Sharing women's sport coaching journeys to the Canada Games through digital storytelling

Digital storytelling is a participant-centred method used to illustrate personal narratives and artistic stories by creating a 2-5-minute video using photographs, artwork, voiceover, and/or video clips. This creative method aims to redistribute power between researchers and participants and amplify the voices of historically marginalized individuals, such as women in leadership positions. Within this article, we present digital storytelling as an innovative method for sharing women's stories in sport and leisure. While more women are occupying sports leadership positions, systemic gender inequities remain that impede women from thriving as sport coaches. Situated as part of a larger project that occurred at the Summer 2022 Canada Games, the process of supporting two women in telling their coaching journeys through digital storytelling is shared, including how the stories were conceptualized, designed, refined, and disseminated. Through two individual interviews, one-on-one meetings, and a virtual viewing party, the women's experiences of crafting their digital stories were captured. Insights are shared for utilizing digital storytelling to work with participants in telling their unheard stories, especially when working with individuals who are historically excluded and marginalized. Practical recommendations are provided for using the digital storytelling method alongside interviews within leisure and sport research.