Body matters: theories of the body and the study of sportcultures

Abstract

This paper sought to draw together literature on the body, sport and the emotions as published in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Reviewing a range of approaches the argument presented provides an overview of theories of the body and the study of sport sub cultures and offers an a more nuanced Eliasian analysis of the meaning and significance of sport. This alternative approach is captured in the term quest for exciting significance. Over the past two decades several studies have used the concept to explore sport and embodied emotions.

Notes

¹ A version of this article, entitled ‘Bodies, Sportscultures and Societies: A Critical Review of Some Theories in the Sociology of the Body’ appeared in the International Review for the Sociology of Sport 1993. At the time the article was written, sociologists of sport were only just beginning to look seriously at the body. See, for example, Shilling, ‘Educating the Body’; Heinemann, ‘Sport and the Sociology of the Body’; Harvey, ‘Rationalization of Body Practices’; Rintala, ‘The Gendered Body’; Harvey and Sparkes ‘Politics of the Body’; Theberge, ‘Reflections on the Body’; Gruneau, ‘Critique of Sport in Modernity’.

² Maguire, ‘Human Sciences’.

³ Elias, ‘On Human Beings and Their Emotions’; ‘The Symbol Theory’; Bourdieu, Distinction.

⁴ Elias, ‘The Symbol Theory’.

⁵ Maguire, ‘Human Sciences’.

⁶ Shilling, ‘Educating the Body’.

⁷ Trujillo, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity’.

⁸ See Jarvie and Maguire, Sport and Leisure in Social Thought; Foucault, Discipline and Punish; Goffman, Encounters; Bourdieu, Distinction; Mauss, Body Techniques.

⁹ Turner, The Body and Society; Frank, ‘For a Sociology of the Body’.

¹⁰ Frank, ‘For a Sociology of the Body’.

¹¹ The original article included a detailed review and critique of Frank's structuration theory of the body (ibid.), and the work of Giddens (The Constitution of Society) on which it rests.

¹² Elias, The Civilising Process: The History of Manners; The Civilising Process: State Formation and Civilization.

¹³ Dunning, ‘Sport as a Male Preserve’.

¹⁴ Horne and Jary, ‘The Figurational Sociology of Sport’.

¹⁵ Elias, The Civilising Process: State Formation and Civilization, 254.

¹⁶ Elias, The Civilising Process: State Formation and Civilization, 254–5.

¹⁷ Elias, The Civilising Process: State Formation and Civilization, 257.

¹⁸ Elias, The Civilising Process: The History of Manners, 69–70.

¹⁹ For a discussion of the overlap between this approach and cultural studies, see Duncan and Brummett, ‘Types and Sources of Spectating’.

²⁰ Dunning, ‘Figurational Sociology’.

²¹ Elias and Dunning, Quest for Excitement; Maguire, ‘Towards a Sociological Theory of Sport’.

²² Bourdieu, Distinction, 260.

²³ Bourdieu, Distinction, 466.

²⁴ Elias, The Civilising Process: State Formation and Civilization, 311.

²⁵ Burkitt, ‘Social Selves’.

²⁶ Elias, ‘The Symbol Theory’.

²⁷ Elias, ‘On Human Beings’, 351–2.

²⁸ Burkitt, ‘Social Selves’.

²⁹ Maguire, ‘Towards a Sociological Theory’.

³⁰ Elias and Dunning, Quest for Excitement.

³¹ Maguire, ‘Towards a Sociological Theory’.

³² Goudsblom, Sociology in the Balance.

³³ See, for example, Hoberman, ‘Sport and the Technological Image’; Harvey, ‘Rationalization of Bodily Practices’; John Hargreaves, Sport, Power and Culture; Brohm, Sport; Rigauer, ‘Sport and the Economy’; Gruneau, ‘Critique of Sport in Modernity’; Glassner, ‘Fitness and the Postmodern Self’; Ingham, ‘From Public Issue’; Maguire, ‘Towards a Sociological Theory’.

³⁴ See, for example, Sewart, ‘Commodification of Sport’; John Hargreaves, Sport, Power and Culture; Jennifer Hargreaves, ‘Gender on the Sports Agenda’; Lasch, Culture of Narcissism; Rintala, ‘The Gendered Body’; Featherstone, ‘Body in Consumer Culture’; Alt, ‘Sport and Cultural Reification’.

³⁵ See, for example, Featherstone, ‘Body in Consumer Culture’.

³⁶ See, for example, Yates, ‘Sport as Symbolic Interaction’; James, Beyond a Boundary; Donnelly, ‘Sport as a Site’; Donnelly and Young, ‘Reproduction and Transformation’; Kleinman, ‘Significance of Human Movement’; Slusher, Man, Sport and Existence; Rail, ‘Physical Contact’; Elias and Dunning, Quest for Excitement; Maguire, ‘Towards a Sociological Theory’; Heinemann, ‘Sport and the Sociology of the Body’; Gruneau, ‘Critique of Sport in Modernity’.

³⁷ Frank, ‘For a Sociology of the Body’.