Sport, dominance, hegemonic culture, and rebellion: an introduction

Michel Foucault’s work, as well as feminism and feminist theory more broadly, has been used effectively to dissect and analyze power, power relations, and domination in sport. Through concepts such as hegemony and discipline, scholars have approached various topics including gender inequalities, the impact of body controllers and disciplinarians, and the hierarchies of sport markets. No doubt, Foucault’s ideas have been used successfully to establish the archeology and genealogy of different power relations and dominance, in sport and elsewhere. Foucault’s methods and analyses have also inspired numerous discourse analyses that, in a similar manner, have the ambition to detect the origins and structures of power and the disciplining of ideas and knowledge. In this respect, the lessons of Foucault, and sport scholars’ use of his analyses, has served as an inspiration for this special issue and its included articles.

Adjacent to the Foucauldian contribution, we have further found inspiration in a Gramscian framework, as a critical horizon in order to grasp and analyze not only the power and dominance of (normative) hegemonic culture(s) that might guide, steer, and control the practices/actions of sports and its everyday life, but also expressions and cultures of rebellion and disobedience. Significantly, a Gramscian framework facilitates studies and analyses of subjects in everyday life in a relatively open yet critical way. This is due to a general testing and rejection of monism and determinism (in, for instance, Marxism), and by stressing that power and domination have to be maintained by more than brute force and economic domination. Still, Gramsci’s use of hegemony was to contribute explicitly to political and class analysis and, thus, as a challenge to capitalism as well as to the power of Stalinism. This is not a subject in this special issue. Yet, the concept of hegemony has come to include power relations and dominance in the genesis and maintenance of governing cultures and superstructures. Such power relations and, thus, common consent, must be normatively reproduced and secured through a process of negotiations or encapsulations. Still, the dominating groups have many advantages in directing social values and controlling institutions in a hegemonic manner. In this respect, cultural leadership and cultural hegemony replace direct force as the major means of exercising control and domination, which means that the Gramscian wisdoms direct our attention towards the ideological superstructure and how it may form/discipline through culture, myth, and practices. As such, forms of popular culture, like sport, stand as crucial social, cultural, and moral arenas in which social values and relations are molded, exemplified, and challenged.

Obviously, Gramsci’s thoughts have been less utilized in sports science, especially in comparison with the regular references to Foucault. Still, Gramscís concept of ‘hegemony’ has become recognized and frequently used to describe cultural and ideological dominance. Thus, this issue follows this practice.

Power, dominance, and hegemony are, as mentioned, generally recognized as useful concepts in sport studies, as it is related to culture, policy, and governance. Rebellion, on the other hand, is a relatively neglected concept or point of inquiry. Rebellion and civil disobedience have occasionally occurred in the context of sports. Thus, sport has been used as an effective platform for a political message, despite sport’s traditional self-proclaimed non-political aura. This special issue will, in some senses, also detect attempts and forms of resistance in the context of hegemonic culture and organizational dominance. In addition, some articles deal with the implicit rationale of encapsulation as well as the exclusion and inclusion of these expression of ‘rebellion.’

The call for papers and the review process resulted in eight articles,¹ that we will be briefly introduce here.

The issue starts with a historical analysis related to the progress of the dominance of the Swedish Sport Confederation. In ‘Anders Zorn and naturalistic ski competitions versus the progress of the hegemonic Swedish sport policy at the beginning of the 20^th century,’ Isak Lidström and Bo Carlsson emphasize organizational capital, in addition to the rational beliefs in idealism, as the main reasons behind the dominance of the Confederation and the hegemonic culture of the Swedish Sport Movement. By focusing on the encapsulation and avoidance of early rebellion and entrepreneurship the article presents solid material in the study of the origin and progress of the Swedish sport movement and its monopolistic position and ideological hegemony in Sweden. This historical case, run by the famous painter Anders Zorn, is also related to a contemporary case in Swedish motor sports, which has challenged the hegemonic culture and the monopolistic position of the Swedish sport movement and its Confederation.

Bo Carlsson, Jyri Backman, and Tobias Stark’s, ‘The hegemonic impact of NHL and the ‘Americanization’ of Swedish ice hockey, and resistance: Rögle BK as hockey culture’ pays attention to development of Swedish ice hockey in relation to the influences and different stages in the Americanization process. In this article, the authors argue that immature experiences of the first trend of Americanization, with alien mercenaries, seems to have worked as a shield or buffer against a second stage of Americanization, more shaped by a ballyhooed management. In the wake of a certain resistance of the NHL-culture, the investigated ice hockey club (Rögle BK) has, according to the authors, developed a ‘glocal’ hockey culture, captured in the Rögle BK Oiler’ logo.

