Queer-in the Sociology of Sport

Pages: 219-236

DOI: 10.4324/9781315613482-16

Abstract:

Sports studies has developed as a legitimate academic discipline within many institutions of higher education. Courses on offer tend to reflect either a ‘scientific’ engagement with the body and performance, for example, exercise physiology and sports biomechanics, or the social and cultural analysis of sport. Importantly, the ‘social sciences’, including history, sociology, politics and cultural studies, have helped to produce an understanding of sport, which goes beyond attempts to fulfil the Olympic ideal: citius, attius, fortius (higher, faster, stronger). The social and cultural dimensions of sport are far-reaching and it is easy to imagine the potential sport, as a social and cultural practice, provides for critical enquiry. This chapter offers a brief introduction to some existing critical discussion surrounding sport. It goes on to identify the emergence of queer and queer theory in sports studies. The title intends to capture how ‘queer’ has emerged as a way to understand sporting experiences, in other words, a look at how queer appears in the sociology of sport. In addition, Queer-in, suggests that queer, as a developing theoretical ‘paradigm’, challenges existing theorisations of sport, queering the sociology of sport. The aim of the discussion is to highlight contributions that help to forge new ways of explaining sport cultures, practices and rituals. Finally, the chapter considers future (im)possibilities for queer bodies in sport (studies), in particular transsexual bodies (Cavanagh and Sykes 2006) and compulsory able-bodiedness (McRuer 2006).

Source: Scopus