This paper offers a critical reappraisal of the sport ethic through the lens of psychoanalytic theory. Building on the foundational work of Hughes and Coakley (1991), the sport ethic is defined as a normative framework, which compels athletes to pursue excellence through sacrificial commitment, self-discipline, tolerance, and a refusal to accept limitation. Though celebrated, ultimately, athletic subjectivity is legitimatised through practices that are harmful to an athlete’s health, identity, and social relations. Whereas existing critiques of the sport ethic have focused (...) on its normative demands, this paper shifts the analysis from identity and ideology to the role of desire. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis, it is argued that while athletes, and fans, are socialised into an overconformity with the sport ethic, such adherence is sustained via the subject’s desire for the very sacrifices it requires. This desire is not reducible to rational intention or external coercion but is instead sustained through forms of unconscious enjoyment (jouissance), in the form of self-sabotage, bodily harm, or the pursuit of impossible ideals. On this basis, the paper challenges moralising accounts that treat overconformity as a correctable pathology or failure of awareness, insisting instead that an ongoing adherence to the sport ethic must be conceived in relation to the sacrifices and excesses it posits. The paper concludes by calling for a renewed ethical relation to sport—one that does not seek to eliminate desire or resolve contradiction, but to critically inhabit them. By recognising that desire is not a flaw but constitutive of the subject, the paper opens a space for resisting blind conformity to the sport ethic through confronting the impossible demands that give it meaning. In doing so, a new way of approaching sport, beyond utility, identity, or moral virtue, is provided. (shrink)

The outcomes of sports and competitive games excite intense emotions in many people, even when those same people acknowledge that those outcomes are of trifling importance. I call this incongruity between the judged importance of the outcome and the intense reactions it provokes the Puzzle of Sport. The puzzle can be usefully compared to another puzzle in aesthetics: the Paradox of Fiction, which asks how it is we become emotionally caught up with events and characters we know to be (...) unreal. In this article, I examine the prospects of understanding our engagement with competitive games on the model of our engagement with works of fiction, thus enabling analogous explanations for both puzzles. I show that there are significant problems with such an approach and offer an alternative, mobilizing ideas from David Velleman and Thomas Nagel, that appeals to the volatility of our motivational attitudes. (shrink)

Whilst in recent years sports studies have addressed the calls ‘to bring the body back in’ to theorisations of sport and physical activity, the ‘promise of phenomenology’ remains largely under-realised with regard to sporting embodiment. Relatively few accounts are grounded in the ‘flesh’ of the lived sporting body, and phenomenology offers a powerful framework for such analysis. A wide-ranging, multi-stranded, and interpretatively contested perspective, phenomenology in general has been taken up and utilised in very different ways within different disciplinary (...) fields. The purpose of this article is to consider some selected phenomenological threads, key qualities of the phenomenological method, and the potential for existentialist phenomenology in particular to contribute fresh perspectives to the sociological study of embodiment in sport and exercise. It offers one way to convey the ‘essences’, corporeal immediacy and textured sensuosity of the lived sporting body. The use of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is also critically addressed. Key words: phenomenology; existentialist phenomenology; interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA); sporting embodiment; the lived-body; Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

It has become increasingly popular for sports fans, pundits, coaches and players to appeal to ideas of ‘sporting integrity’ when voicing their approval or disapproval of some aspect of the sporting world. My goal in this paper will be to examine whether there is any way to understand this idea in a way that both makes sense of the way in which it is used and presents a distinctly ‘sporting’ form of integrity. I will look at three recent high-profile (...) sporting incidents that caused sporting integrity to be called into question. I will then examine three different ways in which philosophers have sought to understand integrity and examine whether any of these accounts can provide us with a plausible account of sporting integrity. I will argue that such an account can be given and show how this helps us to understand the three cases. (shrink)

This editorial introduction to the special issue, ‘Sport and the Anthropocene’, examines the entanglements between sport, human activity, and the planet’s accelerating ecological crisis. Framing the Anthropocene as a new epoch, marked by irreversible human-induced environmental change, the article highlights the catastrophic consequences of climate disruption, resource depletion, and socio-political instability. Yet, amid collapse, the Anthropocene also offers new beginnings, which can prompt critical reflections on human exceptionalism. In light of the sociology of sport’s delayed engagement with these beginnings, especially (...) important given sport’s material dependence on vulnerable ecologies, the special issue challenges the adequacy of conventional sustainability discourses, which externalize nature and uphold anthropocentric assumptions. Instead, we call for a reorientation towards our ecological entanglement and temporal complexity, examining how objects, surfaces, and environments shape movement, meaning, and our planetary future(s). In doing so, the issue foregrounds diverse theoretical and empirical contributions that position sport as both problem and possibility. Ultimately, we contend that sport must be reimagined through the lens of the Anthropocene, indeed, as a site of contested and contingent relations where ecological, ethical, and existential stakes converge. (shrink)

A commonly accepted feature of commonsense morality is that there are some acts that are supererogatory or beyond the call of duty. Recently, philosophers have begun to ask whether something like supererogation might exist in other normative domains such as epistemology and esthetics. In this paper, I will argue that there is good reason to think that sporting supererogation exists. I will then argue that recognizing the existence of sporting supererogation is important because it highlights the value of sport as (...) a mutual pursuit of excellence and reinforces the value of sportsmanship. (shrink)

