Research project Sport is often organized by sex, age, level, weight, and disability. Since most people lack experience of alternative models, it is difficult to see the value of, for example, mixed teams or intergenerational play. Sámi athletes and leaders, however, can compare Sámi sport activities with more conventional ones. The project examines the significance of these experiences.
This project examines the consequences of how Sámi sport is organized. By exploring athletes’ and leaders’ experiences in Sámi and conventional sport contexts, we analyze how separation and integration shape opportunities for participation, leadership, identity, and self-determination. The findings also shed light on the pros and cons of other common divisions in sport, such as sex, age, and skill level.
The social division of individuals and activities based on sex, age and skills (but also weight and [dis]ability in some sports) in one of sport’s most fundamental organizing principles. As a result, it is difficult imagining ice hockey games between men and women, wrestling matches between adult participants and children, or other forms of competitions in which beginners and professionals compare their skills and abilities in a meaningful way. It also means that we have limited possibilities to get hold of values/meanings potentially offered by other organizing principles. However, Sámi sport, an example of a social division based on ethnic identity, offers an opportunity to construct an understanding of perceived promises and pitfalls of separated versus integrated activities.
In this project, we ask four research questions that guide this construction:
In order to address these research questions, this project utilizes a unique opportunity afforded by the Sámi Championships. At these competitions, athletes and leaders participate in specific (separated) Sámi sport events. Extant research shows that most of them also participate in conventional (integrated) sport activities in their daily lives. This means that the project gets access to a sample of individuals that have experiences of both integrated and separated sport activities. Contacts established by our previous engagement in studying Sámi sport secure access to the Sámi Summer and Winter Championships 2026 during which we will conduct short, structured interviews posing questions about experiences of integrated and separated sport activities associated to values/meanings such as identity construction and self-determination.
Extant research on consequences of various organizing principles in sport is limited to handful of studies on single-gendered or mixed-PE, and on para-sport or mainstreamed sport for people with disabilities. This project is therefore original in its focus on ethnic identity and innovative relative to its comparative ambition.
