This study examined the experiences of 22 women sport leaders in high-level policy positions within the African Union Sports Council Region 5 (AUSC5). The study aimed to understand how these women negotiate their identities and navigate leadership barriers within a context where women leaders are underrepresented. By 2015 the AUSC5, the multilevel regional sport body in Southern Africa, had developed policies and action plans setting targets for ratios of women leaders (aiming at 50% representation) and leadership development (African Union, 2013). However, women sport leaders comprise an average of between 19% and 28% of boards of national sport organisations (Fasting et al., 2014). In sociology of sport literature, experiences of women in sport leadership are explored extensively, including recruitment into leadership, barriers to advancement into senior positions, media coverage, and power and agency to achieve change (Adriaanse & Schofield, 2013; Claringbould & Knoppers, 2008; Hovden, 2013; Pfister & Radtke, 2009; Schull et al., 2013). There is however limited research available that explores the experiences of negotiating multiple identities of women sport leaders who are currently in high-level positions (Burton & Leberman, 2017; McDowell & Cunningham,
2009). Further, there is limited exploration of the experiences of women sport leaders in the AUSC5 region.

In this study, an interpretivist perspective was adopted and used Goffman’s (1959, 1963) perspectives of interaction and identity negotiation sensitised by the concept of Ubuntu. I link this with intersectionality theory to enable an exploration of the women’s multiple identities as simultaneous and interactive (Collins, 2000). The data were generated through semi-structured interviews that explored themes of personal beliefs, identities, experiences of barriers and opportunities as sport leaders and views on social change to address underrepresentation of women in sport leadership. The three broad questions that guided this study are: What are the barriers that women sport leaders in policy-level sport organisations of the AUSC5 encounter? How do women sport leaders in policy-level sport organisations of the AUSC5 negotiate their identities? How does the identity negotiation of women sport leaders in policy-level sport organisations of the AUSC5 relate to their navigation of barriers? The findings of this research contribute to an understanding of the complexities of negotiating multiple identities in Southern Africa and has implications for adjustments in the content of leadership development programmes, organisational development approaches, and accountability for fairness in leadership opportunities and practices.