[MUSIC PLAYING – “Merci Kylian” by Laurent Dubois]
Ron Krabill: Hello and welcome to episode nine of the Global Sport Lab Podcast. I’m Ron Krabill, and I’m your host, as well as the Director of the Global Sport Lab and a professor of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell. Listen to the end for a more detailed description of the Global Sport Lab. But for now, let me just say that we would love for you to connect with us at the lab. You can find us on the web or via email at globalsportlab@uw.edu. Today, we are in our podcast studio in the attic of Thompson Hall, the home of Jackson School of International Studies on the campus of the University of Washington Seattle. Our guest today is Dr. Lisa Uperesa, who is an associate professor and the Morgan and Helen Chu chair in Asian American Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles. Dr. Uperesa is the author of the award-winning book, “Gridiron Capital: how American Football Became a Samoan Game.” And I just have to say the book is an absolute tour de force of combining deeply grounded ethnography with a sophisticated analysis of global flows of people, money and culture, all through the mechanisms of the sport of American football. Thanks so much for being with us today. Lisa, is there anything else you’d like to say by way of introduction?
Lisa Uperesa: Well, thank you for that introduction. I would just say that I come to Los Angeles after having been in Auckland for eight years, in Hawaii, the east coast of the U.S., the West Coast and home is American Samoa.
Ron Krabill: We’re also joined today by Ronalei Gasetoto, who is a Ph.D. student in Sociocultural Anthropology here at the University of Washington, Rona, can you tell us a bit more about yourself?
Ronalei: Thank you John for the opportunity and thank you Dr. Lisa Uperesa for being here today. Just a little bit about myself. I am a fourth year Ph.D. student. Again, my research sits at the intersections of institutions and museums and culture. I do a lot of work at the Burke Museum and activating the cultural collections there, as well as doing work throughout other museums throughout the U.S., and I find that culturally sustaining pedagogies have been a tool that has been useful in how we are able to educate other communities on our collections and so forth.
Ron: Fantastic. Thanks so much. We’re so glad to have you here with us today. I thought we’d begin today just by asking you, Lisa, if you could share the overall approach of your book and maybe where you’ve taken the work since the book was published?
Lisa: That’s a great question. I feel like with any book, there’s probably many starting and stopping points, right? And you kind of layer things on. The book itself comes out of my dissertation in cultural anthropology. But I before that, I, you know, had undergraduate work in ethnic studies and sociology, and so I was bringing into the project other kinds of frames around, you know, social analysis. And, you know, I was interested in media analysis. And, you know, I’m a kind of closet want to be historian, so, you know, a little bit of that kind of history and anthropology, but also really wanting the book to be grounded in Samoan ways of being in the world, and, you know, our kind of systems of thought and indigenous philosophies. And so I think there was a lot of work toward the end of putting the book together, of making sure that that last piece was in there, and then, you know, you just recognize a lot of the gaps, and you’re trying to kind of make some really important decisions about what you want foregrounded and what can kind of stay out of the book. So. it was a little bit of an eclectic approach. It’s definitely grounded in ethnography, as I said, in history, some of the archival work I did in media analysis, and then you know, drawing on some of our key, someone thinkers around, someone indigenous philosophy. Combining all of those alongside an analysis of, you know, sport and global capitalism, and trying to understand, you know, commodification and how people navigate the systems of which they’re a part. Since then, I’ve done lots of different things, moving into more grounded in Pacific Studies, doing a bit of work around Pacific, kind of conversations around Pacific pedagogies, thinking about Pacific research methodologies, most recently, but from the book spinning off, I think some questions around cultural expression and sport context, and so that’s a current project that I’m working toward now is trying to understand and kind of map some of these different expressions that we see in the region and far beyond the region.
Ronalei: Yeah, that’s amazing. I really appreciate how you are activating thinking about that. And I’ve been so honored to be in spaces where you have done a lot of leadership within the Pacific conversations and thinking about Pacific methodologies and pedagogies, which I am very grateful for. Yeah, I guess just maybe thinking and going back to your introduction of your like institutional positionality and way finding throughout that from obviously attending Columbia University, then Hawaii, and then going to Auckland, and then now back at UCLA, having navigated these vastly different intellectual landscapes from the Ivy League to the heart of the Pacific Studies in the southern hemisphere, how has your positionality shifted? Specifically? How did your time in Aotearoa (New Zealand) change the way you now approach Asian American and Pacific Islander studies in the U.S. context?
