The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze repeatedly referred to a wide range of sports and games throughout his career. This article assembles a comprehensive view of the philosophy of sport seen from Deleuze’s perspective. By studying the development of how he discussed different sports and games, and by pinpointing the concepts he constructed with reference to them, the article attests to the merits of a Deleuzian philosophy of sports. His term athleticism is utilised as a node to overview his allusions to sports and games in general. Special attention is paid to sport as a companion to the creative domains of science, philosophy, and art. Thus, it is concluded that what athletes create are moves, which amounts to inventing new styles which may alter the sport and attest to new ways of thinking through bodies in motion. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This article investigates the utopian visions of extreme sports as a postwar phenomenon by contrasting it to the violence of the extreme sport practitioner par excellence in postwar/cold war cinema: James Bond. Continental philosophy and cultural studies furnish extreme sport as a manifold of wholesome, meaningful, sustainable, life-enhancing, and environmentally intimate practices, less orientated toward human rivalry than its traditional namesake. Certain attention is thus paid to the movement of sliding in extreme sports that thrive on powerful natural forces such as air, wind, snowy slopes, and big waves, creating an ambivalent field between mastery and letting oneself go. Sliding, or glissade, is treated as a “figure of thought” that Bond is mustered to embody and enact with his extreme athletic repertoire. The analysis of James Bond’s extreme sport sliding is contrasted to the musings of glissade philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Gilles Deleuze, and Michel Serres. It is concluded that if there is utopianism in James Bond’s extreme sport performances, it is in the sliding itself, while the attaining of that state is paved with violence towards everything material. The article reinforces the concept of the extreme in relation to sport as a processual tool, rather than a category describing a fixed set of characteristics adhering to a certain practice.© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

This presentation concerns how the term “popular” is actualized in James Bond films, and specifically how sports are played out in the saga. While both sports and Bond are pivotal parts of Western popular culture from the mid-20th century and onwards, their relationship is ambiguous. In his battles with various villains, Bond becomes embroiled in action sequences that are curiously spiced up with sporting activities. Such sports are often culturally coded in ways that represent certain social classes and practices (leisure, extreme, etc.) but are transformed in the cinematic context: sometimes they are emphasized for stylizations of prowess and violence; sometimes they are distorted into parody and comic relief. The agent’s sportive ambiguities are emblematic of the ambivalent status of Bond’s character in contemporary culture, pivoting between high and low, elites and masses. Fulfilling Marx’s adage about how history repeats itself (“first as tragedy, then as farce”), Bond’s personage not only reappears in different incarnations, portrayed by different actors over time; each actor also repeats a similar pattern in their respective Bond biographies that is enacted through the employment of sports. We conclude by claiming that when Bond distorts sports the meaning of the term “popular” per se is problematized.

This article revolves around conceptualising temporality and drama, with the example of how the broken time sequestered by Karl Marx’s notion of historical repetition and the struggles relating to this, in his supplement to Hegel, is displayed in James Bond films. A focus of the inquiry is an hauntological analysis (in the Derridean sense) of how the connection between heroism and tragedy in films evokes haunting presences of older versions of Bond, between actors, between films, and within the specific story arcs. While the heroism of Bond is exemplified by his sportive endeavours, time and temporality are understood as repetition, and foremost in relation to the phenomenon of the reboot—a specialty of our protagonist. In his battles with various villains, Bond becomes embroiled in action sequences that are curiously spiced up with extreme sporting activities. Such sports are often transformed in the cinematic context: sometimes they are emphasised for stylisations of prowess and violence; sometimes they are distorted into parody and comic relief, in an oftentimes ironic fashion. Fulfilling Marx’s adage about how history repeats itself (“first as tragedy, then as farce”), Bond’s personage not only reappears in different incarnations, portrayed by different actors over time; each actor also repeats a similar pattern in their respective Bond biographies enacting a sustained heroism emanating from the extreme athletic displays in the agonal theatre of sports.

