Staging Inclusion: A Critical Discourse Analysis of 2023 FIFA Fan Festival Promotions in Ōtepoti-Dunedin

The integration of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives within mega sporting events and their social change claims are being increasingly scrutinized by critical sport researchers. This article considers the 2023 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Women's World Cup, where FIFA implemented DEI ideals through its investment in fan festivals. We focus on one host city fan festival in Ōtepoti-Dunedin, Aotearoa-New Zealand— a collaboration between FIFA and the Dunedin City Council (DCC). We explore the discourses that FIFA and the host city mobilized regarding gender and diversity. We present a critical discourse analysis of two key documents: FIFA's official announcement of their investment into fan festivals, and the Ōtepoti-Dunedin fan festival program. We grounded our analysis in a feminist poststructural framework that enables the deconstruction of binary interpretations of gendered discourses and facilitates an understanding of how subjects are constructed across multiple dimensions of being. We found that FIFA and the DCC promoted a vision of DEI through ill-defined discursive themes of festive celebration and inclusivity. This largely consolidated a neoliberal, postfeminist understanding of female empowerment that celebrated individual women's successes, as opposed to recognizing structural constraints.