Sociology of Sport: Body

Summary

The body has been of a major interest to sport sociologists for several decades and the research on the physically active body has now diversified into several subthemes. Four themes of the current research—body image and stigma, the ideal body, the disciplined body, and the material body that matters—emerge to highlight the multiple approaches to studying the body within sport sociological scholarship. The discussion emphasizes the theoretical diversity regarding the approaches to understanding the sociocultural meanings of the body within the complex cultural world of shifting power relations. These include interpretive approaches such as phenomenology and narrative research to understand individual perceptions and feelings of the body (body image) and stigmatization of certain bodies in face-to-face interaction or through the formation of insider–outsider groups; critical examinations and feminist intersectionality research of the (gendered) body ideal in different physical activity contexts highlighting oppression and resistance to identity formation based on ideologically supported dominance; research using Foucault’s theoretical framework to map how bodies are disciplined into docility and how to create change in these practices; and new materialist perspectives that consider both the matter and mattering of physically active bodies. The increased theoretical diversity has enriched the ways to analyze, understand, and include physically active bodies in sport sociological research.