‘Like a “fish in water”’: swim club membership and the construction of the upper-middle-class family habitus

Abstract

Cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus has been widely operationalised in relation to sport, yet there has been little scholarship considering the notion of family habitus. Through ethnographic methods, this research offers an empirically based analysis delineating the way in which the Valley View Swim and Tennis Club is a constitutive element of members’ upper-middle-class family habitus. Specifically, I argue that swim club membership is anchored in a distinct family tradition and offers members an important cultural field facilitating their experience of family time. However, members’ routine trips to the pool are naturalised, taken-for-granted elements of their summer lifestyles emblematic of their class privilege, and thus club membership operates as a valuable, yet subtle technique to reproduce their upper-middle-class family habitus.

Keywords:

• ethnography
• family
• habitus
• swimming
• social class
• sport

Notes

1. Club name and participant names are pseudonyms in order to protect participants’ anonymity.

2. The Valley View Swim & Tennis Club is a characteristic example of a United States, East Coast suburban summer swim club. In the county where Valley View is located, there are a multitude of community-based summer swim clubs, not to mention numerous private country clubs and municipal pools. The majority of these venues feature outdoor, summer-only facilities. There are some opportunities for winter swimming indoors in this area of the country; however there are far fewer indoor pools and even less-designated recreational swim time at these facilities in favour of lap swimming, swimming lessons and competitive swim team practices. Accordingly, summer swimming, both recreational and competitive, is a unique opportunity for those who have access to outdoor pools, and can accommodate far more swimmers than the winter, indoor facilities.

3. Specifically, in relation to sport, Kay and Laberge (2002) appropriated habitus to describe corporate professionals’ practice of adventure racing; Wacquant (1998) examined social class, boxing and its relationship to an embodied habitus; Crossley (2004) studied how circuit training is demonstrative of an embodied habitus; Thorpe (2009) explained how habitus relates to gender and embodiment in snowboarding; Atencio, Beal, and Wilson (2009) discussed the gendered ‘street habitus’ of skateboarders; Fletcher (2008) linked risk sports to social class position and an escape from class habitus; Swanson (2009) applied habitus to understanding social class reproduction through youth soccer participation; and Spencer (2009) investigated the bodily techniques of the MMA fighter habitus.

4. In this context, dive team refers to a group of athletes who showcase a variety of different acrobatic dives from a one-metre spring diving board.

5. While Valley View maintains tennis courts, they were rarely used during my time in the field. In the evening or on the weekend, often one of two courts was being used by adults, but generally they were not the heaviest users of the pool, nor did they have young children. The tennis pro was hired in 2008, but his youth camp only had 10–15 participants throughout the course of the summer, and lessons were relatively infrequent. Overall, the tennis component was a distant second to the pool.

6. Demographic data were collected anonymously from all interview participants in 2009 and compared to the most recent census data quintiles available at that time.

7. I became employed at Valley View well before I even had intentions of conducting research on this topic, let alone this community with which I was involved. My employment was simply about earning money while pursuing my interest in coaching.

8. Time, schedules, and availability made it impossible to interview children from all 20 households.

9. There were 43 non-family memberships sold during the summer of 2009, most of whom were either older couples or single elderly people whose children had moved away and used the pool to swim laps. This research certainly has implications for non-SNAFs, however, Valley View’s membership base was quite homogeneous and only SNAF members fit the demographic criteria relating to children’s age and club activities.

10. The children’s voices are not particularly prominent through quotations in this article; nevertheless, the interview data they provided was incredibly helpful in establishing the truthfulness of their mothers’ contentions about their involvement and enjoyment of Valley View.

11. For reference, average high temperatures in this area are 81°, 85° and 83° Fahrenheit for the months of June, July and August, respectively (Average Weather, n.d.).