Lisa: That’s a great question. Rona, my positionality has definitely shifted, I think, significantly, and my sense of myself in these spaces on the West Coast, as an undergrad, you know, kind of trying to make my way in this huge, you know, University at Cal and, you know, growing my network, but definitely feeling like a lot of our communities were, I mean, not feeling like, they were not at all apparent, aside from our kind of personal networks on campus, absent from the curriculum, right, absent from student services. I mean, just like complete absence of any sense of Pacific communities or histories on campus, right? And so when you come into spaces like that as a student, and you know, there’s lots of literature about this, lots of people have talked about feeling like you have to adapt yourself to the spaces that you’re entering, and feeling like you can’t necessarily bring your whole self, right into that space. And then, you know, kind of adapting and figuring out what it is that you need to do to be successful, in cultivating your community and engaging in things that sustain you. And so I think that that early experience was actually really important, because, you know, having grown up in American Samoa, there was a very different sense of what surrounded me, right, and the importance of our like, peoples, our cultures, our histories, and even critical questions about all of those things. I think that experience as an undergrad really helped kind of motivate me to do advanced work, and, you know, eventually apply to the doctoral program, and, you know, do my Ph.D. work, because there was such a glaring absence. And you know, something that drew me kind of personally as a grad student on the East Coast, again, you kind of find your people, you find your networks, and you know, you cultivate community. And I learned so much as a graduate student in our anthropology department, but also just, you know, being on campus and being in the New York area and plugging into native, indigenous, Pacific, you know, many other kinds of networks across the city, of course, right? It’s an amazing city for that.
And so I feel like that’s where I was able to really kind of get into the work, but without as much of a sense of the kind of being aware of the perception of myself in this space, it did take me a little bit to feel like I definitely belonged In that space, you know, like, is it a mistake? Are they going to find out that I don’t belong here? And just kind of understanding, like my journey to that point, and, you know, it’s what brought me in, and I had something to contribute, and I also had a lot to learn. I think Hawaii and Aotearoa were really important for my kind of reframing, my understanding of myself in the academy, but also, like, what are the different ways that we can serve our communities and the spaces that we’re in and Hawaii and being surrounded, you know, like being in the Pacific, actually, after having been out of the Pacific for so long, was so incredible and so formative. And you know, ethnic studies, in particular, there that kind of local commitments and global vision and regional vision, I think, really shaped my kind of early academic career. Whereas the time in Auckland, I feel like I was able to be a little bit more grounded in our Pacific communities and our Samoan communities, because there’s such, there’s such a large percentage of the Pacific communities there in Auckland, right? It’s a very it’s an amazing place to be, you know, as this really strong kind of Pacific city, which is unique right in the region and across the world. So I feel like that, and being in the School of Maori studies and Pacific Studies, begin to want to begin Pacific Studies really helped to crystallize the kind of work that we all still needed to do and the kinds of opportunities that we had to grow curriculum to support our students, to intervene right in some cases, and some of the kind of shape, some of the workings, I think, of the university, to open up these important spaces, and then, of course, also to do our own research and that we’ve got to publish. So I feel like that kind of probably earlier than maybe would have happened elsewhere, helped to push me kind of further along into those spaces of leadership and spaces of thought. How we can, you know, do a lot of this kind of work to contribute, but also develop the field.
Ron: I think, I think sort of following up on some pieces of that question. One of the things your book does so well is resist the dichotomy that so many others fall into about, sort of like, okay, this is cultural imperialism. This is sort of the global south is just being subjected to outside foreign influence on the one hand or on the other, this is all just sort of indigenous, continuous like, you know, easy, easy, sort of cultural connection that leads to the connections of American Samoans and in American football, and the way you resist that dichotomy is so powerful. Can you say more about sort of how you see that playing out, maybe how you see communities being able to experience what is cultural imperialism but then make it their own. Make it, you know, sort of find their own ways and their own meanings in the midst of that power imbalance.
Lisa: Thank you. That was actually a really tricky kind of line to walk, right? Because, especially in the academic spaces, you have all of these really useful lenses, right, very critical lenses to think about the systems you know that we are all kind of navigating, and, you know, I think there’s a way, maybe early on in that conversation, that you see, oh, it, you know, the kind of power imbalance, and it goes one way and right. People are forced to do this, this and this, and in this story, because it is connected to my own family, you know, history, I feel like that kind of deep grounding and that kind of personal experience and view, like I already knew that that’s not all it is, right? These kind of dynamics of power and these systems are not, you know, fully determining. You know, however you want to say it, and that there was a lot of value that you know, people I knew, and of course, many others could take right, and that there were different ways in which that they could exercise power and control right at different points in the process. And you know, for me, I think early on, it was probably a little bit further on the deterministic, you know side. And as I, you know, continue to work things, and especially anchoring and personal stories. I wanted to be able to honor what they shared with me. And that wasn’t about being victims to the system, right? Like there’s a there’s a piece of that kind of limit of control over your destiny in these but there was so much more to it, and so that was something I had to work really hard to try to capture because I felt like if I didn’t do that, I would definitely not be honoring what they shared with me. I feel like remembering just real people that we’re talking about and real-life experience, and that I think really shifts the way that you then write about these things.
