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I wanted to make a complaint, but no one told me what I had signed up to do: Navigating the abuse complaint reporting process
Örebro University, School of Health Sciences.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-3918-7904
Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom; Valutas Magnus University, Lithuania.
2025 (English)In: Child Abuse in Sport: Critical Perspectives / [ed] Mike Hartill and Bettina Rulofs, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2025, p. 119-139Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Gymnasts worldwide have turned to media to speak out about their experiences of abuse in sport. More formally, services to report abuse have been recognised as important; however, we know little about athletes' experiences of the process. Therefore, we consider in this chapter how (former) athletes experience the process of reporting abuse and maltreatment. This chapter begins with a narrative poem that was created using direct quotes from an interview with a former gymnast, Lisa (pseudonym), who described her involvement with her national gymnastics federation's reporting process. We then examine reporting services and discuss the reasons why (former) athletes may not report abuse and maltreatment. As a conceptual framework, we present the pixie model of women's artistic gymnastics (WAG) as the root of the culture of fear, control and silence that prevents gymnasts from reporting their experiences, and discuss factors that enable the reporting of abuse and maltreatment. To illustrate the ways the WAG pixie model shaped Lisa's reporting experience, the poem presented at the outset of this chapter is extended to a narrative about her engagement with reporting processes. The chapter concludes with a call to put abuse and maltreatment on the sports governance agenda, the development of trauma-informed processes and further research on reporting abuse in sport.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2025. p. 119-139
Series
Research in the Sociology of Sport Series ; 25
Keywords [en]
abuse and maltreatment, complaint reporting process, narrative, the ‘pixie’ ideal, Women’s artistic gymnastics
National Category
Sport and Fitness Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-119185DOI: 10.1108/S1476-285420250000025007ISI: 001520270000007Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85216114952ISBN: 9781837532551 (print)ISBN: 9781837532568 (electronic)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-119185DiVA, id: diva2:1935809
Available from: 2025-02-07 Created: 2025-02-07 Last updated: 2025-11-11Bibliographically approved

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Barker-Ruchti, Natalie

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
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