Socio Cultural Studies In Sport

Sport annually mobilizes millions of people across Europe: as practitioners in a wide variety of competitive, educational, or recreational contexts, and as spectators, who are physically present or following events through the mass media. This book presents original research into modern sport funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Its aim is to examine the distinctive contribution made by this complex phenomenon to the construction of European identities. Attention is focused on sport's social significance, as a set of mass-mediated practices and spectacles giving rise to a network of images, symbols, and discourses. The book seeks to explore, and ultimately to explain, the processes of representation and mediation involved in the sporting construction, and subsequent renegotiation, of local, national, and, increasingly, global identities. It offers a survey of key developments in sporting Europe - from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, and from the Atlantic to the Urals - presenting findings by acknowledged international experts and emerging scholars at the level of individuals, communities, regions, nation-states, and Europe as a whole, in both its geographical and political incarnations. Its focus on representation offers a broadly conceived, and consciously inclusive, approach to issues of 'Europeanness' in modern and contemporary sport.

This study focuses on the issue of social exclusion in British tennis. It commences with a critique of current LTA policy, presenting exclusion as static, ahistorical and underpinned by false dichotomies of age and social class. Aspects of Norbert Elias’s theoretical approach are employed throughout as an analytical framework. Initially, the roots of exclusion in British tennis are sought through historical analysis. Aspects of the Civilising Process help direct attention towards wider social processes to explain the prevalence of exclusion, particularly in tennis clubs. Cost was a crucial factor in determining early access, but as tennis became more accessible to lower classes, codes of behavioural etiquette helped demarcate members along status lines. Into the mid-20th century, the globalisation, professionalisation and commercialisation of tennis pushed the LTA to adopt a more performance-oriented outlook, but this has come to oppose the more relaxed culture of tennis clubs. Thus, a power struggle emerged between these two institutions, and, underpinned by thirty interviews with leading figures in British tennis as well as extensive documentary analysis, the third section documents these developments from the 1980s. Crucially, tennis clubs remain largely amateur and voluntary-run organisations, yet are important locations for the implementation of the LTA’s demanding talent development objectives. These recent developments are understood with the help of Elias’s Game Models theory. The fourth section presents findings from a ten-month ethnographic study of social exclusion in a tennis club; a micro-analysis of club member relations underpinned by Elias’s Established-Outsider Relations theory. Overall findings suggest that social exclusion in British tennis is far more complex, multi-faceted and historically-rooted than what current LTA discourse presents. Differences in age and class are less central, and instead preconceived notions of social status based on longevity of membership, adherence to behavioural norms and playing standard are powerful determinants of inclusion.

The purpose of the study was to conduct a qualitative investigation into what factors affect middle distance runners in the transition from junior to senior athletics. The secondary purpose was to investigate how the nature of the Coach-athlete relationship may change during this period.
Whilst Existing literature has helped to significantly develop our understanding of the nature, content and correlates of both athletic transitions and the coach-athlete relationship (e.g. Čačija,2007; Jowett & Cockerill, 2002; Pummell, 2008; Stambulova, 2003 ). However, current literature fails to address how the transition from junior to senior competition and the significance of the coach-athlete relationship in facilitating the process may vary between different sports.  Furthermore, Lyle and Cushion (2010) have suggested that coaching can be better understood when the specific sporting environment in which athletes and coaches participate is considered. Poczwardowski , Barott, & Jowett (2007), suggest that future research should take into account differences between sports e.g. age groups, training demands, competition structures and performance pathways. Rich qualitative data was collected through six, face-to-face, semi structured interviews with three male and three female middle-distance runners. The raw data was then transcribed verbatim and analysed by using sentence categorisation ( Čačija,2007; Gratton & Jones, 2010). Quotations were used to underline the results. The results were divided into three categories:  factors affecting transition, coping strategies and coach athlete relationship: The results of the study indicate that athlete awareness about the transition from junior to senior sport was relatively low. However a majority of participants identified that there were clear differences between junior and senior levels of competition and training. Participants identified that that social formed a significant barrier to smooth transition.  As suggested by previous research athletes attributed successful transition with a strong coach-athlete relationship (Pummell, 2008). As suggested by Hogg (1995), athletes displayed signs of growing independence as the relationship progresses, however the ages at which these changes occur appear differ from hogs model, therefore the researcher presents a revised version of hogs model adapted to middle distance runners

The researcher discusses how the results of this study can be further strengthened by, and strengthens, the results of earlier studies and theory.  The researcher concludes the study, with research as a background and the results of the study as support, by presenting several implications of the results and makes recommendations for future research.

