The position and relevance of sport studies: an introduction

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Notes

^1. For instance, we could have focused on science and normativity. Sport should not, scientifically, be handled as a value – positive or negative – but as a phenomenon to be analysed. Still, there are values related to sport – involving, for instance, that sport promotes health, supports integration, has an impact on economic growth and contributes to a democratic society – but these values should be studied and analysed as a phenomenon and tested and grounded empirically in every case. Otherwise, the studies will be shaped by normativity, political worldviews and the sport gospel. This academic position seems, however, historically as well as currently, to be strong due to extensive socialization, private ideals, such as voluntarism, as well as the policy of physical education in schools and (in Scandinavia) the ordinary support of the Nordic sport model and its wide-ranging benefits. Even the fact that the values of physical education, voluntarism and the Nordic model are the mother's milk for many individuals, in society in general and among sport scientist in particular, does not per se constitute the determination for scientific studies.

^2. Cf. Durkheim, Division of Labour in Society and Malinowski, Crime and Customs in a Savage Society.

^3.Ewick and Silbey, Commonplace of Law.

^4.Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action.

^5. Adorno and Horkheimer should have grasped the mental importance of sport as an example of the ‘stupidification of mankind’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, Dialectics of Enlightenment).

^6. E.g. speed-dating and fast food, as well as the fragmentation and shattering of content and arguments …. Cf. Tomlinson, Culture of Speed.

^7. Without these added values, the implicit concern seems to be that humans will detect the unimportance of sport, if sport has to be grasped in isolation by its individual (internal) value.

^8.Coakley, Sports in Society.

^9. Cf. Collins and Kay, Sport and Social Exclusion.

^10. Cf. Brackenridge, Spoilsports.

^11. Cf. Jamieson and Orr, Sport and Violence.

^12. Cf. Loland, Waddington, and Skistad, Pain and Injury in Sport.

^13. Cf. Bale and Cronin, Sport and Postcolonialism.

^14. Cf. Tamburrini and Tännsjö, Values in Sport.

^15. After Norbert Elias and the development of figurative sociology, it is hard to observe any serious attempt to develop any novel and significant social theory in addition to sport. Cf. Elias and Dunning, Quest for Excitement. Although Jean-Paul Sartre, for instance, was fascinated by sport in his writings on the problems of inertia, projects, dialectics and existentialism, this interest did not essentially influence the development of his theoretical design. Cf. Sartre, Critique of Dialectical Reason. Notwithstanding this underprivileged situation and modest influence, Richard Giulianotti's (and his colleague, Roland Robertson's) writings on the globalization process in sport might possess such achievable quality, and accordingly have an impact on social theory in general (Giulianotti and Robertson, Globalization and Sport and Giulianotti and Robertson, Globalization and Football).

^16.Latour, Pandora's Hope and Latour, We have Never been Modern. Cf. Jonasson, Sport has Never been Modern.

^17.Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests.

^18. Ibid.

^19. Cf. Foucault, Architecture of Knowledge.

^20.Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man.

^21. In this perspective, Steven Connor's analysis of sport is a brilliant work that ‘goes beyond sport’ in a constructive and exemplary manner, and thereby handles, not the importance of sport in light of added value (e.g. health, socialization and economic growth), but the significance of sport and sport science as a natural and proficient way to understand humans and social life in general, for instance by illuminating sport's construction of time and space in a general social theoretical perspective (Connor, Philosophy of Sport).

^22. Obviously, we find other obstacles that are broader in character and in line with general problems in the academic milieu, e.g. the differentiation between social science and natural science, which seems to favour natural science research, as well as neo-liberalism and McEducation in the universities supporting instrumental research.

^23. This tactical departure is also suitable for the sociology of law's attitudes towards the laws (Carlsson, ‘Put the Law in Brackets…’).

^24. The first CPS conference was held in 2010, with two special issues as its legacy: in Soccer and Society (Andersson and Carlsson, ‘Centres and Peripheries in Soccer’) and in Sport in Society (Hedenborg and Pfister, ‘Sport and Gender’).

^25. A local reflection and positioning: The Department of Sport Science at Malmö University has, since its start in 2003, developed both rapidly and extensively. However, the academic research is essentially focused on social and cultural studies, and this has been advantageous for its development towards becoming a vital environment for sport studies. There has, however, emerged a need for substantial reflections on the scientific status of sport studies and problems related to this development. The recruitment of faculty staff has been geared towards several different academic disciplines and fields – psychology, sociology, ethnology, history, urban geography, philosophy and sociology of law among others, which essentially creates a cross-disciplinary perspective. However, to satisfy the needs of a Ph.D. programme in sport science, the department has to develop a multi-disciplinary approach, regardless of the cross-disciplinary structure of the faculty. In addition, since the department works closely with sporting practice, by tradition as well as ideologically, the research is expected to be relevant to that practice, at least to some extent.

^26. In this perspective, there ought to be a purposeful drive among sport academics to publish research and analyses in external scientific journals, in addition to i.e. Sport in Society, Soccer and Society, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, European Sport Management Quarterly and International Journal of Sport Sociology.