Panopticonics: The Control and Surveillance of Black Female Athletes in a Collegiate Athletic Program

Abstract

This article analyzes black female student athletes' participation in an elite collegiate athletic program and shows how the program maximizes black female participants' athletic and academic potential through surveillance, control, and discipline. The program instills in black female athletes a model of womanhood whereby they come to expect and achieve academic and athletic success, but does so at the expense of their autonomy and freedom from surveillance. Ultimately, this analysis shows the promise and peril of panopticonics as educational technology.In thinking of the mechanisms of power, I am thinking... of the point where power reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives. -Foucault,1980We study, go to practice, have mandatory study hall, travel, and compete. I compete and I get the grades. I had it out with the President of Alpha [a black fraternity], because he told me that if I just applied myself I could accomplish anything. I know that a lot better than he does. -black female athlete at Midwestern UniversityAs an elite black female student athlete in her junior year at Midwestern University (MU), the student quoted above constructed herself as a selfaware high achiever who was successful across academic and athletic arenas. In so doing, she reinforced for herself a sense of self and of purpose that had been cultivated during her participation in the MU women's athletic program. This sense of self and purpose had been cultivated as much for her as it was by her. In Foucault's terminology, this individual, "with [her] identity and characteristics, is the product of a relation of power exercised over bodies, movements, desires, forces" (Foucault 1980:74).This article is a Foucauldian description and analysis of the circumstances by which, during the tenure of my ethnographic research at Midwestern University, black female student athletes' identities were shaped, as well as the implications of the formation process for their Anthropology & Education Quarterly 34(3):300-323.

Playing without Power: Black Male NCAA Student‐Athletes Living with Structural Racism

“… This does not negate the ways in which Black female student‐athletes experience racism and structural violence. For more of a discussion on the experiences of Black female college athletes, see Kevin Foster (). …”

Dreaming in Context: Micro‐ and Structural Transformations in an Age of Standardized Testing

“…All decorative and potentially pedagogical materials in the classrooms were covered over with large swaths of butcher paper, and teachers were stationed like sentinels throughout the building so that no space would go visually unattended during the testing and that so that no testing “irregularities” would occur. The physical positioning of teachers—whether they wanted to participate in the careful observation of hallways or not—looked much like what Foucault described as the practice of so many modern institutions—panopticonic surveillance (Foster ; Foucault ).…”

Success Through Community Cultural Wealth: Reflections From Black Female College Athletes at a Historically Black College/University (HBCU) and a Historically White Institution (HWI)

“…The extant literature on Black female college athletes has highlighted their unique and complex experiences in both academic and athletic contexts (Bernhard, 2014;Bruening et al, 2005;Carter, 2008;Carter, Dortch, & Carter-Phiri, 2017;Carter & Hart, 2010;Cooper et al, 2016;Foster, 2003;Harmon, 2009;Sellers et al, 1997;Withycombe, 2011). Consistent with the literature on African American female students in college (Howard-Hamilton, 2003), research on African American female college athletes argued their experiences are distinct from their same-race male and different-race female counterparts (Sellers et al, 1997).…”