Triathlon, suffering and exciting significance

Abstract

In this article, I examine how triathletes learn to physically manage, socially perform and individually reflect upon the endurance sport of triathlon as a microcosm of the ‘civilising process’. Elias’s particular conceptualisation of habitus is centrally utilised to explain why, at this particular point in civilising processes, more men and women in factions of the Canadian middle class quest for ‘exciting significance’ through gruelling endurance sports like triathlon (swim‐bike‐run competitions). Pain and suffering narratives gathered from 62 participants in Canadian triathlon are analysed alongside ethnographic data collected over a three‐year period in Ontario, Canada. Specifically addressed is how triathletes come together as a mutually recognised ‘pain community’ of like‐minded actors, and how they learn to relish physical and mental suffering in the sport.

Keywords:

• triathlon
• habitus
• pain
• bodies
• figurational sociology