Panopticonics: The Control and Surveillance of Black Female Athletes in a Collegiate Athletic Program

This article analyzes black female student athletes' participation in an elite collegiate athletic program and shows how the program maximizes black female participants' athletic and academic potential through surveillance, control, and discipline. The program instills in black female athletes a model of womanhood whereby they come to expect and achieve academic and athletic success, but does so at the expense of their autonomy and freedom from surveillance. Ultimately, this analysis shows the promise and peril of panopticonics as educational technology.