This article critically details how the work of Slavoj Žižek theoretically elaborates on the links between nationalism and sport. Notably, it highlights how key terms, drawn from Žižek’s work on fantasy, ideology and the Real (itself grounded in the work of Jacques Lacan), can be used to explore the relationship between sport, nationalism and enjoyment (jouissance). In outlining this approach, specific attention is given to Žižek’s account of the ‘national Thing’. Accordingly, by considering the various ways in which sport organizes, (...) materializes and structures our enjoyment, the emotive significance of sport during national sporting occasions is both introduced and applied. Moreover, it is argued that such an approach offers a unique and valuable insight into the relationship between sport and nationalism, as well as an array of social and political antagonisms. (shrink)

Sport poses a number of important and no less significant questions, which, on the face of it, may not necessarily seem very important or significant to begin with – a peculiarity that we believe to be integral to sport itself. This article introduces, explores and outlines the psychoanalytic significance of this peculiarity. It explores how the emotions stirred by sport are intertwined with a realm of fiction and fantasy. Despite its lack of practical utility, sport carries an undeniable gravity, encapsulating (...) the aspirations of communities, nations and continents. As a result, psychoanalysis can be used to critically reflect on the purpose and meaning of sport: that is, why do we need sport, and why, for large sections of the world’s population, do we rely on it? Ultimately, while psychoanalysis maintains a unique relation to a variety of unexpected fields of study – including art, culture and neuroscience – we seek to add to this expanding list of inquiry by including sport in this critical domain. By utilising sport as a platform to elucidate psychoanalytic concepts, it is recognised that sport can also prompt questions for psychoanalysis. In so doing, theoretical discussions on the social, cultural and political dimensions of sport through psychoanalytic theory are introduced and applied. (shrink)

Is it possible to remain a sports fan when prominent sports teams and events are utilized to “sportswash” human rights abuses and other controversies? Indeed, while there is an abundance of analyses critiquing different instances of sportswashing, the exploration of the role of sportswashing and its connection to the “sports fan” presents an essential and necessary area of investigation and theoretical inquiry. To unpick this dilemma, this article proposes the concept of “fetishistic disavowal” to help theorize the (...) impact of sportswashing, as well as its relation to the sports fan and critical sports academic. This argues that, as spectators and fans of sport—and, moreover, as critical academics—we often acknowledge and accept that sport is used to perpetuate and even maintain a variety of social, economic, and political inequalities. Yet, while we are aware of such knowledge, we nonetheless remain fully capable of disavowing this very knowledge as an accepted part of sport. Given this, it is argued that the fetishization of sport can provide a suitable conduit for the fetishistic disavowal that sportswashing requires, with the concept offering a unique way of approaching sport’s inherent contradictions, while also theorizing how subjects relate to these contradictions as part of their involvement in and with sport. Where sportswashing directly implicates the fan in its implementation—relying upon a level of fetishistic disavowal between the fan and their club and proffering a disavowed acknowledgement of the effects of sportswashing and its interpellation through sport—this article outlines how applications of fetishistic disavowal provide a unique theoretical lens through which analyses of sport, and its ethical significance, can be critiqued. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a new way of defining sport that I call a ‘core-periphery’ model. According to a core-periphery model, sport comes in degrees – what I refer to as ‘sport-likeness’ – and the aim of the philosopher of sport is to chart those dimensions along which an activity can be more or less a sport. By introducing the concept of sport-likeness, the core-periphery model complicates the picture of what is or is not a sport and encourages philosophers (...) interested in defining sport to engage with the social sciences in exploring the extension of the term sport in common usage. In this paper I present the results of a small survey about attitudes to sport, and use it to illustrate how a core-periphery definition of sport would proceed. (shrink)

Sport is a global phenomenon, which can make sport an important arena for integration into new societies. However, sport is also an expression of national culture and identities. The aim of this study is to explore images and experiences that newly-arrived immigrant children in Sweden have about sport in their country of origin, and challenges that can arise in processes of integration through sport. We asked 20 newly arrived children aged 10 to 13 to make drawings about sporting experiences from (...) their countries of origin. Three themes emerged: sport as feeling joy, where activities were performed with friends during leisure time; sport as acting formally, where activities were carried out in clubs; and sport as a spectator, where children were non-participants. We emphasise that development of sport should be two-way processes, where cultural learning should be mutual processes. Immigrant children’s experiences should be foregrounded when utilising and developing sports programmes. (shrink)

Our purpose in this article is to draw attention to a connection that obtains between two dilemmas from two separate spheres: sports and the law. It is our contention that umpires in the game of cricket may face a dilemma that is similar to a dilemma confronted by legal decision makers and that comparing the nature of the dilemmas, and the arguments advanced to solve them, will serve to advance our understanding of both the law and games.

Over the last decades we have witnessed a proliferation of new human rights claims (e.g. the ‘human right’ to internet access) . But Milan Kundera (1991) reminds us that not all desires are human rights. Trans women athletes (and their supporters) often claim that there is a human right to sport and they derive a further ‘human right’ from this: the right to compete in the sex category with which they identify (i.e. the female category). The purpose of this article (...) is to critically assess these two claims: 1. every person has a human right to compete in sport; 2. trans women have a human right to compete in the female category in sport. (shrink)

Who should be allowed to participate in what category in various sporting contexts is a pressing moral issue, not least of all for youth athletes. Currently there’s significant legal, social, and philosophical pressure to exclude some athletes from competing in the categories that they’d prefer. This paper is specifically concerned with high school sports, although much of the discussion can generalize to other sporting contexts. Specifically, I engage with the argument that high school sports should exclude transgender athletes (...) from participating on the team that best matches their gender identity on the basis that allowing athletes to compete in the gender category that best matches their gender identity would undermine competitive fairness, and so would undermine the purpose of high school sport. But, as I argue, this argument misunderstands sport. Sporting normativity must take into account not only competitive values, most prominently fairness, but also other values relevant to the particular sporting practice at hand. Sport is not simply a competition devoid of normatively relevant context. In this paper, I draw from the philosophy of sport literature to argue that this singular focus on fairness in arguments for exclusive participation policies is misguided from the point of view of high school sport, and, further, that it is in the interest of high school sport to have inclusive gender categories. (shrink)