David Ekholm and Magnus Dahlsted shed light on cultural ideologies, myths and dominance in Swedish social policy related to the proclaimed virtues of sports. In this case, football and integration. Their article ‘Conflicting rationalities of participation: constructing and resisting ‘Midnight Football’ as an instrument of social policy’ departs from sport’s high social position, reputation, and proclaimed social impact. In the Scandinavian context, sport activities for young people have become increasingly organized and institutionalized, limiting opportunities for spontaneous activities. Yet, current sport policy has emphasized the value of spontaneous sport, due to sports ‘integrative capacity’ in the suburban context. The case in this article, ‘Midnight Football’, is such an attempt. Using a firm discourse analysis, Ekholm and Dahlstedt intend to shed light on how this ideological policy – or sport evangelism – faces everyday life. They state that most studies of the implantation of sport policy depart from the ‘good intentions’ of decisionmakers, managers, organizers, and coaches. In contrast, this study of a sports-based intervention focuses on young people and their understanding of the activities, how they create meaning, and how this relates to the ambitions of the intervention. In this respect, the dynamics and contradictions between hegemonies and resistance become visible through this discourse analysis.

Dominance and hegemonic cultures, as well as resistance, in the field of doping is grappled with in two different articles. First, April Henning and Jesper Andreasson, in ‘There’s a new sheriff in town’: the Rodchenkov Act, anti-dopism, and the hegemony of WADA in international sport,’ discuss and problematize how international anti-doping run by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has come to be challenged by the introduction of a new national doping law in the United States. This new law, in that it stretches outside national borders, is understood not so much as an attempt to punish those individuals who breaks the rules of engaging in doping use, but rather an attempt to grab the power from WADA, dislocating its hegemony in the process.

In the next article on doping, Ellen Sverkersson focuses on women’s resistance to masculine dominance in doping settings. Thus, in ‘“I’m quite tired of people saying that I don’t do enough or know anything:” Male hegemony and resistance in the context of women’s online communication on doping,’ Sverkersson demonstrates how the historical alliance between masculinity, muscles, and doping operates and influences women’s possibilities to shape narratives and experiences of doping. The article shows how women’s narratives about doping are formed according to a template that is more or less soaked in masculinity. This brings challenges for these women, not only in terms of getting recognized as knowledgeable and informed, but also in terms of being granted agency and a space within the community as fully accepted members. In response, some women decide to opt out of the forum, while others respond with criticism, hoping to bring the heteronormative and masculine hegemony to its knees.

In, ‘Towards more equal power relations in Physical Education: Power, resistance and social transformation’, Göran Gerdin and Richard Pringle utilize the thoughts and perspectives of Foucault to discuss segregation and inequities in the context of school physical education (PE). The article departs from the fact that PE, despite decades of critical research and curriculum reforms, has continued to reproduce inequitable educational outcomes. To address this problem, Gerdin and Pringle zoom in on the question of power to discuss what makes PE seemingly resistant to change and how unequal power relations are (re)produced when viewed through the theoretical lens of Foucault. In doing so, they draw attention to the opportunities for resistance and social transformation that could shift and rearticulate prevailing power relations, making PE a more inclusive and socially just educational space for all students.

Finally, in ‘What’s at play? power, transnational coaches and the global hegemony of performance within Danish elite swimming,’ Jørgen Bagger Kjær and Sine Agergaard utilize the work of Gramsci to deconstruct the cultural hegemonic leadership enacted by coaches and administrators in Danish swimming. The article shows how athletes, with few exceptions, comply with the hegemonic practices because their coaches and the Danish swimming federation act as gatekeepers of individual success. Further, leadership in Danish swimming is discussed in the context of the neo-liberal funding structure for elite sport in the Western world. Implications of this study raise questions of a new institutional setup in which athletes’ voices are being heard through an independent regulatory council.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The call for papers presented follow possible areas of contributions: Masculinity or femininity as a normative and cultural paradigm, as well as opposition by alternative lifestyles and values (in Scandinavian sport); Global – commercial – brands’ impact and cultural dominance in rural settings; The progress and influences of the Scandinavian sports model as a monopoly and cultural/organizational capital, in relation to alternatives as well as sport in transition; The mixture of rural settings and hegemonic culture in sport novels; The cultural hegemony of PE programs in education systems; Immigration and the tradition of sport and outdoor activity in Scandinavia; The images and practices of hegemonic cultures in sport; Sport clubs’ familiarity as habitus and cultural advantage: monism vs. multi-culturalism; The firm belief in anti-doping in sports, and its normative – moral -impregnation; The ‘Americanization’ of sports competition and sports cultures… versus the European sports model; Normative hegemonies in applied sport studies.