I den här artikeln diskuterar vi generella iakttagelser av Idrottslyftet utifrån Idrottsstödsutredningens slutsatser om Handslaget (1). Vi gör en kvalitativ bedömning utifrån erfarenheterna från våra fem förbundsvisa utvärderingar (Klätter-, Orientering-, Ridsport-, Sim och Taekwondoförbundet) men också utifrån kunskap om andra förbund, från andra utvärderare och från i sammanhanget relevanta nyckelpersoner inom idrottsrörelsen. RF är mer intresserade av kvalitativa data än kvantitativa, eftersom de kvantitativa uppgifterna ändå kommer in via projektrapporteringen. Här följer således ett försök att tolka och karakterisera ett antal iakttagelser som vi bedömer är generella för idrottsrörelsens idrottslyftsarbete.

Genom regeringens satsning, kallad” Idrottslyftet”, fick den svenska idrottsrörelsen under perioden 2007–2011 möjlighet att genomföra den hittills största satsningen någonsin för att utveckla barn-och ungdomsidrotten. Idrottsrörelsen har sammanlagt fått två miljarder kronor för att öppna dörrarna till idrotten för fler barn och ungdomar och utveckla verksamheten, så att de väljer att idrotta längre upp i åldrarna. Arbetet skulle utgå från ett jämställdhets-och jämlikhetsperspektiv och genomsyras av riktlinjerna i” Idrotten vill”.

Denna rapport utvärderar detta arbete i fyra specialidrottsförbund: Svenska Ridsportförbundet, Svenska Klätterförbundet, Svenska Orienteringsförbundet, Svenska Simförbundet och Svenska Taekwondoförbundet.

The football pitch is a frequent element in (connection to) Swedish schools and schoolyards. This particular place is often appropriated by children (junior- and intermediate-level pupils) during recesses, and in the abscence of adults. Informed by the new sociology of childhood (foremost William Corsaro and Jens Qvortrup), I conduct ethnographic case studies, in three schools in Malmö, to describe children’s interaction on the pitch during school-day and primarily during recesses. The aim of the study is to discuss the inclusion, exclusion, social divisions and power relations stemming from the peer culture activities on the pitch.

Review of:

Pirkko Markula

Deleuze and the Physically Active Body

186 pages, inb. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge 2019

(Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society)

ISBN 978-1-138-67673-2

How to give voice to any thing? In this project I challenge and develop the posthumanist notion of letting things speak for themselves. Paradoxically, I do this by recording my own voice while running on revetments, i.e. breakwater structures that prevent erosion in urban coastal areas. Could autoethnography also ‘evoke’ (Bochner & Ellis, 2016) the surroundings to make them tell their own stories? What kind of story would that be? One ontological and epistemological concern is to discuss the role of the human subject in posthumanism.

By recording the voice of my running body in this eerie and unwelcoming no man’s land, a performative ‘nature writing’ of sorts is taking place. one which conjoins the universe’s own story, which the philosopher Michel Serres calls the ‘the grand narrative’ (Watkin, 2015).

The practice for the investigation, revetment running, is apt in many ways for elaborating with the posthumanist repertoire: water is the posthumanist element par preference (Barad, 2007); the uneven surface of revetments demands attention so that the subject (which I define as “free-willed” and intentional”) is hindered to have a say; revetments are fuzzy areas (Lahiri-Dutt, 2014) between land and sea, and hence a materialisation of the posthumanist concept ‘natureculture’ (Haraway, 2008).

I argue that there is a place for the human subject in posthumanist narratives, but that it ‘comes to the party second’ (Watkin, 2015). Prior come – what I refer to as – the project (the body thrust forward by the surroundings) and the interject (the voice of that body).