Ron: Yes, and I love that you mentioned the personal stories, because that’s part of what comes through in the book, is just these very rich stories of individuals who have had to navigate these power structures. And as with all of us, when you navigate power structures, you know you feel the imbalances, but you also feel the moments of like, this was great and this was not great, and this was meaningful, and this was not meaningful, and it’s just a much richer story than you know, I’m merely a cog in the machine, and nothing else is happening in this situation.
Ronalei: Thank you. That’s just how you bring up the critical lens, right? And the research ethics that you’ve been able to. To take, adapt throughout your academic journey has really been profound in ways that I’ve been reading, and I’m sitting over here, I’m like, Oh my gosh, I’m in conversation with you, and I’m like, oh my goodness, this is also a big thing for me, right? I’m just in awe in all the work that you do and you continue to do. And I guess just going off that, you mentioned the challenge within your book, right? And more, right? You mentioned the challenge of caring for people’s stories while sharing them within the rigid structures of academia, and given your role both as an insider with the deep familial ties to the game as well as a scholar, what advice do you have for global sports lab, us, as upcoming researchers and so forth, on developing that research, Pacific research methodology you mentioned that prioritizes the community well-being as, long, as well as the decolonial practice over the simple like data collections, that’s within academia itself.
Ron: I’m just going to jump in and say, What a great question.
Lisa: Great question. I must first say that a lot of the lessons were hard learned. I think the kind of resourcing that we have now, and even having these kinds of conversations, we’re at a different moment entirely. There’s a story that I tell sometimes about the first time I sat down with my dad right for the kind of series of conversations that we would have. And in my previous life, before getting my Ph.D. I was a researcher at an institute that did lots of different kinds of contract research, right? And you get socialized into a certain way of conducting yourself in these spaces. And I sat down with my dad, and I pulled out my laptop, and this is in our family home in Samoa, and I start kind of asking him this, these questions, you know, as if he’s going to answer. And then, you know, I’m just going to type them up as I was used to doing, right? And I feel this, this kind of weird energy shift in the room. And he just kind of, you know, kind of clams up a bit. And then I just become aware, like, this is not at all how this is going to have to go. I closed the laptop and I moved to the side, and, you know, I still have the recorder going, and kind of shift it so it’s kind of out of view. And then we’re just sitting and we’re talking a story, and that’s how, you know, over several different weeks, months, years, kind of going back and forth that we ended up having to work, write, in a way that felt real and normal and kind of comfortable. And having more of that kind of story, that kind of, you know, informal telling all space. And so now, of course, we have publications where people can write that up and offer that as something that we can tap into as a resource, then I didn’t really have that. It’s just a lot, a lot, a lot of trial and error.
But I think with the benefit of hindsight, all along, and this is one of the most difficult things to kind of struggle with, is the kind of expectations, right, or the ways that you are pulled in, approaching your research in academia, and the kind of positioning that you’re expected to have and the kind of distance that you’re expected to have. And then you know, when you go in and you’re working with, you know communities, whether you’re building new relationships or whether you’re activating existing ones, that’s not really how you are in the world. If you want to, I don’t know if you want to, stay in a particular type of relation, right to communities. I think one of the most powerful things, it was such a difficult thing to write up and to rewrite and to kind of think about but, assuming that the people that you’re working with are going to read your work. And I think a lot of times in academia, we’re not we’re writing for our colleagues. We’re not writing for our communities. And of course, there’s people you know, who are and you know, there’s a there’s a tradition of that, but it’s not, I think, the dominant way, right, that we’re expected to kind of work. And so when you do that, you make a lot of different decisions. And there was one particular passage that I’ll share with you guys when I was doing the final book revisions, and it was a passage that had just irritated me for a long time, and I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. But in it I was describing part of the scene from a dinner that I was part of. This is with the Polamalu camp when they did their Fa’a Samoa Initiative, I think maybe 10 years ago now, in Samoa. So I’m describing this, gifting, essentially. But I do it in the language of anthropology, and, you know, the stuff around, status and esteem and, you know, and it just, oh my god. It just drove me crazy. And then finally, I think, because I was in Auckland doing these revisions, I was, how would I describe it here? I wouldn’t describe it that way. I was able to, then kind of rewrite that. I think part of it is thinking about the kind of the audience. Who are you working with? Who are you working for? And then letting that, I think, shape the work that comes out.
Ronalei: Thank you. I feel like that. That’s literally the intersection intention I sit at all the time, because I feel being here in the academy and actively pursuing a Ph.D. while also going home and taking care of the parents and doing all the familial ties as a Samoan in other responsibilities, right?
