Rugby Role Models

Role modelling is about the performances of knowledgeable agents. It is about how social actors, as models, get to inform others about the performance, with consequences, of everyday life. We fail to grasp its function if we imagine it to be local and distinct from the plays of social, economic, cultural, and other orderings of our worlds. From its roots, role modelling in rugby was part of the weaving of coloniality, patriarchy, and other webs of power and disempowerment. If we fail to see such dynamics, we stand no chance of rethinking the place of role modelling in our societies. In the same breadth, for the oppressed, a necessary first step in overcoming the legacies of colonialism and apartheid is to lead the way in reading and writing the world from their own perspectives. Role models can help people see this, but role modelling stands in the way if it is constructed as a process of mimicry and closure within stifling cages of imagined honour.