Åsa Bäckström
Biographic Data
| ID | 131040 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Åsa Bäckström |
| GIVEN NAMES | Åsa |
| FAMILY NAME | Bäckström |
| SIGNATURE | BÄCKSTRÖM Å |
| AFFILIATIONS | Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1230-3415 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 54 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Between the Thresholds of Visibility
The purpose of this article is to explore teenage girls’ changing room practices and in what ways femininity is negotiated. Through a qualitative interview method that allowed for deep engagement with the material context, we interviewed 24 teenage girls in this contested space. The analysis draws from postfeminist sensibility and studies on visibility. In exploring how the changing room was used and the girls’ reasoning behind it, we demonstrate…
Trans People Struggling To Be Human in Sports and Exercise
This study explores how trans individuals struggle to make themselves intelligible as humans in a cis- and heteronormative context of sports and exercise. Ten trans people with present or prior experience in sports and exercise were interviewed. The analysis draws from Butler’s idea of trans people’s exclusion as a question of unintelligibility instead of oppression. The study demonstrates three overreaching ways trans people make themselves disc…
Looks, Liveliness, and Laughter
In contemporary society, visual information is influential, not least when businesses are communicating with potential customers. It represents and influences how people understand phenomena. In sports, much attention is directed toward how media represent elite sports and sport stars. Less attention is directed toward children’s sports. The aim of this article is to explore and analyze visual representations of children on sport businesses’ webs…
Methodological reflections on artistically illustrating ethnographic text from a study of sport pedagogy in youth detention
While there is a burgeoning body of literature on visual methods in ethnography, including drawing and illustration as method for collecting and exploring data, little has been written about how artistic illustrations can be used as a representational method for finished ethnographic texts. Based on an illustrated ethnography–a PhD thesis on sport pedagogy in youth detention–this paper explores what artistic illustrations can do for representatio…
Selling youth sport
The contexts in which young people participate in sport are diverse. In Scandinavia, as in many other countries, child and youth sport is mainly organised in non-profit, membership-based and voluntary driven sports clubs. In Sweden, this model is now challenged by commercial businesses providing child and youth sport services. The overall aim of this article is to provide empirically based knowledge about these ongoing and largely unexplored comm…
Skateboarding
Skateboarding or ‘sidewalk surfing’ emerged in the late 1950’s southern California, whereby surfers were not in the sea. The aim of this special issue is to benchmark critical research on skateboarding, youth and subculture on an international basis to contribute to the field of research which explores contemporary skateboarding focusing on young people’s everyday lives from a cultural perspective. Skateboarding is a very individual thing; it is …
Imagining and Making Material Encounters
In this article, we draw from and develop existing ideas of spatial desire and emplacement to explore skateboarders' skilful mobility and perceptive competence. By combining findings from Swedish and Danish ethnographic studies, we illustrate how skateboarders imagine and make new material encounters both in urban environments not originally built for skateboarding and in skateparks. These imaginations and makings include memories of previous mat…
Skateboarding beyond the limits of gender? Strategic interventions in Sweden
Sweden prides itself as a country where young women can enjoy gender equality. Yet many young women skateboarders still experience discomfort when skateboarding in public spaces. We argue that diverse strategies are required to intervene in the intransigent problem of gender inequality in the male-dominated sport of skateboarding. We discuss two intertwined strategies adopted in Swedish skateboarding contexts, strategic visibility and strategic e…
Multisensory Emplaced Learning
This article outlines the implications of a theory of 'sensory emplaced learning' for understanding the interrelationships between the embodied and environmental in learning processes. Understanding learning as multisensory and contingent within everyday place-events, this framework analytically describes how people establish themselves as 'situated learners'. This is demonstrated through three examples of how culturally constructed sensory categ…
Gender Manoeuvring in Swedish Skateboarding
The Nordic countries score high in gender equality ratings and we have a long tradition of working with feminist agendas promising liberal futures to both young women and men. Still, contemporary young women struggle to make room for female participation in male-dominated spaces. Based on ethnographic research, this article explores gender manoeuvring, that is, manipulations of the relationship between masculinity and femininity in the patterned …
Knowing and teaching kinaesthetic experience in skateboarding
The body has become a vital research object in several disciplines in recent years. Indeed, in the social sciences and humanities, a corporeal turn in which embodiment has become a key concept related to learning and socialisation is discussed. This cross-disciplinary paper addresses the epistemological question of how we know what we know and theoretically and empirically contributes to current arguments of a shift from embodiment to emplacement…
Gender Manoeuvring in Swedish Skateboarding
The Nordic countries score high in gender equality ratings and we have a long tradition of working with feminist agendas promising liberal futures to both young women and men. Still, contemporary young women struggle to make room for female participation in male-dominated spaces. Based on ethnographic research, this article explores gender manoeuvring, that is, manipulations of the relationship between masculinity and femininity in the patterned …
Imagining and Making Material Encounters
In this article, we draw from and develop existing ideas of spatial desire and emplacement to explore skateboarders' skilful mobility and perceptive competence. By combining findings from Swedish and Danish ethnographic studies, we illustrate how skateboarders imagine and make new material encounters both in urban environments not originally built for skateboarding and in skateparks. These imaginations and makings include memories of previous mat…
Knowing and teaching kinaesthetic experience in skateboarding
The body has become a vital research object in several disciplines in recent years. Indeed, in the social sciences and humanities, a corporeal turn in which embodiment has become a key concept related to learning and socialisation is discussed. This cross-disciplinary paper addresses the epistemological question of how we know what we know and theoretically and empirically contributes to current arguments of a shift from embodiment to emplacement…
