Multiple Bodies

This study explores how female soccer players experience their bodies within the discourses of sport, gender and heterosexuality. Using in-depth interviews and participant observation, the research focused on a team that competed in a premier women's league in New Zealand. The findings indicated that the players underwent four distinct, yet interconnected, bodily experiences. This suggests that the use of a multiple body perspective enables a more subtle understanding of women's experiences in sport. The findings also indicate that the possibility of seeing one's body as being constituted differently by these multiple discourses may be a liberating experience, in that it allows women to access a diversity of feminine practices.