Chaired by: Professor Catherine Happer (University of Glasgow)
In collaboration with University of Glasgow Media, Culture & Society
Abstract
In this talk, Anika Leslie-Walker, Paul Ian Campbell and Marcus Maloney will discuss their recent Identities article, ‘The intersections of race and gendered stereotypes within the constructions of digital women footballers in video games’. They will explore the ways in which the numerical values which constitute FIFA22’s ‘Top 100’ Black and White digital women footballers reflect or challenge the wider social and sporting discourses that shape the experiences of Black and White female sporting athletes in the offline world. The talk will shine light on the considerable differences between the construction, sporting competencies and artificial emotional and sporting intelligence assigned to Black and White digital players within the game. The talk will explore how these also demonstrate the ways in which the numerical foundations of racialized digital women footballers are informed by, and reflect, processes of both sporting misogynoir and Whiteness, which intersect and underpin the markedly anti-Black and anti-feminine framings and sporting competencies of digital Black female footballers within the digital sports world.
Read the Identities article: ‘The intersections of race and gendered stereotypes within the constructions of digital women footballers in video games’
This lecture will take place online. Please register to attend, and a joining link will be sent to you on the day of the event.
Anika Leslie-Walker is a Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Sport in the Department of Sport Science at Nottingham Trent University. She has worked in Higher Education since 2015, with particular expertise in the intersections of race, gender and sport within both national and international contexts. Anika is currently a Non-Executive Director at Manchester Football Association and Chair of their Inclusion Advisory Board. Anika is passionate about equality, diversity and inclusion, and has worked in partnership with various organizations such as UEFA, Premier League, The Fare Network, National Football Museum, Football Supporters Association and the Football Association. Her research has been published in international peer-reviewed journals on sport, gender and race within both national and international contexts. Prior to entering academia, Anika worked in football development at the Bedfordshire Football Association as a Women and Girls Football Development Officer, and has coached football in the UK and USA.
Paul Ian Campbell is an award winning academic and Associate Professor in the sociology of race and inclusion in sport and higher education at the University of Leicester. He is Visiting Professor at Loughborough University, the Open University and University of South Wales; National Teaching Fellow and Principal Fellow; Academic Advisor for the Centre for Transforming Assessment and Student Outcomes (TASO); and series editor of the new Routledge series, Critical Studies in Race and Sport. Paul has published widely on race and sport, including three monographs. His research on race and assessment is the first in the world to directly reduce the race award gap experienced by UK students of colour, and is now directly embedded into over 10% of the UK higher education sector.
Marcus Maloney is Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Centre for Postdigital Cultures at Coventry University. His research focuses on 'culture wars' in digital spaces; men and masculinities online; video game narratives, cultures and communities; and postdigital intimacies and socialities. Marcus has published widely in these areas, including articles in Cultural Sociology, New Media & Society, Social Media + Society, and Games and Culture. His most recent book is Gender, Masculinity and Video Gaming: Analysing Reddit's r/gaming Community (Palgrave 2019).