The Olympic Movement underwent a period of profound change in the interwar years. A generational shift occurred as Pierre de Coubertin’s reign came to an end, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) under the presidency of Comte Henri de Baillet-Latour, embarked on a renewed mission to create a more standardized amateur definition. The IOC also took a tougher stance on the involvement of, and the authority it afforded to, its affiliated international sports federations (ISFs) for Olympic event preparations. Relations between the IOC and the ISFs inevitably grew strained. The case of Olympic lawn tennis presents an interesting lens through which to view shifting organizational relations. Frustrated by the dogmatic approach of Baillet-Latour and the IOC, the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) sought to reassert its authority over Olympic tennis. In the years leading up to the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, the ILTF demanded representation on the IOC, and also imposed a definition of an amateur that directly contravened the more stringent amateur standards imposed by Olympic officials in Lausanne. Both sides refused to concede ground, culminating in the eventual removal of lawn tennis from the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic program and thereafter for over sixty years.

Historically, recreational running grew partially with the aim of
controlling the side effects of “sedentary” lifestyles and physical
inactivity, i.e., obesity, heart diseases and other health risks. This
trend developed in the 19th century, with the emergence of middle
classes who had the requisite time and resources to exercise during
their leisure time. Recreational running became popular in the
1970s, within the context of renewed societal attention to fitness
and physical health, which developed in countries such as the
USA and spread quickly to other industrialised nations. Based on
ethnographic research, I discuss in this article the crucial role that
mobile tracking devices, as markers of an active lifestyle, play in
keeping runners (im)mobile. I focus on how the data generated by
GPS sports watches are widely shared and used by runners and their
followers in general as well as specialised social media platforms. I
disentangle why, paradoxically, these mobility technologies make
exemplary mobile people more immobile, because many hours
are spent behind electronic device screens to communicate (and
seeking social approval for) their mobile performances. I place my
critical anthropological analysis of recreational running and mobility
technologies within the context of wider societal trends related to
(self-)discipline.

La città di Rio de Janeiro è stata scenario di mega eventi sportivi negli ultimi decenni. Gli investimenti di grandi capitali internazionali hanno apportato riforme di pianificazione urbana volte a implementare processi di gentrificazione violenti di determinate aree della città. Il testo analizza la gestione dello spazio urbano attraverso la pianficazione dei mega eventi sportivi, quali campionato mondiale di calcio ( 2014) e olimpiadi (2016) , evidenziando i violenti processi di rimozione e violazioni di diritti umani  ad essi connessi.

Neste texto procuramos interrogar o lugar do futebol no programa cultural do Estado Novo e no espectáculo fascista português. Esta investigação toma como objecto privilegiado a relação entre o futebol – como parte de um campo desportivo autónomo que, na década de 1940, se encontrava no final de um processo de institucionalização – e o Estado Novo – um poder político que se procurava impor ao espaço social português, desde o início da década de 1930. A hipótese aqui apresentada é a de que o desenvolvimento do futebol e a sua inscrição na cultura popular portuguesa contemporânea não foram promovidos pelo Estado Novo e pelas suas organizações nem podem primeiramente ser compreendidas à luz de uma história política. Desenvolveram-se antes no quadro das expressões nacionais de uma cultura popular urbana global. O crescimento e a difusão do futebol deveu-se mais à comercialização dos lazeres e ao alargamento de uma rede associativa e de um público consumidor do espectáculo desportivo do que ao investimento estatal.

This paper examines recent developments in etiquette in contemporary mixed-doubles tennis (MDT), to position different behavioural expectations for men/women in the broader context of shifting gender relations. Content analysis of coaching guides published from the 1960s-80s revealed that historically-rooted gender distinctions in terms of court positioning, tactics, and playing roles/expectations were reaffirmed, continuing to undermine and marginalize females yet privilege males based on assumed innate differences in physical attributes. Etiquette norms in this era were compared to those found in the early 21 st century (2000-10s), through content analysis of online forums/blogs for recreational and elite-level MDT. It was found that while gendered tactics related to court positioning and playing roles were sustained, an important shift in etiquette norms related to chivalry occurred, but was not comprehensively accepted among all players. This development was attributed to third-wave feminist challenges to male chivalry, alongside the burgeoning " crisis of masculinity " that increasingly pushed men toward adopting a " hybridized masculinity " to assuage public critiques of hegemonic/orthodox masculinity in sport.

