Histórias de vida de mulheres atletas no levantamento de peso

Abstract

This thesis aims to interpret the processes of stigmatization and resistance in the biographical trajectories of female weightlifting athletes (LP). Such reflections favoured predominantly post-structuralist productions in the field of Social Sciences and Physical Education, which proved to be relevant in the process of building this research. In the methodological path, the study uses oral life history method in its thematic aspect, as well as individual narrative interview, technique, with discursive categorization of transcriptions from an intersectional look at such narratives and native categories. To this end, the group of interlocutors in the research was composed of five female athletes from three Olympic generations of the LP. The central thesis of the research considers that the abjection processes experienced by such women are plural and intersected by social markers of the difference in the construction of mechanisms of social hierarchy in their biographical paths. However, these athletes spread multiple resistance micro strategies, or intersectional agency, mobilizing social markers of difference in an articulated way. In this regard, all of them addressed the suspicions of their family groups and broad sociability about the changes in their bodies and the possibility of being considered “masculinized” due to their experience in the LP. Despite such questions, our interlocutors, each in their own time, mobilized different strategies to overcome such processes, ranging from the search for the “annulment” of these discourses to the reaffirmation of aspects of normalized femininity. Another point of convergence was the process of expanding the powers brought by their experiences in LP. Such process is multiple and involves the improvement of their remuneration and their consequent social ascension through sport; expansion of cultural capital through schooling in higher education, as well as the network of sociability through experiences in international competitions in different countries. The relevance of facilitating agents is evidenced in their trajectories is evidenced when coaches and people from their family groups occupy space in the motivation process in their careers. In addition, the athletes training processes are remarkable in their biographical trajectories of the athletes, in which the LP sports field presents itself as a privileged cultural space for generational exchanges, where the more experienced athletes assume motivational and tutoring positions in relation to younger athletes. The study showed that the career in LP, as well as the dedication to training and technologies that involve a sport modality in high performance become central strategies of these women’s resistance in their sociability spaces. In this sense, abjection and agency are faces of these women's subjectivity processes in the sports field. Therefore, being a coach, a referee, a manager, or working to expand opportunities for other young women in sports are some of the dreams mentioned by our interlocutors, which makes us realize that the valorisation of facilitating agents in their trajectories brings the commitment to be in the future. Anyway, these life stories encourage us to broaden our views on such experiences and reflect intersectionally on other biographical paths of women in future research on such theoretical and methodological key.