Leisure and sport as a paradigm of suffering. An ethnography through ultra-endurance sport

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of an ethnographic study on motivation in ultra-endurance sports. The study was conducted in Leon, Spain, between 2018 and 2019 on a sample of 36 athletes involved in several ultra-endurance sports, such as the marathon, ultra-distance racing and mountain activities. Regarding the method, it includes participant observation, an open questionnaire was administered, and in-depth interviews were conducted, providing valuable descriptive data. Categories, patterns, and propositions emerged from the coding process of the data and were permanently called into question. The results indicated that these activities constitute a new form of leisure, with mass participation that is felt as an obligation, with different motivations for leisure and sport that are more intimate and personal than sporting in nature, reinterpreting the wishes, hopes or fears of the participants as offerings, self-blame and other redemptive attitudes, towards life, without great variations between men and women.

Keywords:

• Anthropology of sport
• body
• motivation
• society
• sacrifice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.