Previous discussions on the value of sport in remote locations have concentrated on 1) environmental and process concerns, with the rejection of competition and goal-directed or use oriented activity, or 2) the value of risk and dangerous sport for self-affirmation. It is argued that the value of risk in remote sport is in self-knowledge rather than self-affirmation and that risk in remote sport, while enhancing certain kinds of experience, is not necessary. The value of remote sport is in offering the (...) opportunity for experience that enhances the participants’ knowledge both of self and of the environment with which they interact. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for the usefulness of the concept of ‘movement compression’ for understanding sport and games, and particularly the differences between traditional sport and eSport (as currently practised). I suggest that movement compression allows us to distinguish between different activities in terms of how movement quality (in the sense of the qualities the movement possesses, rather than that the movement is of ‘high quality’) affects outcome. While it applies widely, this concept can in particular help us to (...) understand the persistent idea that eSports are in some key way distinct from traditional sports. (shrink)

Sport is one of the first areas in which enhancement has become commonplace. It is also one of the first areas in which the use of enhancement technologies has been heavily regulated. Some have thus seen sport as a testing ground for arguments about whether to permit enhancement. However, I argue that there are fairness-based objections to enhancement in sport that do not apply as strongly in some other areas of human activity. Thus, I claim that there will often be (...) a stronger case for permitting enhancement outside of sport than for permitting enhancement in sport. I end by considering some methodological implications of this conclusion. (shrink)

Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs) is considered a syndrome of impaired health and performance due to low energy availability (LEA) relative to energy needs in physical activity. Although REDs has been studied from physiological and psychological perspectives, currently, there is little research from a sociological or socio-cultural perspective. The current study sought to address that gap, by investigating the embodied experiences of REDs, specifically in relation to sporting identity and identity work, from the perspective of 20 UK-based endurance athletes (...) who self-identified as having experienced REDs. Twelve participants took part in semi-structured interviews designed to explore their experiences of REDs, and eight completed personal wellbeing diaries. Our findings cohere around three key elements in identity work, drawing on micro-sociological interactionist perspectives that highlight the importance of: materialistic, associative, and vocabularic forms of identification. The findings offer novel insights into what can be a highly distressing experience, corporeally and psychologically, by focusing on how identity-related issues can contribute to REDs. (shrink)

The jurisprudence of sport is a recent area of study in the philosophy of sport and in law. It views sports as systems of rules, akin to state legal systems. There are umpires/referees who adjudicate and issue penalties on the field of play. And the rules of cricket, rugby, and association football are called ‘laws’ with good reason. The structure and nature of sports are usually much easier to grasp than a fully-fledged legal system. As a result, lawyers (...) can learn much from them. But the law can equally illuminate contentious questions in sports when philosophers of sport apply well-established legal categories (primary and secondary rules, compensation versus restitution, excuse versus justification, etc.) to games. Since the end of the 20th century, there has been a growing literature and interest in the subject. This entry follows that trajectory. (shrink)

Sport and Psychoanalysis: What Sport Reveals about Our Unconscious Desires, Fantasies, and Fears explores the intersection of sport and psychoanalysis, emphasizing the often-overlooked psycho-social dimensions underpinning the experience of sport. By challenging the idea that sport offers an “escape” from reality—a realm separate to the politics of everyday life—each chapter critically considers the unconscious desires, fantasies, and fears that underpin the sporting spectacle for both participants and spectators. Indeed, beyond simply applying psychoanalysis to sport, this book proposes how sport can (...) be used to pose questions to psychoanalysis, thus using sport as a medium to elucidate key psychoanalytic ideas and concepts. This volume addresses a diverse range of theorists, including Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Lou Andreas-Salomé, Norman O. Brown, and Frantz Fanon, and applies them across a variety of topics and sports, including NFL coaching, Manny Pacquiao, play, football, basketball, baseball, poker, and the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, therefore providing a unique understanding of the cultural, social, and psychic significance of sports. A timely and relevant collection, this book will appeal to scholars and practitioners interested in understanding sport from both the cultural and clinical application of psychoanalytic theory as well as academics and practitioners in sport studies, psychology, sociology, education, and cultural studies. (shrink)

This chapter examines the longstanding philosophical issue of how to define sport. It begins by presenting the challenge that there may be no single set of necessary and jointly sufficient conditions, which adequately captures the meaning and range of activities commonly grouped under the term, including McBride’s argument that both the intension and extension of ‘sport’ are inherently vague, rendering attempts to produce a classical definition futile. For contrast, the chapter presents Suits’ influential account, according to which sports are (...) goal-directed, rule-bound, voluntarily hindered, physical skill-based activities with stable popularity. To scrutinize Suits’ classical account, the chapter provides an overview of a wide array of “hard cases”, and shows how these cases generate persistent ambiguities for Suits’ conditions, particularly with respect to rule-boundedness, the nature and degree of physical skill, and the relevance of popularity or historical stability. The chapter argues, that some ambiguities and disagreements arise because participants rely on different notions of what it is to define, and distinguishes four types of definitions: idealist, lexical, stipulative, and explicative. It further argues that differences in the approach to defining are often motivated by the practical purposes a definition of sports serves. The chapter concludes that definitions remain useful tools for structuring inquiry and clarifying arguments, but cannot by themselves resolve normative questions concerning how various activities should be labelled or treated. Instead, clarity about the purpose of a definition, and humility regarding its limits, are essential for productive conceptual analysis of sport. (shrink)

