| The dissertation is a study of the relationship between race, representation, and the sport of Women's Artistic Gymnastics. Through theory, analysis, and auto-ethnographic narrative, I argue that the summer Olympic technique-institution paradoxically overlooks and accentuates the physiological and kinesthetic marks of race on behalf of universalized whiteness, and to the detriment of marginalized blackness.;Strategically deploying the post-discipline of Performance Studies, a field which intersects live presence and performance with discursively mediated representation(s), I argue that race has always played a fundamental role in the technique and operation of the distinctly modern Western athletic institution of Women's Artistic Gymnastics. It is at this intersection between embodiment and evaluation that individual gymnastic interpretation operates against the racialized athlete. The irony is that the image of a cute little (white) girl who receives neither professional salary nor product endorsement attempts to obfuscate the race-indexed ideological narrative in which Women's Artistic Gymnastics participates.;Because the elite black gymnast participates in an activity comprised of remarkably few athletes, coaches, judges, and administrators of color, and at a level of exceptional expertise, she is propelled into the paradoxical if not conflictive role of both racial and national representative. With ever-increasing instances of normativizing coaching, prejudicial judging, and condescending media portrayals, the black female gymnast negotiates a unique psycho-emotional space within her historically "white" sport at the behest of her discursively "white" country. Primarily through autoethnography, I investigate applicable symptoms of racial injury, intimating the contradictory intersection of exploitation, estrangement, and exceptionality within which the gymnast of color dwells---and despairs.;Central to the dissertation is a description of the technique, a socio-historical analysis of the institution, and their meaningful moments of convergence. I critically consider the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 Olympic Games in which black women represented the United States in international gymnastics competition. I consult magazine and newspaper articles, press releases, and other sport-specific publications, engage the policies and operations of USA Gymnastics and the International Gymnastics Federation, and examine excerpts from the lives and careers of several racialized gymnasts, including myself, a veteran of fourteen years. |