This paper critically examines the life and career of Daniel “Dan” Maskell OBE CBE (1908-92), the much-loved British professional coach and BBC commentator for Wimbledon, and position his social ascendancy during the inter-war and post-war periods within the contexts of shifting class relations in British society, and the professionalisation of tennis and growing performance orientation of amateur tennis authorities in Britain. Given his working-class origins, Maskell’s gradual acceptance into the British lawn tennis fraternity and rise to become “the voice of Wimbledon” and, for some, the personification of traditional British sporting amateur values, was something of an enigma, and reflected key contradictions in what amateurism constituted in the twentieth century. Despite enduring systematic discrimination in clubs and exclusion from amateur competitions, as a consequence of him being a “professional”, he remained a chief proponent of the amateur ideology throughout his lifetime and exhibited numerous personal qualities that endeared him to the upper-middle-class establishment: modesty, loyalty, integrity, conservative views on player behaviour, deference to authority, strong work-ethic, and good-humoured nature. Once tennis went “open” in 1968, and throughout a period when professionalism and commercialism threatened to undermine the sports’ core ideals, Maskell continued to represent and promote amateur ideals through his broadcasting ethics and values.

The relationship between sport and psychoanalysis offers a unique, yet underexplored, account of the intrapsychic and interpersonal dimensions that underpin our sporting lives. Win or lose, the sporting event exposes a form of repetition that proves unconsciously satisfying (‘there’s always next year’). Be it in professional or amateur performances or in the time spent watching live sporting events, sport can yield both devotion and admonition from fans and detractors alike. Amidst an arbitrary array of sporting rules and regulations, it is within the bounds of sport’s consigned limitations that a variety of irrational fantasies meet the utter insignificance of the sporting achievement and its protracted endeavour. In fact, such contentions work to undermine the rather simplistic assertion that sport offers nothing more than a mere escape from routine, mundane reality. Instead, it is in the psychoanalytic study of sport that the contradictions inherent to the subject can be avowed; or, to put it another way, what we disavow in our sport spectatorship or participation affords us an opportunity to see how our unconscious minds are structured. By critically exploring the meaning behind this sporting (in)significance, this special issue of Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society will draw together key insights from psychoanalysis (including its various schools, approaches, and theories) in order to examine the cultural, social and psychic significance of sport—both for the subject and society.

Whether performer or spectator, sport remind us that the nature of our embodied agency is one that is defined by limits. It is in the reaching, disappointing or surpassing of a goal that we experience joy and failure. Whether one is a community center basketball player, weekend coach for a youth hockey team, season ticket holder for the Los Angeles Lakers, fantasy sport enthusiast or critical of the corrupting influence of the athletic world, sport always contains a transgressive fantasy, allowing us to push at the boundaries of ‘fair play’, ‘sportsmanship’ and ‘equality in competition’, while, at the same time, balking at the remote possibility of these ideals ever being realised outside of sport itself. Accordingly, despite the possibility of sporting success, every victory remains fleeting: we lose more than we ever win. Whether it be the prospects of the forthcoming fixture or the possibility of the knockout punch, success is haunted by its failure and an unconscious desire to tolerate, overcome, and repeat loss.  It is in our sporting fantasies for a past (nostalgia) or future (utopia) of plenitude that we are confronted with what we don’t have. It from this foundational place of the lacking subject that psychoanalysis begins theorizing from and where every sportive endeavour begins.

Just as various sporting activities allow for the unique structuring of victorious fantasies and their frustration, each major school of psychoanalytic thought also provides its distinctive accent in accounting for the origin, character, and fate of our wishes. As spectator and participant, the arena of sport showcases Freudian Oedipal plots to aggress toward an omnipotent rival, Kleinian paranoia of the other’s attack and envy of its surplus, Kohutian aims toward merger with the idealized other, and the Lacanian jouissance of what remains inherently, but tantalizingly unresolved.  At the same time, sport can challenge Bionian conceptions of group life assumptions, expand Winnicottian notions of play and creativity, and query relational emphases on recognition and mutuality.

