Beyond Boundaries: The Development and Potential of Ethnography in the Study of Sport and Physical Culture. (December 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Gibson, Kass; Atkinson, Michael
• Other Names: Kazubowski-Houston Magdalena guest-editor.; Magnat Virginie guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Cultural studies, critical methodologies. Volume 18:Number 6(2018)
• Page Start: 442
• Page End: 452
• Publication Date: 2018-12
• Subjects: physical cultural studies -- sociology of sport -- ethnographies -- methodologies -- radical empathy -- rethinking critical theory -- methods of inquiry; Culture -- Research -- Periodicals; Popular culture -- Research -- Periodicals; 306.05
• DOI: 10.1177/1532708617750177
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1532-7086

Abstract

Ethnographic approaches to the study of sport and physical culture have developed primarily within physical education and kinesiology programs and are typically framed in dialogue with sociological theorizing of agency, structure, power, and inequality. Beginning with reference to anthropology and sociology, we review the emergence, development, and subsequent transdisciplinary travels of ethnographic study of sport and physical culture. In doing so, we underscore the importance of theory, context, and disciplinary tradition in the development of sporting ethnographies. We then critically outline the place of ethnography in physical cultural studies (PCS). Rather than exhuming existing debates about the originality and uniqueness of the PCS enterprise, we highlight the need to decenter the hyper-reflexive researcher and advocate for the consideration of pleasure in ethnographic studies to achieve the interventionist goals PCS protagonists set themselves.