Section: Research Student Profiles
Maddie Breeze
- Name Maddie Breeze
- Organisation
- Sociology, School of Social and Political Science
University of Edinburgh - Address
- 6.13 Chrystal MacMillan Building George Square Edinburgh UK EH8 9LD
- m.breeze@sms.ed.ac.uk
- Research Interests
- Sociology of Gender,Gender Theory,gender,Queer Theory,Qualitative Research Methods,'Insider' Research,Sociology of Sport,Roller Derby,Collaborative Methods,Ethnographic Film,Feminism,Cultural Activism,DIY
- URL
- http://www.sociology.ed.ac.uk/research_students/breeze_maddie
PhD Title
[Working title] Roller Derby, Gender & 'Real' Sport
Research Interview
Current Work
December 2011:
In the past year I have been mostly occupied with a range of ethnographic methods, including 24 in-depth formal interviews and a group film-making project as well as long term participant observation with a roller derby league, all predicated on my previous membership of the group as a skater and my continuing active involvement. In the next 12 months I will be focusing on analysis, papers for presentation and thesis chapters.
Thesis Overview
Roller Derby currently articulates and occupies somewhat of a vector in the field of sport, moving between counter-culture and 'real' sporting practice: (sometimes) claiming, pursuing and desiring sporting legitimacy. An ontological position which takes reality to be continually entangled in such processes of becoming informs the research. Becoming-legitimate has generative and restrictive [normative] implications for the kinds of gender that it is possible to un/do in Roller Derby. Concurrently, gendered practices and performance inform the extent of Roller Derby's sporting ill/legitimacy. Thorough empirical work with everyday discursive practice informs an analysis of the tensions at the heart of Roller Derby [serious fun, serious humor, ill/legitimacy, laborious leisure, un/sexy bodies...] and the practice, organisation and legislation of irony and parody in order to explore the conditions of Roller Derby's possibility and its implications for gender and sport.
Qualifications
2008 MA Honours Sociology University of Edinburgh
2010 MSc with Distinction Sociology University of Edinburgh
Awards
2011 Sue Grant Service Award for co-organising Researching Feminist Futures a two-day graduate conference critically exploring feminist research practice.
2010 Joint recipient [with the Researching Feminist Futures Organising Team] of University of Edinburgh Development Trust Small Projects Grant
2009-2013 ESRC 1+3 Quota Award
2008 Collin Bell Prize
Publications
(2009) “Analyzing young women’s experiences of hidden gendered power in heterosexual relationships”, in Edinburgh Sociology Working Papers No. 33.
(2010) “There’s No Balls in Derby: Roller Derby as a Unique, Gendered Sports Context”, The International Journal of Sport and Society 1(3): 121-133.
(2011) Book Review: Rosaline Barbour, Introducing Qualitative Research: A Student Guide to the Craft of Doing Qualitative Research Sociology 45(4): 716-718
Conference Presentations
March 2010 “No Balls in Derby: Roller Derby as a Unique Sports Context”, paper presentation at the International Conference of Sport at Society University of British Columbia,Vancouver, Canada.
May 2010 “Miss Use: Possibilities and Pitfalls of ‘Femininity’ as a Category of Analysis”, paper presentation at The Future of Feminism Conference, Manchester University, UK.
November 2010 “Researching Roller Derby: Capturing Physicality and Operationalising Gender”, paper presentation at The Sixth Meeting of the Transnational Working Group for the Study of Gender and Sport, University of Bath, UK.
March 2011 “Zines as Academic Spaces”, Joint planning, facilitation and deployment of a participatory workshop at A Carnival of Feminist Cultural Activism University of York, Department of Women’s Studies, with; Hilary Cornish; Aoife McKenna; Catherine-Rose Stocks-Rankin; Kathleen Ward; Joanna Wiseman; and Hannah Zagel.
April 2011 “Zines as Emancipatory Teaching Tools: A Workshop on Collective Art, Authorship and Education” Feminism and Teaching Symposium, University of Nottingham, UK. With Aoife McKenna, Catherine-Rose Stocks-Rankin, Kathleen Ward, Joanna Wiseman, Hannah Zagel
May 2011 “‘The Beefcake is okay with it…’: A Short Account of Annoymity/Confidentiality Between Friends”, paper presentation at New Directions University of Edinburgh, UK.
Teaching
Lecturing:
2010-2011 [ongoing] Guest Lecturer for Contemporary Feminist Debates [honours & postgraduate level] University of Edinburgh.
2012 Lecturer & Co-Convenor 'Gender in Society' [honours level] University of the West of Scotland.
Tutoring:
2010-2011 [ongoing] Tutor for Designing and Doing Social Research [honours level]
2010-2012 [ongoing] Tutor for Sociology 1A, Sociology 1B
2011 Workshop Facilitator for Research Skills: Data Collection [MSc/PhD level]
2011 Tutor for Contemporary Feminist Debates [MSc/PhD level]
Other Activities
Member of 'Femjoy' a feminist post-graduate reading, research and peer-supervision group.
On the organising team for Researching Feminist Futures, a post-graduate symposium on September 2nd and 3rd 2011. http://researchingfeministfutures.wordpress.com/
Book reviewer for Sociology, the journal of the British Sociological Association.
This page was published on 7 December 2011