With its unquestionable massive global monetary and cultural appeal, contemporary sport provides an unlimited but underutilized resource for the theoretical exploration of how our subjective sense of incompleteness, which fuels our desires, is grounded within a social matrix that is undoubtedly contingent. Fulfilment and loss are inextricably phrased in the desire of the Other, fantasies of the Other’s enjoyment and the obstructing or facilitating role the Other takes in the conscious pursuit of satisfaction.

Thus, we invite papers that use sport as a medium to explicate psychoanalytic ideas, and ideally go beyond this to dialectically think sport and psychoanalysis together.  It is our contention that rather than simply applying psychoanalysis to sport, sport may ask questions of psychoanalysis as well. It is in this potential of thinking psychoanalysis and sport together that we hope to actualize the mission of Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society in this volume and show the richness of a theoretical examination of the social, cultural, and political.

In light of the above, this special issue seeks to provide scope to interpret the relation between the various forms of sport and schools of psychoanalysis.  A brief sampling of the topics that could be pursued individually or interconnectedly are:

• Sportive enjoyment and interpassivity
• The appeal of creativity and destruction in sport
• Developmental trajectories of sporting activities and fanship
• Body narcissism and phallocentrism
• Care and concern in sport
• The idealization and demonization of the athlete
• Fanship as desire or drive
• Teamwork, nationalism, and other experiences in sporting groups
• Sport as a site of exclusion (misogyny, racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.) par excellence
• Imagination and play in sport
• Sport as site of emancipatory protest
• The professional athlete in relation to the ideal ego and ego ideal
• Sport, repetition and the objet petit a
• Capitalism, colonialism and exploitation of the athlete of color
• Is there an ethical way to be a fan of sport?

Situated at the intersection between psychoanalysis and the social world, submissions are expected to fulfil the mission statement of the journal in mobilising the psychoanalytic toolkit to bring about positive social change, through analysis and/or proposals of models for future practice (https://www.palgrave.com/gp/journal/41282/authors/aims-scope).

Please submit an ABSTRACT of 300-500 words and a BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE of up to 100 words to the special issue editors by 11th JULY 2022 (j.black@shu.ac.uk and drjsreynoso@gmail.com).

Authors will be notified of the outcome of their proposal in AUGUST 2022. First full drafts will be due in FEBRUARY 2023.

Black lesbian women experience a triple threat based on three components of their identity – race, gender, and sexual orientation – places them on the lower ranks of the totem pole of U.S. social hierarchy. With this in mind, the purpose of this study was to explore how Black lesbian student-athletes negotiate three components of their identity – race, sexual orientation, and being a female NCAA Division I student-athlete – through semi-structured interviews in order to provide these student-athletes with a mechanism to have a voice and express their individual experiences. Since I experienced difficulty in obtaining participants that met the criteria, I have included myself as a co-participant in order to tell my journey of researching a population I identify with – one who has been forced to the margins of society along with the black community.

In this study we explored the experience of competing in the Senior Games and the resultant contributions to the successful aging of older adults. We used in-depth interviews with older adults who participated in the National Senior Games. Analysis of the data produced five central themes: (a) perseverance, (b) career development and significant effort, (c) personal and social benefits, (d) unique ethos, and (e) identification as a senior athlete. We found that participating in the Senior Games as a form of serious leisure enhanced the well-being of older adults and could be utilized as a means by which to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

The aim of this paper is to consider modern sport as an area of two opposed tendencies in European multicultural relations. Firstly, there is a clear approach which supports European integration. Most of sport events have a global character that helps building the feeling of community. Various cultures meet during them and can modify each other. There is also a process of institutional integration and border-crossing business co-operation on that stage. Secondly, sport is also a tool of supporting cultural diversity and emphasizing differences between some parts of Europe. International sport competitions are probably one of the last areas where the sense of national identity is so strong - there are not many other occasions where people so willingly describe themselves as members of a particular nation. In this way sport sharpens distinctions. In this paper I would like to explore both areas in more detailed way.

Tekst dotyczy relacji między kontrolą społeczną a technologią. Związek ten analizowany jest na przykładzie jednego wybranego obszaru życia społecznego – sportu. Pole to stanowi bowiem miejsce niezwykle wyraźnie ukazujące dynamikę jego przemian. Na podstawie wybranych przykładów Autor poszukuje odpowiedzi na dwa główne pytania badawcze: kto dziś kontroluje technologię w świecie sportu i jak się ją kontroluje.
Artykuł opiera się na badaniach empirycznych zrealizowanych w środowisku sportowym. Wykorzystuje on metodę case study. W jej ramach zastosowane zostały trzy techniki – desk research, analiza dyskursu medialnego oraz eksperckie wywiady jakościowe.

