creating and sharing stories of our life. Through telling stories about the things we
do, a particular identity begins to take shape: an individual who ‘likes’ one thing, but
knows that another thing ‘is not me’. In striving to achieve a coherent identity, we tend
to link our actions over time in ways that fit with a bigger life story. By doing so, we
bring a sense of continuity to our lives across time, and reveal how the identity we have
created informs our subsequent actions and behaviours. Knowing who we are provides
the basis of knowing how to act in the future and helps us decide the types of actions
we wish to invest ourselves in.
These narrative processes help us understand women’s experiences of sport and
physical activity. If we want to support a woman to participate, then as practitioners
we need to offer the opportunity for actions which align with her identity – rather than
threaten or compromise her identity. For example, if a young woman holds the belief
that to ‘be a woman’ is to be slim and unmuscular, she is unlikely to attend a weightlifting
class. If however, the same woman gains an understanding that to ‘be female’ is
to be strong, decisive and athletic, then she is more likely to engage in weight training.
When we asked women in professional sport to describe their reasons for playing
sport, three different types of narrative were evident: performance, discovery and relational
narratives (see Douglas & Carless, 2006 and chapter 7). Looking across the
landscape of human experience, each of these narrative types might be valued in some
contexts, but unexpected in others. In sport, it is the performance narrative that dominates
to the extent that this story is very often expected. In our research among older
women (Douglas & Carless, 2005), however, the dominant narrative was a relational
narrative. In many of these women’s stories, physical activity was not described in
terms of performance outcomes, but rather in terms of relationships.
A typical example was provided by Sophia, a 70-year-old woman who talked about
– as a child – playing sport with her brother and friends, doing chores in the house for
er mother, working on a farm for her family (because they had little money) when
she should have been going to school. Sophia’s with and for stories were rooted in her
childhood yet they continued to shape her actions in the present day. They illustrate
that for Sophia, like many women, their actions – be it playing sport or physical
labour – took place because of relationships and attachments, because of care for and
connection to other people. Absent from these stories was talk about getting fitter,
being competitive, or winning medals. Although these outcomes might have occurred,
they were not the main plot of the story, which focused instead on connection to others.
This focus is central to the relational narrative and contrasts dramatically to the values
of the performance narrative with its emphasis on the self.
Relational stories were told time and time again by the older women in our research
and helped us understand their participation in physical activity. When activity was
perceived to lead only or primarily to performance outcomes (e.g. improved fitness
through solitary exercise in the gym), it was unappealing and participation would not
be maintained. If, however, an activity facilitated or supported valued relationships,
then participation was more likely. As a result, even when an activity wasn’t particularly
appealing, an individual could be ‘roped in’ by a family member or friend. We learnt
how if an activity lost its appeal, a woman might continue because she attended the
activity with a friend. Going back to our example of Sophia, she described in great
detail her love of dancing – the skills and joy this activity brought her, the fun she had
with a group of friends each week. But she also described days in the winter when it
was cold, wet and she didn’t want to go. At these times she described very clearly that
what motivated her was ‘knowing her friend would want to go’, and that if she didn’t
go then her friend wouldn’t be able to go.
In these instances, women revealed a strong orientation towards the well-being, needs
and care of another person. Such an orientation – playing sport for another person or
going to a dancing class for another person – might appear quite foreign to those
individuals who participate in physical activity on the basis of personal performance
outcomes. Because a relational orientation is not well understood it is not catered for in
most sport and exercise contexts; relational narratives are often inadvertently devalued
and trivialised in the promotion of sport and physical activity. Yet these relational
attachments, we suggest, are at the core of many women’s motivation. Outside of
sport and physical activity contexts, for example, in motherhood and nursing, it is
expected for women to tell stories which focus on the well-being of others, yet few
people in sport and physical activity contexts make the connection that the person is
unlikely to change simply because they are faced with a different activity.
Among the older women in our research, age had not rewritten the values and
identities which directed their actions across the landscape of their lives. It is therefore
important to recognise that when relationally motivated individuals are asked to put
their own needs before the needs of significant others, they are not simply being asked
to adopt a ‘change of behaviour’, but rather, they are being asked to change a valued
dimension of the self and, quite possibly, lose a valuable component of their identity.
We are not so much suggesting that one type of narrative is better but, rather,
that when one type of narrative silences alternative stories it can be damaging in
terms of participation. Physical activity and sport programmes which are talked about,
promoted and organised around what they can do for the self are unlikely to appeal
to those who are oriented to the needs of the other. On this basis, it is important that
practitioners in sport and exercise recognise, value and provide for individuals who
are more inclined towards the relational ways of being.
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