Skateboarding beyond the limits of gender? Strategic interventions in Sweden
Sweden prides itself as a country where young women can enjoy gender equality. Yet many young women skateboarders still experience discomfort when skateboarding in public spaces. We argue that diverse strategies are required to intervene in the intransigent problem of gender inequality in the male-dominated sport of skateboarding. We discuss two intertwined strategies adopted in Swedish skateboarding contexts, strategic visibility and strategic e…
Skateboarding
Skateboarding or ‘sidewalk surfing’ emerged in the late 1950’s southern California, whereby surfers were not in the sea. The aim of this special issue is to benchmark critical research on skateboarding, youth and subculture on an international basis to contribute to the field of research which explores contemporary skateboarding focusing on young people’s everyday lives from a cultural perspective. Skateboarding is a very individual thing; it is …
Trans People Struggling To Be Human in Sports and Exercise
This study explores how trans individuals struggle to make themselves intelligible as humans in a cis- and heteronormative context of sports and exercise. Ten trans people with present or prior experience in sports and exercise were interviewed. The analysis draws from Butler’s idea of trans people’s exclusion as a question of unintelligibility instead of oppression. The study demonstrates three overreaching ways trans people make themselves disc…
Knowing and teaching kinaesthetic experience in skateboarding
The body has become a vital research object in several disciplines in recent years. Indeed, in the social sciences and humanities, a corporeal turn in which embodiment has become a key concept related to learning and socialisation is discussed. This cross-disciplinary paper addresses the epistemological question of how we know what we know and theoretically and empirically contributes to current arguments of a shift from embodiment to emplacement…
Multisensory Emplaced Learning
This article outlines the implications of a theory of 'sensory emplaced learning' for understanding the interrelationships between the embodied and environmental in learning processes. Understanding learning as multisensory and contingent within everyday place-events, this framework analytically describes how people establish themselves as 'situated learners'. This is demonstrated through three examples of how culturally constructed sensory categ…
Gender Manoeuvring in Swedish Skateboarding
The Nordic countries score high in gender equality ratings and we have a long tradition of working with feminist agendas promising liberal futures to both young women and men. Still, contemporary young women struggle to make room for female participation in male-dominated spaces. Based on ethnographic research, this article explores gender manoeuvring, that is, manipulations of the relationship between masculinity and femininity in the patterned …
Skateboarding beyond the limits of gender? Strategic interventions in Sweden
Sweden prides itself as a country where young women can enjoy gender equality. Yet many young women skateboarders still experience discomfort when skateboarding in public spaces. We argue that diverse strategies are required to intervene in the intransigent problem of gender inequality in the male-dominated sport of skateboarding. We discuss two intertwined strategies adopted in Swedish skateboarding contexts, strategic visibility and strategic e…
Imagining and Making Material Encounters
In this article, we draw from and develop existing ideas of spatial desire and emplacement to explore skateboarders' skilful mobility and perceptive competence. By combining findings from Swedish and Danish ethnographic studies, we illustrate how skateboarders imagine and make new material encounters both in urban environments not originally built for skateboarding and in skateparks. These imaginations and makings include memories of previous mat…
Methodological reflections on artistically illustrating ethnographic text from a study of sport pedagogy in youth detention
While there is a burgeoning body of literature on visual methods in ethnography, including drawing and illustration as method for collecting and exploring data, little has been written about how artistic illustrations can be used as a representational method for finished ethnographic texts. Based on an illustrated ethnography–a PhD thesis on sport pedagogy in youth detention–this paper explores what artistic illustrations can do for representatio…
Selling youth sport
The contexts in which young people participate in sport are diverse. In Scandinavia, as in many other countries, child and youth sport is mainly organised in non-profit, membership-based and voluntary driven sports clubs. In Sweden, this model is now challenged by commercial businesses providing child and youth sport services. The overall aim of this article is to provide empirically based knowledge about these ongoing and largely unexplored comm…
Skateboarding
Skateboarding or ‘sidewalk surfing’ emerged in the late 1950’s southern California, whereby surfers were not in the sea. The aim of this special issue is to benchmark critical research on skateboarding, youth and subculture on an international basis to contribute to the field of research which explores contemporary skateboarding focusing on young people’s everyday lives from a cultural perspective. Skateboarding is a very individual thing; it is …
Looks, Liveliness, and Laughter
In contemporary society, visual information is influential, not least when businesses are communicating with potential customers. It represents and influences how people understand phenomena. In sports, much attention is directed toward how media represent elite sports and sport stars. Less attention is directed toward children’s sports. The aim of this article is to explore and analyze visual representations of children on sport businesses’ webs…
Trans People Struggling To Be Human in Sports and Exercise
This study explores how trans individuals struggle to make themselves intelligible as humans in a cis- and heteronormative context of sports and exercise. Ten trans people with present or prior experience in sports and exercise were interviewed. The analysis draws from Butler’s idea of trans people’s exclusion as a question of unintelligibility instead of oppression. The study demonstrates three overreaching ways trans people make themselves disc…
Between the Thresholds of Visibility
The purpose of this article is to explore teenage girls’ changing room practices and in what ways femininity is negotiated. Through a qualitative interview method that allowed for deep engagement with the material context, we interviewed 24 teenage girls in this contested space. The analysis draws from postfeminist sensibility and studies on visibility. In exploring how the changing room was used and the girls’ reasoning behind it, we demonstrate…
Sociology (10 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Adventure Sports and Sensation Seeking (5 works) · Outdoor and Experiential Education (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Sports, Gender, and Society (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works) · Art (4 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Ethnography (4 works)