Weather experiences are currently surprisingly under-explored and under-theorised in sociology and sport sociology, despite the importance of weather in both routine, everyday life and in recreational sporting and physical–cultural contexts. To address this lacuna, we examine here the lived experience of weather, including ‘weather work’ and ‘weather learning’, in our specific physical–cultural worlds of distance-running, triathlon and jogging in the United Kingdom. Drawing on a theoretical framework of phenomenological sociology, and the findings from five separate auto/ethnographic projects, we explore the (...) ‘weather-worlds’ and weather work involved in our physical–cultural engagement. In so doing, we address ongoing sport sociological concerns about embodiment and somatic, sensory learning and ways of knowing. We highlight how weather work provides a key example of the phenomenological conceptualisation of the mind–body–world nexus in action, with key findings delineating weather learning across the meteorological seasons that contour our British weather-related training. (shrink)

To uncover the main dimensions of sport personality traits, a lexical study was conducted. In the first two phases, 321 adjectives denoting the way somebody practices sports were selected. In the third phase, 555 respondents self-rated the adjectives. Congruence analyses provided evidence of six factors, five of which are sport personality trait factors plus one physical individual difference factor. Marker scales from the sport personality trait factors show convergent correlations with the generic HEXACO personality obtained years earlier. Furthermore, meaningful (...) relations with the six most frequently practiced sport and leisure activities were observed. Contextualized sport personality trait factors can be useful in research on sport preferences, sport behaviors, and sport outcomes. (shrink)

Arriving at definitions in philosophy is as time-honored as it is controversial. Although learned reflection in the west about sport goes back at least to the time of ancient Greece, the sub-discipline of the philosophy of sport emerged in the world of Anglophone analytic philosophy in the 1970s. Shawn Klein’s edited volume, Defining Sport: Conceptions and Borderlines, is both the fruit of and a valuable contribution to such an emerging field (indeed, it is the first book-length study of its topic (...) within philosophy of sport). Although Huizinga had sought to define the phenomenon of play very broadly in his Homo Ludens (1938), investigation of the overlapping questions of what is sport? what is a game?, and what is play? were central to the sub-discipline at its inception. Foundational was the work of Bernard Suits, whose Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia (1978) sought to refute Wittgenstein’s claim that the notion of game was indefinable. In order to refute Wittgenstein, Suits sought to establish the conditions or properties both necessary and sufficient of the concepts of game and sport such that all instances of those concepts share such properties. (shrink)

It has been argued that competitive elite sport both (i) reduces the humanity of athletes by turning them into beings whose sole value is determined in relation to others, and (ii) is motivated by a celebration of the genetically superior and humiliation of the weak. This paper argues that while (i) is a morally reproachable attitude to competition, it is not what competitive elite sport revolves around, and that (ii) simply is not the essence of competitive elite sport. Competitive elite (...) sport is an exploration of the physical and mental demands of sport. Finally, the paper explores a number of consequences of the different views of sport with respect to the problem of intersexual women. (shrink)

When sporting agents fail through wrongful or faulty behaviour, they should feel guilty; when they fail because of a deficiency in their abilities, they should feel shame. But sometimes we fail without being deficient and without being at fault. I illustrate this with two examples of players, Moacir Barbosa and Roberto Baggio, who failed in World Cup finals and cost their teams the greatest prize in sport. Although both players failed, I suggest that neither was at fault and neither was (...) deficient. I argue that we can fail through no fault of our own because our abilities are always fallible. This fallibility means that to succeed – to achieve sporting glory – we must run the risk of failure. The appropriate emotion to feel over such failures is agent-regret. Sporting agents and observers should not take up what I call the ‘critical position’: the idea that someone who fails must be deficient or must have been at fault. This allows for a softer, but also more accurate, attitude towards our own failures and the failures of others. I end by suggesting that the fallibility of our abilities is made clear through playing or watching sport, and this can illuminate life more broadly. (shrink)

The study focused on the crafting of a Sports Development Framework. A Delphi multi-survey was conducted with thirty (30) sports officers from Region VIII, who were selected as study participants through purposive sampling. Specifically, significant questionnaires and interviews were conducted during the first, second, third, and fourth rounds with the same participants. Consensus was reached in the fourth round, and findings were identified: Capacity building; Sports level competition; Community Impact; Project Management; Program specialization, Funding and resources; Training (...) Facilities; Sports officers; Athletes' Performance; and Sports Benefits. It is concluded that a comprehensive approach to sports development involves various facets such as capacity building, competition levels, community impact, project management, and training facilities. Stakeholders, especially sports officers and community engagement, play a crucial role in successful initiatives while prioritizing athlete well-being and societal impacts. Hence, it is recommended to invest in capacity building for sports personnel, establish an inclusive competition structure, actively engage communities, implement effective project management systems, create specialized programs, ensure quality training facilities, and empower sports officers. (shrink)

This study looks at how sports motivation differs between first year and second-year college students at one of Manila's oldest private universities. The researcher used a carefully designed questionnaire, which was tested for reliability, to gather responses from students aged 17 to 19, with a significant majority being female (74.16%). The results showed that most first-year students were from the College of Engineering, while second-year students were mostly from the College of Pharmacy. Badminton, volleyball, and basketball were the most (...) popular sports among the students. Both first year (53.77%) and second year (54.03%) students said they played sports about once a week, which reflected very high intrinsic motivation and high extrinsic motivation. The study found that sports motivation didn’t differ much based on whether students were in their first or second year, their age, or their field of study. However, things like gender, the types of sports they liked, and how often they played did influence their motivation and involvement. (shrink)

