Basketball officiating as a gendered arena: An autoethnography

- Autoethnographic methodology during one year of officiating 250 basketball games.
- Comparisons to other sport-specific feminist autoethnographies.
- Merits of the autoethnographic approach in the sport management setting.
- Female underrepresentation in sport.

In this study, an autoethnographic methodological approach was used to examine my basketball officiating experience as a female. Autoethnography involves situating the self's experiences in the context of the setting and the culture at-large. My experiences as a female basketball official over the course of 250 games are examined. The details of the officiating autoethnography will simultaneously be compared to sport-specific feminist autoethnographies. Further, I argue that the merits of autoethnography combined with the general underrepresentation of females in sports officiating make it such that the autoethnographic approach undertaken in this examination provides support for continued varied qualitative approaches in sport management research.