This essay concerns the place of e-sport in the history of sport. E-sport is construed as an entity in this corpus, by seeking out historical counterparts that display similar forms of play and organisation. Thus, ancient Roman games are identified as an early instance of what could be called public gaming, i.e. competitive digital games in a public setting. Two recent philosophical statements regarding the history of sport furnish the point of departure of the analysis: Steven Connor’s historicising of the term sport and Heather Reid’s treatise of virtue in the games and athletics of antiquity. The varying content of sport in its course through time is discussed foremost in relation to how the human and nonhuman elements have been organised. In order to settle the role of public gaming in the history of sport, two aspects of Roman games are highlighted to ’fabricate’ its legacy in the history of e-sport: Pollice Verso (’Thumb gesture’) and simulations. It is concluded that the way Roman games have been understood in relation Hellenic Athletics has its counterpart in how e-sport is understood in relation to sport. Public gaming as an instance in the history of sport, when contrasted to Greek athletics and Modern sport, appear as a deviant and violent practice. This view is problematized by a discussion of virtue in sport as being possible to elicit from it for both practitioners and spectators. Furthermore, public gaming appears as a bastard in the history of sport since it blurs the demarcation between human and nonhuman elements more often than its hallowed counterparts. To place e-sport as an entity in the history, present and future of sport testifies to that the phase sport is in now is characterised by hybridity, and that sport stands at a crossroads. If the next dominant understanding of sport primarily will connote ’corporeality’ and ’humanness’, such as in the case of lifestyle sport and sport for all, e-sport’s focus on the ’formal’ and ’competitive’ aspects of modern sport will contribute to that deliverance; and vice versa. © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Review of:

Book of Cool by Fred Rees & Dominic Sheridan (2004).

Review of: SANDS, L., & SANDS, R. R. (2010). Anthropology of Sport and Human Movement: A Biocultural Perspective. Lexington Books.

The book chapter is an essay in which the similarities between the physical culture of parkour and the methodology of French philosopher Michel Serres are explored. What is sketched out in the essay is a stance for cultural studies scholars: a way of doing research which is leant the name "the art of tracing". This stance is characterized by intimacy with that which is investigated, rather than by the distance which the essay ascribes to the critical analytical stance.

Review of 'Revolt of the White Athlete: Race, Media and the Emergence of Extreme Athletes in America' by Kyle Kusz (2007).

Football is probably the most well-known and widespread sport in the world; a hegemony partly reproduced by massive media coverage. Many children (foremost boys?) find their heroes in this context. How is the text of media-representations of global football stars interpreted, performed and retold by children on a local level? And how is this level contrasted with the more regulative and morally focused practices of physically present adults, such as PE teachers and leaders of children's football-clubs? How are football games regulated (ritualized) in different settings, whether such consist of same-sex or cross-sex, same-generational or cross-generational, same-ethnic or cross-ethnic populations? This paper puts on display the co-existence of the macro- and micro-levels in the football context. Children’s notions of body, sex, gender, ethnicity, democracy and equality are, to a still unknown degree, constituted by adult ideals (i.e. those of stars, teachers and leaders) in football. The theoretical framework of the study is inspired by folkloristic studies and moreover will the efficacy of a ritualistic perspective on both football and childhood be considered. The study has an ethnographic approach (observations and interviews) and the empirical material is gathered in and from schools and football-clubs in Malmö, Sweden) among children, ages 7-12.

Recension av:

Simon Bank (red) I huvudet på Zlatan Ibramhimovic 207 sidor, hft., ill. Stockholm: Scampi Förlag 2005 ISBN 91-973655-3-X

A recurring theme in critical sport studies is the issue of whether the element of competition -- measuring, comparing and ranking performances (Loland 2002) – in sports is fascistoid (Tännsjö 2000, 2001), and, whether sports constrains the potential of human movement, and its creativity, rather then enhancing it (Eichberg 2010).

In this essay, I will argue that the element of competition is vital for the creativity of movement-potential in sports. Still, the alleged ‘fascistoid’ or ‘creativity constraining’ element could be ‘hi-jacked’. As an example of this kind of hi-jacking, an autoethnographical (Chang 2008) account of my participation in recreational table-tennis will be seen through a process-philosophical lens.