Lisa: As a Samoan woman.
Ronalei: Yes, a Samoan woman must do [that] in some cases, right? I constantly think about the sacrificial love that gets taken through and through and in ways that I’m grateful for. But I also show up in spaces where it’s hard to bring in the jargon right? When these are the live realities that we go to when we go home, right? I constantly have conversations with some undergrads, and I’m like, the dishes still have to get washed one way or another. It’s going to get washed. And I think that, thank you just for sharing that, because just being here, and especially anthropology, too. It’s a discipline full of words and so forth. I’m really grateful for that wisdom that you share in navigating those, those realities that we as Samoan women have to endure, right?
Lisa: It’s funny at this point though, it’s kind of nice and wrapped up. But when you’re going through it, it’s a lot, you know? And I think a lot of emerging scholars experience this right, a lot of the kind of doubt, and you know, learning by trial and error, and you know the anxiety that you have around you know what you’re going to produce. How are you going to meet both the expectations of the academy and the expectations of the communities that you’re working with? And this is, I think, for a lot of emerging scholars, it’s something important that they struggle with.
Ron: I think so often imposter syndrome is real, right? It’s a truism, but it’s also real. And I think part of what you both are talking about is it’s also not just the individual experience of the imposter syndrome. But it’s also that going back into community and still having those relationships, and the ways in which the academy has pretended as if that’s not always true, but we all go back into these relationships, these communities. And you know, are you going to be able to stand behind the work you did? Are they going to be like, What the heck were you writing? That was ridiculous, right? That was not the story I told you. That was not the situation.
Lisa: Yes, and I think that’s especially it when you have a kind of critical lens, or critical questions that you’re raising so hard and for months. I think as my book was going into production, I was waking up at like, 4 a.m. and with all of these things kind of going through my head. And I think at a certain point, I thought, oh my gosh, I have to call my uncle. You know, one of my uncles who’s been, he’s retired now, but was coaching for so long, and some of the critical conversations that I wanted to get to at the end of the book, which is around safety and sacrifice and concussions and risk, right? I just had a really nice conversation with him about what I brought into this written space. I think after that I could sleep. I could sleep because, it’s like, this is what I’m talking about. These are the critiques I’m making. These are the questions I’m raising. I know it’s hard to bring that to light, even though we have those conversations informally, and he just shared a lot of really important wisdom of what he saw, still is practice that could be improved, right, even at that point in time. And I feel like when you are in those you know, in those moments, it’s important to check in with people who are going to check you, right or not, just to kind of confirm where you are. But. Is this kind of doubt that I’m having? Is it really accurate, or is it because I’m kind of doing something new in this area, and I’m a little bit uncomfortable with it? I would say check in with folks.
Ron: I mean, that raises another interesting question for me about another dichotomy I think you navigate really well, is between this idea of sort of athletes as commodified and exploited, and athletes as ,or athletics as opportunity for, you know, building resources, building different opportunities, getting off the rock is the phrase that’s in the book, right? I’d love to hear more about sort of how folks responded to how you navigated that? Did they see themselves, hear themselves in both sides of that dynamic? I don’t know.
Lisa: Well, I would first say that you probably have to ask the folks if you want the real answer. I think people, when they’re critical, won’t always tell you, but I do, you know, I have gotten a lot of feedback from, you know, folks who’ve been involved in the sport, and you know, are out of it. And, you know, reaching out and saying, I read the book, and, you know, thank you for writing it. It resonated so much with my experience, you know, of the game. And so I think having that from different kinds of people, different ages, made me feel okay, I’ve done something to provide maybe a framework or vocabulary for people to talk about some of the experiences that they’ve had, right? And it really comes from people sharing their experiences with me. So it’s not like I’m, you know, creating this out, you know, and it’s my own kind of, you know, system of thought. But I think trying to connect the dots from a lot of the different stories and, you know, from student athletes to folks that are kind of, you know, more senior and played many years ago. I think that tension is real. And the funny thing is, I don’t know that it was always framed in that way, but today it’s definitely framed in that way. You are expected to kind of cultivate yourself as a product and as a brand, very explicitly, right? And so to me, that’s really interesting to see, now, compared to, you know, when I was doing the research for the book, and it was kind of a subtext, right? And people talk about kind of making themselves more, you know, visible, more recruitable, right? These are all the things around building the kind of value that’s going to resonate right with the people who are going to open doors and provide opportunities for you. And today, it’s much more an explicit language about not just participating in this kind of commodity system, but cultivating yourself as a commodity.
Ron: Yeah, the individual is brand. What is your individual brand, as opposed to a collective brand or a type. Now it’s what are you individually going to bring to the table for this team or for this company or for this brand?