This paper explores issues of sport, sponsorship, and consumption by critically interrogating the mass-mediated “coming out” narratives of professional golfer, Rosie Jones, and professional basketball player, Sheryl Swoopes. Both athletes came out publicly as gay in light of endorsements received by Olivia Cruises and Resorts—a company that serves lesbian travelers—thus marking a significant shift in the relationship between lesbian subjectivity, sport, and sponsorship. A concern with a neoliberal-infused GLBT politics underscores our analysis, and a close reading of these narratives raises complex questions about the corporatization of coming out and the existence of lesbian celebrity in sport.

Sport and Social Exclusion in Global Society offers a fresh look at recent developments in policy and academic discourse around sport and social exclusion. By expanding the notion of social exclusion beyond Global North perspectives, the authors offer an important contribution, through articulating key points of differentiation between Global North and South definitions of the concept and how it is manifested in different societies and cultural contexts, and in helping to critique and develop the broader subject area to better serve academics and policy-makers.

Despite the perception that soccer exists in the margins of the American experience, it has had a long history and many more people have played and watched soccer in the United States than historians have stated to date.  Recent academic focus on soccer in the United States has yielded intriguing interdisciplinary analysis  however studies that provide historical accounts of the game at the regional and local level are rare.  Specifically, the history of the world’s most popular sport in the District of Columbia has not yet been written despite a rich tradition that dates back well over one hundred years.  Without minimizing the historical and cultural significance of the city’s current professional franchise, the history and meaning of soccer in Washington D.C. is much broader than D.C. United’s tenure at RFK Stadium. Soccer has consistently been a part of Washingtonian leisure culture for well over a century. The professional game in the District can be traced back to 1894, when Washington’s ‘Soccer Senators’ was one of six teams to participate in what is regarded as the first organized professional soccer league in the United States,  the American League of Professional Foot Ball.

While a comprehensive in depth historical survey of soccer in the District of Columbia is desirable, space limitations do not permit a complete account here.  Our goal is to provide an historical overview of the development of soccer in the District, with a particular emphasis on Washington’s contributions to the thriving national professional soccer scene of the 1960s and into the early 1980s.

This paper discusses some incentives, or rather gimmicks from the Football Association (FA) to increase female participation in the sport. However, public responses to pink whistles and pocket mirrors (etc.) indicate that the social construction of gender continues to be omnipresent in the FA. Consequently, it is proffered that girls’ access to playing football is on the proviso that they conform to gender stereotypes. Our plea is to reconsider this damaging attitude.

In a multi ethnic society such as Malaysia, to internalize the idea of integration is eminently indispensable, as indicated by Ross (2015) on the role of sport in bringing people together. Indeed, it triggers equal opportunities and rights, and promotes prosperity for every ethnic group and individual. Indeed, this is the key to stability and peace in Malaysia. Hence, the attendance of students to schools especially among the minority groups is substantial as they are anticipated to embrace the national development agenda via various programmes offered by the Malaysian Ministry of Education. Their engagement in the schooling process is essential in order to nurture unity and cooperation with school authority. Past researches have revealed that the minority students’ participation in schools continues to grow through the years. As such, researchers and academicians alike need to update their understanding and knowledge, continuously, in this particular area of study. The main objective of this paper is thus to elucidate the experiences of minority students who participate in sports activities in Pekan, Pahang. In this regard, the method of Focus Group Interview (FGI) was adopted. A sample of 27 students from the ethnic groups of Orang Asli, Cambodian, Rohingya and Chinese was recruited in obtaining significant data for this paper. All the data obtained for this paper have been analysed using the qualitative process. The findings of this paper suggests that sports activity is the best platform to exercise integration and the best tool in disciplining students in multi-cultural settings; components considered significant by school authority and students. This paper discerns evidence that students from different ethnicities are able to work amicably with one another, especially during training and competitions. In a nutshell, the implication of this paper will serve as a background to the existing literature on sport and education, and attract scholars and researchers who particularly have interest in the field of ethnic relation in educational settings.