‘We must not engage in the blind glorification of sport’: Christian orthodox youths negotiate dominant societal and alternative Reformed sport discourses

Abstract

There are approximately 250,000 Orthodox Reformed Christians (ORC) in the Netherlands, who live according to a strict adherence to the Bible. The ORC dissociate themselves from the mainstream sport discourse in the Netherlands that regards sport as a societal good. We draw on post-structural perspectives to explore how governmentality enables Dutch ORC youths to resist dominant societal discourses about sport. We used four dimensions to examine how governmentality acts on individuals in: rationality, history, culture and technology. We analysed publications that concern themselves specifically with sport within the denomination of the ORC church and also conducted a combination of semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 32 ORC youths. The results show the power of governmentality and also how ambiguity enables moments of resistance to emerge.

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the contributions made to the data collection by the intern Wendy Colsters.

Notes

1. This is similar to the King James’ Version, called the ‘Statenvertaling’.

2. A Panna cage is a small soccer court, designed to play one against one. The first to score five goals or shoot between the opponent legs is the winner of the match.