Lisa: Yeah, and it’s not just the, you know, the kind of on the field or on the court, right, kind of performance, which it has always been, that’s always been the most important thing, and it’s still there, right? What can you contribute to the team? How can you help us win? But it’s, is that enough? No, you know, what are the other, not just intangibles, but you know, what are the other kinds of value that you bring as well? And that is, I think, part of the conversation in the public way. And, you know, I should also say, do all coaches necessarily, that’s their thing. No, right? Think, when you I was in a meeting, you know, kind of parents and a coach or different sport, and you know, he was saying, number thing is, can you help us win, right? But if you’re talking about everyone who is trying to kind of gatekeep information about the recruiting process and trying to influence how young athletes position themselves, it’s, it’s there, you know, not just, did you play a good game? Are you capturing it on film? Have you made it available in a particular kind of way? Have you arranged it in a certain kind of way, you know, is it social media friendly, right? All of these things, additional steps beyond the game?
Ron: And for me, that ties into, name, image, likeness is supposed to be a way to empower athletes by allowing them to be paid. But instead of paying them for the athletics now there’s an extra expectation that they will also build this brand through name, image likeness. So it’s actually more work not they aren’t getting paid for the athletic piece, even though they are, but they’re also now expected to be. Build this whole other skill set, which is so much pressure,
Lisa: Yes, and it’s a particular kind of language, right? That’s social media friendly. It’s a particular kind of visuals. It’s, you know, share enough of yourself so that you have your personality out there, but not too much so that, you know, it raises questions or red flags, right? It’s a very kind of glossy version, you know, just pulling threads from, you know, your everyday life, or kind of, you know, staging other things as you do, right for social media. So it’s definitely a different way of being in the world as an athlete, as a student athlete, as a youth athlete.
Ronalei: Yeah, no, that. The whole thinking about the commodity as the body, and then thinking too about tautua, right? Lots of parts in your “Gridiron Capital”, you mentioned tautua, the service to family and community, and then sports as a commodity in the global market, right? So I guess, with these conversations in the ongoing and MIL deals and this sort of characterization that athletes have to perform in ways that you know, also get them in pathways that we haven’t seen, or it’s cultivating and nowadays, right? How do you, how do young I guess we could say global athletes, or if you want to specifically talk about Pacific athletes, navigate the pressures of being entrepreneurs of their own bodies, while also maintaining their cultural identities, as your book offers the Fa’a Samoa lens. So I’m just curious on how you would think about that.
Lisa: I’ve been thinking a lot about doing more work in this area, I think exactly because of that question, and I’ve seen it with the kind of extended networks of people I know, but not in a kind of systematic way where I’ve thought, You know quite a lot and deeply about what is happening now and how young people are kind of engaging it now. I will say that it’s, yeah, it’s a difficult question. I think on the one hand, you know, we see these changes, and, you know, kind of raise our eyebrows, and, you know, ask a lot of questions about how these things are coming together. On another, this is also just kind of part of growing up for a lot of young people, whether or not they’re athletes, right, that this, you know, aspect of kind of packaging themselves for, you know, their friends, for the wider network, for followers, right? Is just kind of second nature, right? So in that way it, I don’t know that maybe it is a different degree of pressure, I think, for that kind of presentation, and especially for, your outfit, what you’re able to do, right? Are you able to maintain, you know, the kind of level that you are promoting in terms of your performance, but in terms of packaging yourself as part of your engagement on social media? This is something that people are doing every day, and there’s enormous pressure to participate in that, right as a young person kind of coming up. I think the other piece is, you see a lot of young people kind of bringing that cultural background into right the social media space, and so that’s been really interesting to see, is to, you know, think about the ways in which people are giving tribute right to their cultural heritage, and bringing the kind of visuals right around kind of representation. I’m not just a player. I’m not just, you know, here as part of this team, but I am part of this community, and it’s important to me, and, you know, bringing family in and all of that. And so you do see quite, quite a bit of that. And so I feel like, rather than, I think, decades ago, you know, certainly with some of the earlier generations, you know, kind of, like I said, entering, you know, college, you kind of, that’s your community on this side, and then you’re moving into this institutional space, whether it’s sports or academia, and, you know, you kind of fit into the existing, right context, or team or whatever. And now I feel like there’s definitely been a lot more space opened up to, you know, bring those different aspects and to be, you know, to show your kind of unique backgrounds and what’s important to you. You know, there’s pressure, yes, I think a lot of people would say absolutely, right. Especially for young people. But there’s also a space of creativity and freedom, and, you know, being able to craft for yourself the kind of public narratives. In the book there’s, there’s a chapter where I’m talking about the ways in which, you know, male Pacific bodies have been, you know, written about and talked about by outsiders. And right, this kind of ethnographic imagination of size and strength and savagery and right, the kind of Native Pacific body being narrated in a particular way. And then, you know, there’s a couple of people that I talk about at that point. I think Danny Shelton was one of them, Marcus, Mariota, Troy Polamalu, because this was, I feel like, early on, when you start to see them crafting some of their own public narratives, of them as, you know, public figures and as athletes, versus just being kind of packaged in particular ways or kind of covered by media, and that was early, you know. Now, of course, we’re in a completely different space, but even then, you know, raising the question of, what is it going to allow people to do, like the athletes, in terms of more control over how they’re represented in public, and to be able to craft that. And so I feel there’s also, you know, fun and creativity, and you know, ways that they can stand out and be unique. And you know, having that space is also really important,
Ronalei: Right. Yeah, just also, as you are talking, I’m just thinking about the parallels, as you mentioned in the beginning of our conversation of having those conversations, tonal based, and how those really formulate and give agency to those that are either part of the collective narrative that don’t really have the opportunity to speak from their cultural experience. It’s nice to know that you’ve had that experience of and now thinking to you about how really important it is right now, in these days, as social media has been taking over in these conversations and narratives of how athletes are sometimes misconstrued in these in these high profile, you know, platforms. It’s just really nice to know that research can be found anywhere. In ways that also pay tribute to the respect and reciprocity that we need to keep relations accountable.
