Abandoning The Performance Narrative: Two Women's Stories of Transition from Professional Sport
Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: Despite its potential to illuminate psychological processes within socio-cultural contexts, examples of narrative research are rare in sport psychology. In this study, we employed an analysis of narrative to explore two women's stories of living in, and withdrawing from, professional tournament golf gathered through life history interviews conducted over 6 years. Our findings suggest that immersion in elite sport culture shaped these women's identities around performance values of single-minded dedication to sport and prioritization of winning above all other areas of life. When the performance narrative ceased to “fit” their changing lives, both women, having no alternative narrative to guide their personal life stories, experienced narrative wreckage and considerable personal trauma. They required asylum—a place of refuge where performance values were no longer paramount—to story their lives around a relational narrative that reinstated a coherent identity while providing meaning and worth to life after golf.
Authors: Kitrina Douglas, David Carless
Institutions: University of Bristol, Leeds Beckett University
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2084344702