Two prevalent assumptions in the philosophy of sport literature are that all sports are games and that all games are contests, meant to determine who is the better at the skills definitive of the sport. If these are correct, it would follow that all sports are contests and that a range of sporting activities, including nature sports, are not in fact sports at all. This paper first confronts the notion that sport and games must seek to (...) resolve skill superiority through consideration of sport activities that have no such aim. The reduction of sport to game is also shown to be untenable and due to misunderstanding the point of sport activities, specifically, why people engage in them. This leads to reconsideration of the dominance of an instrumental conception of sport and the pursuit of excellence as anthropomaximising efficiency. The Norwegian tradition of frilutsliv is explored as a counterpoint to both conventional and nature sport. (shrink)

Lack of consent is valorized within popular culture to the point that sexual assault has become a spectator sport and creepshot entertainment on social media. Indeed, the valorization of nonconsensual sex has reached the extreme where sex with unconscious girls, especially accompanied by photographs as trophies, has become a goal of some boys and men.

In this paper I argue that philosophers of sport should avoid value-laden definitions of sport; that is, they should avoid building into the definition of sport that they are inherently worthwhile activities. Sports may very well often be worthwhile as a contingent matter, but this should not be taken to be a core feature included in the definition of sport. I start by outlining what I call the ‘legitimacy-conferring’ element of the category ‘sport’. I then argue that we ought (...) not to include such a dimension in our definition of sport, on the grounds that it confuses issues of description with issues of definition: the issue of what sport does with what sport is. Following this, I consider a Wittgensteinian family resemblance approach to defining sport; Kevin Schieman’s argument that sports are necessarily good games; and the oft-cited wide-following and institutional criteria, as arguments for including an evaluative dimension in the definition of sport. I conclude that none succeed, for similar reasons: they either fail to track our common sense intuitions about what does or does not count as a sport; and/or they make it impossible for us to ever describe something a ‘bad’ sport (or instance of sport). Just as a good definition of, say, art, shouldn’t make it impossible for us to describe something as ‘bad art’, I argue that our definition of sport shouldn’t build in a necessarily positive evaluation. I conclude by discussing some of the practical reasons why supporters of activities about which there is currently debate as to their status as sports might want to see those activities included under the sports umbrella, but suggest that this on its own isn’t a good reason for modifying a philosophical definition of sport to include them. (shrink)

Ancient Olympia is not just the birthplace of the Olympic Games, it is also the origin of philosophical ideas about sport and humanity that resonate even today. Written for non-specialists who are nevertheless curious about the link between ancient and modern sport, this short book combines the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle with the art, archaeology, and history of Olympia to offer ancient Greek insight on the nature of sport, athletes, and human excellence, as well as the less-expected topics of (...) women, beauty, fairness, and peace. (shrink)

Excellence in sport performance is normally taken to be a matter of superior performance of physical movements or quantitative outcomes of movements. This paper considers whether a wider conception can be afforded by certain kinds of nature based sport. The interplay between technical skill and aesthetic experience in nature based sports is explored, and the extent to which it contributes to a distinction between different sport-based approaches to natural environments. The potential for aesthetic appreciation of environmental engagement is found (...) to be strongly dependent on whether or not environmental engagement is exploited for the end of producing a quantifiable result or enhancing technical skill. It is also argued that an existential rather than spectatorial attitude to aesthetic experience is offered by specifically nature oriented sport. Aesthetic experience achieved in this way is therefore neither passive nor detached, but extends Berleant's concept of participatory environmental aesthetics and underpins both an alternate (wide) conception of excellence in sport activity and a richer experience of aesthetic engagement than more objectivised standpoints. (shrink)

This paper discusses two main types of refusal to engage with teams or individuals in sports competitions on the grounds of (1) association with actions of governments or organisations that are deemed by the objector to be unacceptable, as in demands for boycotts or expulsions of specific groups, and (2) where an apparently inappropriate inclusion threatens the coherence of sport or the rights of other participants. The primary concern in this paper is the underlying moral stance of the subject (...) who engages in such actions (rather than those actions themselves), specifically, their understanding of themselves and of others as moral subjects. It is argued that whether we think such actions are morally justified depends to large extent on whether we also think that those whom we boycott, exclude, or include are moral subjects with the right to claim consideration from us, and from whom we too can claim consideration. That is, whether recognition functions as a reciprocal action between moral subjects. This is discussed with particular reference to Darwall's second-person standpoint and de Beauvoir's criticism of abstract ideals as inadequate for an existentialist ethic that respects the autonomy of humans beings as such. It is argued that all participants in sport, as in society, have the same fundamental authority to make claims and to be accountable, and that we commit an important wrong by claiming a superior moral authority to determine action that fails to take into account the subjectivity and authority of others. Yet, at the same time, we also need to take account of the logic of sport as a particular kind of voluntary practice that incorporates critical ethical principles of equal respect through fairness. (shrink)

Sport provides an arena for human flourishing. For some, this pursuit of a meaningful life through sport involves the use of non-human animals, not least of all through sport hunting. This paper will take seriously that sport – including sport hunting – can provide a meaningful arena for human flourishing. Additionally, it will accept for present purposes that animals are of less moral value than humans. This paper will show that, even accepting these premises, much use of animals for sport (...) – including sport hunting – is unacceptable. Nonetheless it will show that there can be acceptable ways of using animals as part of a human’s meaningful life pursuits through sport, albeit in a more limited fashion than many sportspersons currently accept. (shrink)