Lisa: I think I might also maybe add that the pressure for young athletes, you know, if they are in context where people have these high expectations, or if they’re being pushed, right, so, in a lot of cases, being pushed by whatever families, other actors, coaches, right people around them, adults, that pressure has always been there for, you know, probably a good number of youth athletes, which we know, and you know, these other kind of opportunities, around NIL, so it’s not just the pressure in that way to position yourself right for, college scholarships. It’s also you can make a lot of money, even as a youth athlete, right? You don’t even have to be in college yet, you know, to be able to have these kind of NIL contracts. And so I think for some young players they lean into it. This is what they want, and they’re there for it, right for others, it’s more of a struggle, and so I feel part of it, and this is true for any family that has young athletes, is, you know, what’s the balance between, you know, what the family wants and is trying to push or support, and you know, where, where are the young people on This right? And this, this continues, I think, for our families, you know, even as we age, right, what is the family pushing for versus, you know, what is it that they want? And when you have those two things in alignment, right, there’s, you know, there’s a certain way that it can go, and when there’s a big misalignment, or, you know, where, the potential for NIL money, you know, these were some of the stories that were shared with me kind of early on, when I was giving some my book talks, the potential for n i l money kind of distorting some of the family dynamics, right? And, you know, these, you know, young student athletes like that being something that was going to help support the family at that level, right? We talk about, you know, talking about, in the book, tautua on a lot of it, you know, at a certain there’s certain forms that are expected when you’re younger, right? Certain service to the community and, you know, to the family and to village, to churches. So, because of the capacities that you’re expected to have right later on, when you’re older, the forms change and the expectations change. You see some of the expectations that would normally be reserved for somebody later in life coming earlier in life. And then that’s where, you know, there can be a lot of questions. And this is not just in the US context, you know, many years ago in rugby league, I want to say right, there were different kinds of interventions and programs created in response to some high profile suicides from young players, and part of it was around the kind of expectation for performance and supporting the family at that, you know, young adult age and the not being able to, you know, continue that, or, you know, whether I don’t know if they got hurt, or, you know, got cut or less playing time. Or, you know, the kind of expectations for the contract journey to continue wasn’t playing out, and so that, the potential impact on mental health around that, I think, is real, and more of those conversations have been happening on that side of the Pacific than necessarily I’ve seen on this side of the Pacific. But, you know, it’s, it’s a piece, you know, that’s resonant for, you know, thinking about the kind of expectations for young people in sport.
Ron: There’s a phrase you used in that initial question right now, but the sort of, the entrepreneur of the body, which I think is going to stick with me for a while, because, you know, entrepreneur has both those positive connotations and those negative connotations, the sort of potential for, you know, all sorts of opportunity, but also the sort of pitfalls that are that are embedded there.
Lisa: Yeah, absolutely.
Ron: I wonder what you see is the future of sort of football in American Samoa moving forward. Do you think that this sort of growing, sort of interest in and utilization of the sport is just going to keep growing. Do you think it’s going to peak? Has it already peaked? How do you sort of see that? What’s the trajectory from here? Maybe.
