The Spiritual Dimensions of Rock Climbing

Description
This qualitative research study aimed to discover whether climbers attribute religious or spiritual elements to rock climbing. After conducting twenty interviews with climbers in the Phoenix area, responses were coded into major themes: nature, flow state and risk, and community.

This qualitative research study aimed to discover whether climbers attribute religious or spiritual elements to rock climbing. After conducting twenty interviews with climbers in the Phoenix area, responses were coded into major themes: nature, flow state and risk, and community. Ultimately, this thesis evaluates each of these major themes and corresponding similarities with spirituality, concluding that outdoor rock climbing can function as spiritual activity for its participants.
Date Created
2024-05
Agent

Comparison of the WNBA's growth versus the NBA's growth and an examination of the attitudes surrounding the WNBA

Description

The Women’s National Basketball Association was founded 27 years ago. Since its inception, the WNBA has played the same game as the NBA with only slightly different rules: a slightly smaller basketball, shorter quarters, and a slightly closer three-point line.

The Women’s National Basketball Association was founded 27 years ago. Since its inception, the WNBA has played the same game as the NBA with only slightly different rules: a slightly smaller basketball, shorter quarters, and a slightly closer three-point line. However, it has not seen the growth and support the NBA received 25 years into its founding. Studies have proven that the WNBA, and women's basketball in general, is undersold and undervalued. Not only this, but a growing body of research has shown that women in sport receive far more harassment than male athletes do. The studies all trace these discrepancies back to deep-rooted patriarchal and misogynistic ideas baked into society, and often seen most explicitly in sport. However, the patriarchy and misogyny that women basketball players receive is varied due to the complex intersection of gender, race, and sexuality. Therefore, previous studies on women’s basketball have examined only one or a few ways that players are hurt or hindered by patriarchy and misogyny. Patriarchy is a system of social structures and practices, in which men govern, oppress, and exploit women. Misogyny is defined as hatred towards women. This paper instead synthesizes previous studies, research, and experiences by women’s basketball players to give an overview of the complex web of prejudice and sexism women basketball players face. For instance, this paper pulls from a study on football fandom in the United Kingdom as well the Kaplan Hecker and Fink Gender Equity Review in order to highlight how abundant misogynistic tropes are across all sports. However, this paper will not give a detailed and comprehensive view into every aspect of this web. Instead, it will provide a general overview of how societal norms, rooted in patriarchy and misogyny, influence people’s views and treatment of women in sport. Specifically, the paper will pull from previous studies and articles to detail how women basketball player’s media coverage, salaries, physical health, mental well-being, race, sexuality, and participation in sports are all interconnected and harmed by oppressive gender norms that are reinforced by society. The sweeping effect has been to stifle and stymy the potential growth and embrace of women's sports.

Date Created
2023-05
Agent

Competing Christianities: social dynamics of religious change in the upper South

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Description
This study analyzes competing forms of Protestant Christianity within the Bible Belt of the Upper South (Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina). On one hand, a conservative “culture war” version of Christianity has dominated the South, and deeply influenced national politics,

This study analyzes competing forms of Protestant Christianity within the Bible Belt of the Upper South (Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina). On one hand, a conservative “culture war” version of Christianity has dominated the South, and deeply influenced national politics, for almost fifty years. This form of Christianity is predicated on white supremacy and heteropatriarchy and regulates religious, as well as sexual, gender, and racial norms. On the other hand, an emerging movement of those once socialized in the culture war version of Protestantism is now reconfiguring the regional traditions. Through ethnographic fieldwork, qualitative interviews, and historical analysis, this study explores the ways these post-culture war Christians are navigating and negotiating relations with family, church, and politics and society more broadly. This work argues that Protestantism in the Upper South is being re-landscaped from the inside by individuals staying within the tradition who seek to reorient regional, national and religious identities. This study goes beyond generalizations about changes in American religion to shed light on the specific motivations, conflicts and dynamics inherent in shifts in lived religion in this particular region. In so doing it also contributes to deeper understanding of processes of religious change more generally.
Date Created
2018
Agent