Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Sport is an embodied, structured, goal-oriented, competitive, contest-based, ludic, physical activity. Given the multitude of sport forms and the vast variety of specific sports, ranging from rural, primitive athletic folk games of old, to new urban, hi tech, extreme sports, this definition is unlikely to satisfy one-and-all. It does, however, (1) highlight the major social characteristics of modern sport; (2) suggest the specification of the embodied structural properties and social processes underlying the social development of modern sport; and (3) provide a set of common features for examining the magnitude and complexity of sport as a social phenomenon at different levels of analysis, including sport as a unique game occurrence, sport as a particular type of ludic activity, sport as an institutionalized game, sport as a social institution, and sport as a form of social involvement ( Loy 1968 ). The degree of physicality varies by sport, but the body constitutes both the symbol and the core of all sport participation ( Hargreaves 1986 ). The essence of embodiment in sport is that sporting activities involve many kinds and degrees of physicality, including physical activity, physical aggression, physical combat, physical exercise, physical presence, physical prowess, physical recreation, physical sexuality, physical training, and physical work. In short, sporting bodies represent ... log in or subscribe to read full text