Lisa: That’s a good question. I feel maybe there’s a little bit more equalization that will happen with some of the other sports, right? One of the things I often get asked is, you know, what’s happening in the women’s game? And you know, are there other sports that are coming up? I don’t know if that would necessarily mean that football has peaked, because we still have, you know, students who have come through, and, you know, are now in the NFL from, you know, from the villages. I think as long as we continue to have that, there’s going to be, you know, this kind of channeling and the kind of matching between body capacity and right the sports opportunity, and I don’t think that that’s going away anytime soon, but I do think that we’ll see more probably in basketball, I think is, you know, a second sport that’s also important. There’s been, you know, more in the way of rugby because of, you know, the growth of rugby. You know, also on that side, if you’re not successful in football, there’s other opportunities. And I think certainly for the women’s game, we’re probably going to see now that we see a bit more investment, right? Part of what I’ve been thinking about, and I’m interested in, is, you know, how are now the girls and the families being encouraged and supported in the sports, you know, context, which certainly is not uniform and was not the case, you know, historically, But you know, we have, you know, high profile, you know, young athletes, in the college game and also now in the professional game, for talking about basketball. We’re talking about, you know, volleyball. I think there’s going to be maybe a little bit of settling with that, you know, where it’s not just, you know, football is the main thing, but that others, because of their connection to these other kinds of opportunities, are going to see a lot more interest.
Ron: Is there on the professional level and also the collegiate level. There’s such a push now towards flag football, especially for women, but just generally as well, are you seeing that at all on the island?
Lisa: That’s a good question. I’m not sure. Recently, I know they’ve had flag for a little while, so yeah. I mean, I think that’s always there. I don’t know if people would necessarily choose flag over tackle, but yeah. And then, you know, recently, I think It’s been a few years now, but adding, in a place Hawaii, adding girls flag football, right as one of the sports you know, has been like, there’s a big growth that’s happened there. I think that’s expanding all over.
Ronalei: I guess when you bring when we talk about girls, it makes me think about the role of women in the role of athletes, right? And I feel maybe, if it is a conversation that or research space that I’m really interested in thinking about too, about last quarter, last spring quarter, I was TA’ing a class with Dr. Holly Barker, an anthropology and sport. And I believe we invited you to talk through zoom, and one of the roles was, or one of the talks that we were thinking about is the role of women for male athletes, and how women as caretakers, right, are able to have their sons, grandsons show up in spaces and be whole. And I think that that sort of conversation really got me thinking, along with other colleagues, about the role of specifically to Pacific women in the role of sports. And as you mentioned just now, it’s not really a thing of, I mean, don’t I don’t want to dismiss any of the amazing Pacific women that are in sports, but just for my own personal experience, we were always told to do fouls, right? We were always told to go do chores and make sure that the house was up kept for the chief search, for the for people visiting and so forth. I would love to maybe talk to about, the role of women in these caretaking spaces that allow for athletes men to show up in spaces whole.
Lisa: Yes, how much time do we have? You know, it’s funny, because when I was doing my initial research, you know, so many of the organizers from the Samoa bowl committee, for example, were women, right? They’re the ones who are organizing these events and making sure that all the logistics go smoothly and that people are hosted, and that, you know, the plates are being delivered on time, and that we’ve got the busses coming through. And so this whole support infrastructure. It wasn’t all women, but the majority of them were women, the support infrastructure is provided right by women’s labor. I also say somewhere in my book, even in my own family, the kind of domestic, you know, role that my mom took on and she also, she worked for a living, you know, we were in a dual income household. She wasn’t a stay at home mom, and so all of these were on top of her regular work day, just like it was for my dad, but her labor made it possible, you know, for him to go and, you know, do all the coaching that he did, and then, you know, later on, doing the organizing of the kind of Island high school sports and right enabled him to be out, you know. And you know both of them as a partnership like that was part of serving the community. And they, you know, were, were in it together, but still you see, the different forms of labor and what gets visibility and what gets recognized and what doesn’t. I think, you know, that’s part of the reason why, when I read Tracie Canada’s book, I love it so much, right? And she was talking with black mothers and the important role that they play, you know, kind of logistically, but also in terms of the emotional labor and supporting the success of their sons in football, you know, and it’s because, these were things that I’d been kind of tracking, but hadn’t ever, you know, sat down to try to write up. I was so happy that she wrote, you know, for the communities that she was working with. I think that’s one thing, right? And there’s, you know, the kind of gendered expectations for household labor, for emotional labor, for the kind of logistical work that makes families work is, you know, it has a particular kind of framing in Samoan communities, but it’s shared by many women across many communities, right? I think you know, for us, the kind of expectation of that’s how you demonstrate, you know, Aloha, that’s how you demonstrate love and care for the family. And you know, through the service and through the sacrifice, right, self-sacrifice, we can’t have another conversation about that. But I think one of the things that I’m also seeing, you know, in terms of, you know, this is what I was talking about, where you see the families more and more supporting, also the girls in sport. It’s something I’ve been paying attention to, because my daughter plays volleyball. Club volleyball now in LA and so being around these hundreds and hundreds of teams, mind you, 1,000s and 1,000s of players, and then starting to see a lot of you know, the Pacific families coming and the girls playing. And you know, some of the girls who just recently, there was one signed to UCLA, I think maybe they’re sophomore junior this year, right? Young, someone, player, and so you see them, you know, come up on social media, and they’re competing right in these tournaments, and they can only do that with the family, you know, resourcing behind them, right? And because it takes with any of these sports, enormous amount of time, right? Energy, commitment, money. Seeing that a bit more and more is, you know, I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately, you know, which is, how are these other opportunities that have opened right for girls and women also changing the way that we’re supporting our young people and the families.
