Abstract

Working at the intersection of feminist sport and leisure studies and Muslim geographies, this paper reveals gendered Islamophobia as a spatialized process occurring at different scales in sport: fields of play, indoor facilities, organizational policy, discourse, moving bodies and emotion. Drawing upon focus groups and interviews with 38 Muslim women (aged 16-63 years old) living in Aotearoa New Zealand, we explore the embodied experiences and socio-spatial practices of Muslim women across a range of sports and physical activities. In so doing, we highlight the agency of Muslim women in finding and creating ‘safe’ sporting spaces that allow them to maintain their ‘embodied respectability’ while also accessing the physical, social and psychological benefits of sport and active recreation. We then illustrate how the three hijabs—visual, spatial, ethical—operate as ‘genderizing discourse’ that is enacted and enforced by some within the sports sector, the public and the Muslim community, thus challenging Muslim women’s ‘right’ to sport. Finally, we reveal Muslim women’s active participation and refusal to be made ‘invisible’ in sport, thus offering an important example of the complex relationship between gender, culture, and religion, and the political reimaginings of Muslim moving bodies in public sporting spaces. Ultimately, focusing on the everyday and embodied sporting experiences of Muslim women, this paper offers an examination of gendered Islamophobia as it is lived and felt by Muslim women in everyday sporting spaces in Aotearoa New Zealand.

摘要

本文在女权主义体育和休闲研究与穆斯林地理学的交叉点上工作，揭示了性别化的伊斯兰恐惧症是在体育的不同尺度上发生的空间化过程：游戏领域、室内设施、组织政策、话语、移动的身体和情感。通过焦点小组和对 38 名居住在新西兰 Aotearoa 的穆斯林妇女（16-63 岁）的采访，我们探索了穆斯林妇女在一系列运动和体育活动中的具体体验和社会空间实践。在此过程中，我们强调了穆斯林妇女在寻找和创造“安全”运动空间方面的作用，使她们能够保持“体现的受人尊重”，同时还能获得运动和积极娱乐的身体、社会和心理益处。然后我们说明这三个头巾——视觉的、空间的、伦理的——作为“性别化话语”运作，由体育部门、公众和穆斯林社区的一些人制定和执行，从而挑战穆斯林妇女参加体育运动的“权利”。最后，我们揭示了穆斯林妇女积极参与和拒绝在体育运动中“隐形”的情况，从而提供了一个重要的例子，说明性别、文化和宗教之间的复杂关系，以及穆斯林运动机构在公共体育空间中的政治重新构想。最后，本文着眼于穆斯林妇女的日常和具体的体育经历，对穆斯林妇女在新西兰奥特阿罗阿的日常体育场所中生活和感受的性别化伊斯兰恐惧症进行了研究。