This article considers a novel approach to researching sporting embodiment via what has been termed ‘autophenomenography’. Whilst having some similarities with autoethnography, autophenomenography provides a distinctive research form, located within phenomenology as theoretical and methodological tradition. Its focus is upon the researcher’s own lived experience of a phenomenon or phenomena. This article examines some of the key elements of a sociological phenomenological approach to studying sporting embodiment in general before portraying how autophenomenography was utilised specifically within two recent research projects (...) on distance running. The thorny issues of epoche and bracketing within phenomenological and autophenomenographical research are addressed and some practical suggestions tentatively posited. (shrink)

Successful athletic performance requires precision in many respects. A batter stands behind home plate awaiting the arrival of a ball that is less than three inches in diameter and moving close to 100 mph. His goal is to hit it with a ba­­t that is also less than three inches in diameter. This impressive feat requires extraordinary temporal and spatial coordination. The sweet spot of the bat must be at the same place, at the same time, as the ball. A (...) basketball player must keep a ball bouncing as she speeds from one end of the court to another, evading defensive players. She may never break pace as she lifts from the ground, throwing the ball fifteen feet toward a hoop that is eighteen inches in diameter. One task facing a psychologist involves explaining how the body does such things within the sometimes very demanding spatial and temporal constraints that a given task imposes. Part of the goal of this chapter is to sketch the commitments of an embodied approach to such an explanation. We shall see that an embodied account of motor skills draws concepts that depart radically from more traditional cognitivist theories of motor activity. Similarly, because an embodied approach to cognition introduces new ways to understand the human capacity for social interaction, it also promises to shed new light on how athletes coordinate their actions with each other. (shrink)

In this article, the authors explore the interconnections of aquatic embodiment and seascapes, drawing on phenomenological perspectives and the emergent concept of “slow” sports and physical cultures. Whilst many traditional aquatic sports and activities have sought the maximization of speed, strength, or skill, in recent times, the concept of “slow” has been taken up by those participating in recreational sea-based activities. This perspective valorizes “slowing down” in order to appreciate different kinds of aquatic embodiment and the sensory pleasures (...) of deep engagement with the seascape. Drawing on a research project combining ethnographic and autoethnographic elements, the authors investigate slow aquatic “immersion” and some of the deep sensuosities of the mind–body–water connection, anchored in the seascapes of northern France. Their specific focus is on two slow sports: paddleboard yoga/yoga-paddle and aquatic hiking. -/- Dans cet article, les auteurs explorent les interconnexions entre les loisirs corporels et aquatiques et les paysages marins, en s’appuyant sur des perspectives phénoménologiques et sur le concept de slow sport. Alors que de nombreux sports et activités aquatiques traditionnels cherchent à maximiser la vitesse, la force ou l’habileté, le concept de « lenteur » a récemment été adopté par ceux qui participent à des activités récréatives en mer. Cette perspective valorise le « ralentissement » afin d’apprécier les différents types d’immersion aquatique et les plaisirs sensoriels d’un engagement profond avec le paysage marin. S’appuyant sur un projet de recherche combinant des éléments ethnographiques et autoethnographiques, ils étudient ici l’immersion aquatique et certains des sens ancrés dans les paysages marins du nord de la France. Ils se concentrent plus particulièrement sur deux loisirs sportifs : le yoga sur planche à pagaie et la randonnée aquatique. (shrink)

Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) is a syndrome of impaired health and performance that occurs as a result of low energy availability (LEA). Whilst many health effects associated with RED-S have been widely studied from a physiological perspective, further research exploring the psychological antecedents and consequences of the syndrome is required. Therefore, the aim of this study was to qualitatively explore athlete experiences of RED-S. Twelve endurance athletes (female n= 10, male n= 2; M age = 28.33 years) reporting (...) past or current experiences of RED-S, associated with periods of LEA, took part in semi-structured interviews designed to explore: contexts and mechanisms underpinning the onset of RED-S; the subjective experience of RED-S; and contexts and mechanisms influencing “recovery” from RED-S. Regardless of how RED-S was initiated, all athletes experienced a multitude of physiological impairments, accompanied by significant psychological distress. This paper contributes novel understanding of the complex interplay between physiological and psychological components of RED-S from the perspective of information-rich cases. The findings suggest that system-wide educational prevention and awareness interventions are vital for athletes and support personnel, such as coaches, parents, dieticians, psychologists, and sports medicine staff. (shrink)

New forms of neoliberal femininity create demanding horizons of expectation for young women. For talented athletes, these pressures are intensified by the establishment of dual-career discourses that construct the combination of high-performance sport and education as a normative, ‘ideal’ pathway. The pressed time perspective inherent in dual-careers requires athletes to employ a variety of time-related skills, especially for young women who aim to live up to ‘superwoman’ ideals that valorize ‘success’ in all walks of life. Drawing on existential phenomenology, and (...) in-depth interviews with 10 talented Finnish sportswomen (aged 19-22), we explored their experiences of lived time when pursuing dual-careers in upper secondary sport schools. Exploring participants’ bodily experiences of inhabiting the achievement life-world, we analyze how these sportswomen either learned ways of living up to this ambitious script or came to understand the detrimental effects of the script, necessitating other ways of being. For those who experience a disjuncture between the ‘perfect’ and their embodied experience, self-care practices are needed to restore life-world harmony, and orient to alternative futures. (shrink)

