Home / Lectures / Ketra Armstrong, University of Michigan, School of Kinesiology
Black Women in Sport Leadership: Navigating Workplace Blackness

Ketra Armstrong, University of Michigan, School of Kinesiology
Description
Semester:
- Fall 2021
Speakers:
Lecture Time:
Fri, December 10, 2021 @ 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm
Lecture Location:
R0220, Ross Building
Speaker Webpage(s):
No speaker websites available.
Introduced By:
Lilia Cortina
Abstract
Identity is a critical attribute of effective leadership. Moreover, interactions in the workplace (be
they formal or informal) shape employees’ identities, as they reveal the extent to which identities
are accepted or contested (Sanchez-Hucles & Davis, 2010). Sport organizational cultures, aptly
characterized as inequality regimes (Acker, 2006) established at the axes of race and gender (and
other ascriptions), create habitus (Bourdieu, 1984) of inclusion and exclusion that uniquely
impact the identity and the leadership opportunities and experiences of Black women employed
therein. The climate of many sport organizational cultures often discourages Black women from
‘bringing’ their authentic Blackness into the workplace, requiring them to engage in a number
social-psychological strategies to insulate and protect the essence of their ‘self’ at work. This
presentation is an excerpt of a larger project on Black women in sport leadership (Simpkins &
Armstrong, In Progress). It will discuss race as aesthetic labor (Williams & Connell, 2010), and
it will illustrate the manner in which Black women sport leaders navigate their Blackness in the
workplace as: (a) personal agency, and (b) embodied racial identity. It will conclude by
discussing the need for inclusive organizational cultures and workplaces free of anti-Black
racism where Black women may thrive in the fullness of their Blackness as leaders.
Recording & Additional Notes
Dr. Ketra L. Armstrong is a Professor of Sport Management, Director of the Center for Race and
Ethnicity in Sport, and Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the School of Kinesiology
at the University of Michigan (UM). She is a University Diversity & Social Transformation
Professor, an Affiliate Faculty in the UM Departments of Afroamerican and African Studies,
Women’s and Gender Studies, and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. She is also a
member of the Diversity Scholars Network at the National Center for Institutional Diversity. Dr.
Armstrong currently serves as UM’s NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative, she is a member of
the State of Michigan Task Force on Women in Sport, and she is the former President of the
National Association for Girls and Women in Sport. Her scholarship focuses on the topics of race,
gender, and the social psychology of sport/leisure consumption, and the leadership and
management thereof.