Cartographic fetishism to geographical humanism: Some central features of a geography of sports

Abstract

It is sometimes felt that geographical aspects of sports remain under‐researched but a considerable literature relating to spatial and landscape dimensions of sports has been authored by geographers and other scholars espousing an implicitly geographical perspective. The nature of this work has varied according to particular paradigms within the parent discipline of Geography. Early work was descriptive and positivistic, concentrating on the geographical variations in the ‘production ‘ of sports talent or the spatial diffusion of sports. Later approaches focused on ‘welfare issues’ in sports (e.g. the environmental impact of sports events). Sports locations (e.g. football stadiums) can be further viewed as the outcome of political‐geographic processes. A current focus explores sport from a humanistic perspective, concentrating on ideas such as sense of place and genius loci, often in a sports landscape context. The sports landscape is gradually becoming a landscape of simulation producing ambiguous features such as indoor/outdoor stadiums and indoor golf. At the same time it is becoming increasingly segmented and the ideas of Foucault and other theorists can be applied to the increased territorialization of sports space.