Trash-talking holds a contested place in sport, sometimes celebrated for its entertainment value yet often condemned for undermining respect and sportsmanship. This chapter examines trash-talking through the lens of the ethics of influence, situating it between impermissible conduct such as cheating and unproblematic expression such as playful banter. The chapter first clarifies what counts as trash talk and gives examples of its diverse forms. Then it evaluates its moral status. Existing views are critically assessed. The chapter advances an alternative account (...) that frames trash-talking as a form of manipulation, morally troubling insofar as it is simply indifferent to the revealing of reasons. This perspective reveals the practice as ethically troubling and illustrative of the moral tensions at the heart of competitive sport. (shrink)

Competitive sport in its many specific forms is an important aspect of many cultures. Particular sports may be considered as what MacIntyre calls “social practices.” We argue that the appropriateness of a competitive sport should be evaluated as a social practice, according to its contribution to the human flourishing of those who engage in the practice. We critique mutualism, a popular putatively virtue-based approach to sport, as a valuable but incomplete position that is inconsistent with its Aristotelian roots. We (...) analyze Aristotelian and neo-Aristotelian understandings of flourishing as consisting in the development, exercise, and enjoyment of the full complement of human powers. We propose normative criteria for evaluating a sport as a social practice, according to its contribution to human flourishing. Our social practice-based critique of sport has ramifications for a larger cultural critique as well. (shrink)

Within the sociology of sport, phenomenologically-inspired perspectives on sensory embodiment have emerged in recent years. This corpus includes investigations into the senses in water-based sports such as scuba diving (Merchant, 2011), performance swimming (Allen-Collinson et al., 2021 ; McNarry et al., 2021) and in land-based sports such as distance running (Allen-Collinson et al., 2018, 2021 ; Allen-Collinson & Jackman, 2021), and cycling (Hammer, 2015 ; Spinney, 2006). In this article, I draw upon phenomenological sociology (Allen-Collinson, 2009) and ‘sensory (...) work’, to investigate the experience of asthma in sports participants. Currently, despite the prevalence of asthma globally, there remains a lack of in-depth research on actual experiences of coping with asthma and ‘breathing battles’ in sporting contexts. Here, I draw on data from two linked research projects: a collaborative autoethnography and an interview-based study, which generated findings that highlighted sensory aspects relating to the lived experience of asthma and sporting embodiment. (shrink)

This article addresses the question whether skiing as a nature sport enables practitioners to develop a rapport with nature, or rather estranges and insulates them from their mountainous ambiance. To address this question, I analyse a recent skiing movie from a psychoanalytical perspective and from a neuro-scientific perspective. I conclude that Jean-Paul Sartre’s classical but egocentric account of his skiing experiences disavows the technicity involved in contemporary skiing as a sportive practice for the affluent masses, which actually represents an urbanisation (...) of the sublime, symptomatic for the current era. (shrink)

Background: The application of the philosophical mode of investigation called “phenomenology” in the context of sport. Objective: The goal is to show how and why the phenomenological method is very often misused in the sportrelated research. Methods: Interpretation of the key texts, explanation of their meaning. Results: The confrontation of concrete sport-related texts with the original meaning of the key phenomenological notions shows mainly three types of misuse – the confusion of phenomenology with immediacy, with an epistemologically subjectivist stance (phenomenalism), (...) and with empirical research oriented towards objects in the world. Conclusions: Many of the discussed authors try to take over the epistemological validity of phenomenology for their research, which itself is not phenomenological, and it seems that this is because they lack such a methodological foundation. The authors believe that an authentically phenomenological analysis of sport is possible, but it must respect the fundamental distinctions that differentiate phenomenology from other styles of thinking. (shrink)

Ethical questions normally arise in sport because its participants are human moral agents and because its practice community entails the observance of rules and responsibilities that humans generally owe one another in a social practice of voluntary competition. Since nature sports are not defined by this kind of inter-agential activity, it would appear that there are no comparable ethical constraints on their pursuit. This paper considers conflicts of preference versus right between humans, how these are resolved, and whether these (...) rights are relevant in assessment of nature sport activity vis-à-vis nonhuman creatures. Relying on a goods perspective instead of a rights framework, via Korsgaard, I argue against an assumption that human preference is sufficient to override consideration of nonhuman animals’ functional goods. (shrink)

