomplishes its stated ambition, but she has reservations about the presentation, such as vague definitions and missing references.

In his new book, The History of Physical Culture (Common Ground), Conor Heffernan provides an engaged historical overview of physical culture from the Ancient World to the Modern Day. Dr. Greta Bladh, with great interest in physical culture as a scholar as well as a practicer, has read Heffernan’s contribution to Common Ground’s new series of mini-textbooks. While pointing out and lamenting the author’s preference for Eurocentric perspectives, she still finds reading the book well worth the effort.

Drawing on autoethnographic research, Gym Bodies: Exploring Fitness Cultures by James Brighton, Ian Wellard & Amy Clark (Routledge) explores the embodied experiences of ‘gym goers’ and the fitness cultures that are constructed within gyms and fitness spaces. Greta Bladh is well placed for reviewing this book, and her critical reading gives credit to the authors’ efforts as well as raises questions about the benefits of the autoethnographic method. A highly readable book just the same.

Studien tar sin början på ett gym, vilket har inskrivet i dess stadgar att verksamheten ska präglas av ett normkritiskt arbetssätt. Detta gym kan således ses som en plats där genuskodade normer, vilka i avhandlingen diskuteras i termer av trösklar, bearbetas på olika sätt med avsikt att skapa ett inkluderande klimat. Avhandlingen bygger på kvalitativa metoder såsom deltagande observationer, semi-strukturerade intervjuer, samt kollektiva minnesövningar.

In this rather slim volume, Gender, Sport, and the Role of Alter Ego in Roller Derby (Routledge), Colleen Arendt attempts to provide an answer to two question posed by herself, Why Roller Derby? Why now?, and indicates that alter ego may have a place in this. Greta Bladh kept looking for answers, for the “now”, and for the role of alter ego, to no avail.