![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Whilst being the world’s fastest growing informal sport, parkour is also undergoing a gradual institutionalisation which is shaped differently by each national context’s specific sport system. We investigate this glocalised process by examining the subcultural tensions and power struggles it generates within the Italian parkour community. Whereas in other countries parkour practitioners (the so-called traceur/traceuses) have managed to gain public recognition by forming a specific and independent National Governing Body, in Italy they are gradually affiliating with different Sport Promotion Bodies (Enti di Promozione Sportiva), the distinctive umbrella organisations which compete for the provision of sport-for-all within the country. Through a qualitative mixed-method approach based on focus groups, individual interviews and the analysis of ethnographic and documentary material, we explore the institutionalisation of Italian parkour by focusing on the controversies surrounding the introduction of teaching standards and qualifications, which is becoming a battlefield for competing authenticity claims based on different visions and interpretations of parkour. Our study shows how sport policymakers become influential agents in this authentication process and calls for future comparative analysis of their role in the local re-contextualisation of highly globalised practices.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the traceurs who have participated in this study for sharing their experiences, the guest editors and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable advice, and Mike Forshaw for his linguistic support.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Previous studies of different lifestyle sports have shown that subcultural reputations can be based on different factors of distinction (Thornton Citation1995) such as the risk-taking propensity (e.g. Langseth Citation2012, on B.A.S.E. jumping); the styles of participation (Wheaton Citation2000, on windsurfing); the use of specific spaces (Borden Citation2001, on skateboarding); the level of commitment (Davidson Citation2015, on mountaineering); the use of commodities and forms of consumption such as specific clothing, equipment, music (Thorpe Citation2011, on snowboarding); the reliance on personal abilities instead of technical devices and support (Beedie Citation2007, on mountaineering).
2. As recently highlighted by North (Citation2010, 239), a significant majority of the 1.11 million individuals undertaking coaching in the UK ‘are volunteers, have no license to practice, and just over half have a coaching qualification’, which generates ‘uncertainty about the quality of the sporting provision being undertaken’.
3. For details of this qualification scheme, see the website http://adaptqualifications.com/ or http://parkourgenerations.com/certifications/adapt/.
4. The first ADAPT Level 1 course ever held in Italy was attended by 57 participants (54 male and 3 female) representing 15 of the 20 Italian regions. Aged between 18 and 42 (with the vast majority being in their twenties), they had from 1 to 9 years’ experience of practicing parkour, and some of them already had (non-certified) experience as an instructor.
5. Accessed on 15 March 2014 from: https://www.facebook.com/manifestoitalianodelparkour
6. Posted on 21 October 2011 via Facebook by Parkour.it. Accessed on 28 Oct 2015 from: https://www.facebook.com/parkour.it/posts/10150870302915314
7. The debate is further complexified by those traceurs, such as one of the leaders of PK Torino (VT interview 1), who reject any kind of teaching qualification fearing excessive standardisation and suggest that the self-policing capacity of the parkour community should be trusted instead, relying on the informal distribution of teachers’ reputations via ‘name-and-shame’ dynamics.
8. Accessed on 21 Nov 2015 from: http://mobile.facebook.com/events/1430107677282495?acontext={%22ref%22%3A22%2C%22action_history%22%3A%22null%22}&aref=22
9. Accessed on 21 Nov 2015 from: http://www.wfpf.com/news/usa-parkour-build-parkour-dream-america/
10. Accessed on 21 Nov 2015 from: https://www.usaparkour.org/
11. Accessed on 21 Nov 2015 from: https://www.usaparkour.org/certification-overview/
12. It can be argued, for instance, that by turning qualified traceurs into a sort of physical education teachers or gym instructors, the introduction of teaching certifications runs the risk of unbalancing the peer-to-peer learning dynamics and partly undermining the equality ethos that makes parkour particularly appealing to many newbies. As noted by O’Grady (Citation2012) with regard to the NGB Parkour UK, ‘[w]hilst acknowledging the significant, positive impact this organisation has had on the development of parkour in the UK, being “taught” parkour by a qualified instructor or coach is very different to “learning” parkour with peers on the street.’
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Davide Sterchele
Davide Sterchele is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Events, Tourism, Hospitality and Languages, Leeds Beckett University. His research deals with the inclusive/exclusive dynamics in sports events and the changing forms of physical cultures (notably in the fields of sport for development and peace, alternative sport events, anti-racism/multiculturalism, and lifestyle sports).
Raffaella Ferrero Camoletto
Raffaella Ferrero Camoletto is Associate Professor in Sociology of Culture at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Turin. Her main research interest is focused on the sociology of the body, articulated into two empirical subfields: the social construction of gender and sexuality and the study of emerging bodily and sport cultures.