-/- Violence in Sports and Public Life: A Discourse on the Universal Law of Balance By Angelito Malicse -/- The human experience, whether in the structured environment of sports or the open arena of society, is governed by universal natural laws. Among these, the law of balance holds a central place. It dictates not only the harmony of ecosystems and physical systems but also the inner workings of human thought, emotion, and decision-making. When we compare how violence is (...) treated in sports versus public life, we are not merely observing a cultural or legal distinction—we are witnessing two very different systemic approaches to managing imbalance. -/- In many competitive sports, particularly those involving physical contact like boxing, hockey, or mixed martial arts, certain degrees of aggression and conflict are built into the structure of the game. These activities are bound by rules, referees, safety equipment, and mutual consent. While the public may witness moments of violence—such as a fight on the ice or a punch in the ring—these actions occur within a controlled system. There is a start and an end, boundaries are clear, and consequences are predictable. This kind of conflict, while seemingly chaotic, actually operates within a feedback loop that functions to restore balance—either emotionally, competitively, or interpersonally among players (Coakley, 2009). -/- Here, the law of balance Is honored. Participants and spectators alike recognize that these moments of conflict are not personal but part of the system’s self-correction mechanism. They are expressions of tension release, accountability, or retaliation within limits. Importantly, these systems also include educational components: athletes are trained to control their behavior, accept penalties, and operate within the boundaries of fair play (Shogan, 1999). In this sense, sports act as a microcosm of a balanced society—where temporary imbalance is allowed only to maintain long-term equilibrium. -/- In stark contrast, acts of violence in public life are treated with seriousness and condemnation. Public violence is not bound by a consensual framework; it is unregulated, unanticipated, and often rooted in emotional instability, misinformation, injustice, or oppression. When one individual harms another in public, the action disrupts not just personal safety but the perceived stability of the collective environment. There are no referees, no agreed-upon rules, and no structural mechanism immediately available to restore balance. In such cases, the law of balance is violated, and the system falls into disorder (Rawls, 1971). -/- This is where the importance of police forces and intervention by responsible individuals or institutions becomes vital. The police serve as society’s designated referees in the public arena. They exist to neutralize immediate threats, restore order, and provide a stabilizing feedback mechanism when balance is lost. Their role, when exercised lawfully and ethically, aligns with the natural law of balance: to prevent further escalation, protect innocent lives, and return the environment to a state of peace and security (Goldstein, 1990). -/- Yet intervention alone is not enough. To complete the cycle of restoring balance, society depends on the justice system—a formal structure that examines, judges, and corrects the violations of law and public order. The justice system plays an essential role in ensuring that violent actions are not left unchecked or unresolved. When it functions properly, it acts as a rational and fair feedback mechanism, offering proportionate consequences and opportunities for reform (Becker, 1968; Tyler, 2006). It provides victims with a sense of protection and resolution, and it holds perpetrators accountable in a way that aims not for revenge, but for correction and reintegration into the societal system. -/- A well-functioning justice system honors the universal law of balance by recognizing the interconnectedness of cause and effect. It does not respond with disproportionate punishment or allow impunity; instead, it seeks to restore harmony—not just between individuals, but within the collective consciousness of society. When the justice system fails, either through corruption, delay, or bias, the feedback loop breaks, and public confidence in societal balance erodes. This often leads to further unrest, vigilante justice, or systemic breakdown (Packer, 1968). -/- From the perspective of natural law, particularly my universal formula on the problem of free will, this distinction becomes crucial. Human behavior, whether on the playing field or in daily life, is subject to natural feedback. A person who violates balance—whether through unregulated violence or willful ignorance—disturbs both their internal system (mind, emotion, reason) and the external system (family, society, nation, nature). The result is not only personal suffering but systemic dysfunction. -/- This underscores the need for a holistic educational system—one that does not merely teach skills or memorized facts, but one that programs the individual mind to recognize and operate within the universal law of balance. When individuals are raised with an understanding of how imbalance affects not just themselves but the interconnected systems around them, they develop the inner regulators necessary to live peacefully and responsibly (Noddings, 2013; Freire, 1970). -/- Such an educational system would mirror the structure of organized sports. It would involve feedback mechanisms, critical thinking, emotional self-regulation, and an internal sense of fairness. In this system, violence—whether verbal, emotional, or physical—is never glorified but understood as a sign of imbalance, an alarm that calls for restoration, not retaliation. -/- Leadership plays a vital role here. Leaders, like referees in a game, must understand the natural law of balance and guide their communities accordingly. They must know when to allow constructive conflict and when to intervene. More importantly, they must support both justice and educational reforms that embed the law of balance into the foundation of human development. -/- The end goal Is not the elimination of conflict, but its proper regulation and transformation. Only through this lens—where balance is the ultimate law, and all behavior is subject to feedback—can human society evolve beyond cycles of violence, whether on the field, in public spaces, or within institutions. This is the path to lasting harmony, both within and beyond the boundaries of organized sport. -/- References -/- Becker, G. S. (1968). Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach. Journal of Political Economy. -/- Coakley, J. (2009). Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies. McGraw-Hill. -/- Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Herder and Herder. -/- Goldstein, H. (1990). Problem-Oriented Policing. McGraw-Hill. -/- Noddings, N. (2013). Education and Democracy in the 21st Century. Teachers College Press. -/- Packer, H. L. (1968). The Limits of the Criminal Sanction. Stanford University Press. -/- Rawls, J. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press. -/- Shogan, D. (1999). The Making of High-Performance Athletes: Discipline, Diversity, and Ethics. University of Toronto Press. -/- Tyler, T. R. (2006). Why People Obey the Law. Princeton University Press. -/- . (shrink)

This article brings together key insights from Billy Graef, Brendan Hokowhitu, and Holly Thorpe to critically examine the relationship between sport and the Anthropocene. Together, each writer explores how sport both shapes, and is shaped by, environmental transformations, raising questions about its role in the accelerating ecological crisis. They discuss the need to rethink the Anthropocene through interdisciplinary perspectives, such as, feminist, critical, and Indigenous sociologies, emphasizing the agency of the environment and the intersections between sport, colonialism, capitalism, and industrial (...) expansion. The interview highlights the environmental impacts of mega-events, the material effects of colonialism on sport, and the challenges of governance in sport’s sustainability initiatives. While emphasizing the importance of athlete activism and grassroots movements in driving change, they propose that Indigenous knowledges offer valuable insights into alternative epistemologies and practices, challenging dominant capitalist models. Looking to the future, the article anticipates increasing environmental impacts on sport, including health risks, inequalities, and the need for a radical shift towards more sustainable practices. Ultimately, the scholars argue that sport is deeply implicated in the Anthropocene, requiring a reimagining of its role in a world increasingly shaped by ecological crises. (shrink)

In The I in Team, Erin C. Tarver argues that fandom ‘is a primary means of creating and reinforcing individual and community identities for Americans today’ and submits fandom to a critical eye...