Ron: It’s a fantastic reminder that the gender segregation in sport is a psychological segregation more than a segregation in reality, that both men’s and women’s sports have always been deeply connected to all sorts of gendered labor, all sorts of gendered sort of experiences, even though we psychologically, the segregation of the sport makes people tend to think of it as if it’s just a realm of men or women and not lots of crossover.
Lisa: Yes, absolutely, because the work in one realm makes the work in the other realm possible. And so it’s also interesting to see, you know, when we talk about a lot of the Moms kind of supporting the effort for the children, for their boys coming through, and I see a lot of dads in the gyms and, you know, on the sidelines. And so that’s been interesting, you know, also to kind of think about the kind of investment, right, and in the support, participation, and what is that drawn from the families.
Ronalei: Thank you. I think that’s really eye opening to recognize these have been ongoing, right within different spaces, but all the time, and historically too, about the role of a woman in these spaces. I’d love to even just think about too about the double labor of being a scholar for yourself, right, the intellectual labor of research, right, and then the emotional, cultural labor of mentoring, right and advocating for community that is often marginalized in these spaces. I was just maybe thinking about, how have you protected your energy or va, relational space while navigating these different titles, these different spaces and institutions?
Lisa: Good question. I don’t know if I’ve done a good job of it. Honestly. I, you know, we sometimes talk about it as kind of, you know, hidden labor, right, for a lot of minoritized faculty. And, you know, I’m thankful for those that shared theirs with me along different points of my journey. And that’s, you know, big reason why I felt supported and why I’ve been able to do the things that I’ve done. And so part of it is the kind of, you know, turning around and wanting to uplift the emerging scholars that are coming through. Some people call it diversity tax, right? Because there’s also, not just the mentoring for the scholars, but the ways in which the institution calls on that form of your labor, and for you to represent in these, you know, committees and right for different kinds of things, that kind of administrative labor, which I’m not a big fan of at all, but I am, you know, in terms of how we’re able to create different kinds of spaces, to envision a different kind of university, and to, you know, make it possible for, I think, our emerging scholars, to feel whole in these spaces. And, you know, being able to do that is a privilege, honestly, it’s an honor and it’s a privilege, and I’ve gained so much from it over my career, just being able to do that and, you know, connect with people and work with them. So that, to me, that’s heart work that feels different from the kind of administrative diversity, tax, like that. I try to protect myself from as much as possible. But this other stuff is really about kind of growing, you know, our relationships and growing future scholars. And I’m here for 100%.
Ron: I think it’s that sense of ultimately. What we’re trying to do is allow people to be whole in the different spaces they inhabit, and whether that’s the university, whether that’s the sports field, whether that’s wherever you happen to find yourself, it’s a huge challenge, but it’s also incredible when we’re able to make strides in that direction.
Ronalei: Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like there’s so much in these spaces that take a lot out of you, and I feel like that kind of helps to pour back in, right, and to sustain a reasoning for being in these spaces.
Ron: Thank you so much for the conversation today, both of you, Lisa and Rona. And special thanks to everyone who’s listening. To say just a bit more about the global sport lab. We are a new collaboration based in the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle, in partnership with my own school the Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at UW Bothell, the lab uses the lens of sport to explore the big issues of our global world, from migration, politics, inequity, racism and gender discrimination, to popular culture, democracy, human rights and the economy, to name just a few. We’re particularly focused on the global sport of football, better known as soccer in the United States, which is confusing for today’s episode. But during the run up to the Seattle’s hosting of the FIFA Men’s World Cup in 2026 we’re particularly focused on soccer, but we’re also interested in a wide range of sports, both well-known and less well known, from the grassroots to the professional levels, and how they help us make meaning of the world. Special thanks to musician and scholar of global football, Laurent Dubois and WOTI Production for the use of our theme music “Merci Kylian” available on Spotify and Apple Music. If you would like to join more conversations like this, please reach out to us at globalsportlab@uw.edu. We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks and keep playing.
[MUSIC PLAYING – “Merci Kylian” by Laurent Dubois]