Deleuze’s conceptual pair ‘minor’ and ‘major’ (Bene & Deleuze, 1979; Deleuze & Guattari, 1986) will in the essay be extended to sport. The argument is that prolonging elements in athletic contests could be understood as ‘minor sport’, which in the essay is exemplified by defensive strokes, like chops and lobs, in table-tennis. ‘Major sport’, then, is understood as equivalent with ’the structural goal of sport’, namely, to produce winners by comparing, ranking and measuring bodily performances (Loland 2002).

As a table-tennis player in the corporative/recreational series, my way of playing has rendered different conceptions among the other players, ranging from joyful to provoked. This manner could be described with ‘minor’ actions like ‘suspending the game’, ´delaying the outcome’, and ‘never having learned to smash’. When contestants are equivalent in competence and desire to win, competitions tend to produce ‘sweet tension of uncertainty of outcome’ (Loland 2002).

My way of playing is directed towards maximizing the ‘sweet tension of uncertainty’. Hereby focus is shifted from sport as context where winners are produced, towards sport as a context where ‘sweet tension’ is produced. This stance combines the benefits of both protagonists and antagonists of competition.

Denna licentiatavhandling, Klungan och barndomens sociala rum, diskuterar den samtida heterogena barndomen utifrån analyser av barns informella fotbollsspel på rasten i skolan. Det empiriska exemplet rastfotboll analyseras med begrepp som rum, genus och gränsöverskridande. Rumsanalys av rastfotbollen ger exempel på hur traditionella könshierarkier reproduceras, omformas och utmanas i löst organiserade former av idrott. Perspektiven i studien hämtas från barndomssociologi, idrottsvetenskap, kulturgeografi, filosofi och genusforskning. Barndomens komplexitet skapas av att logiker från olika sociala rum – t.ex. familj, skola och idrott – samexisterar och motsägs. Det tvärvetenskapliga angreppssättet och tillhörigheten till det flerdisciplinära forskningsprojektet Mångkontextuell barndom gör studien till ett exempel på det den avser att beskriva: gränsöverskridanden och flöden i en heterogen verklighet.

Artikeln är en etnografi över organisationsprinciperna i informella former av fotboll under rasten i skolan bland 7-12-åringar. Studiens generella genusperspektiv kompletteras av Gilles Deleuzes och Felix Guattaris rumsliga begrepp. Studien visar att det i rastfotbollen, trots dess uppenbara eller kanske snarare förmenta kaos, finns raffinerade principer för indelning av barn i två kategorier: pojkar och flickor.

Recension av Henning Eichbergs Bodily Democracy: Towards a Philosophy of Sport For All 348 sidor, inb. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge 2010 (Ethics and Sport) 

Idrott och media hör ihop som ler och långhalm. Undersökningar av sambandet mellan dessa storheter är legio, något som mängden artiklar och recensioner på idrottsforum. org vittnar om. En flitig aktör inom den nordiska medievetenskapliga idrottsforskningen, Peter Dahlén, är återigen gästredaktör för den norska idrottsvetenskapliga tidskriften Moving Bodies. Förra gången det begav sig hette numret Sport og medier medan utgåvand som är föremål för föreliggande recension bär namnet Idrettens helter. Artikelbidragen till detta nummer presenterades också i samband med 2007 års idrottshistoriska symposium i Malmö.

Olika tiders, länders och idrotters idrottshjältar analyseras i numrets tio artiklar. Fokus ligger på nordiska idrottare från slutet av 1800-talet till våra dagar. Detta imponerande tidsspann används som ett snyggt och tematiskt lyckat grepp i den kronologiska dispositionen av artiklarna. Kontrasten mellan de olika tidernas förutsättningar och anda blir övertydlig i de bilder som texterna varvas med. Jämförelsen mellan exempelvis Thorvald Ellegaards knävelborrbeprydde cyklist, som analyseras av Johnny Wøllekær, och Kari Traas halvnakna snowboardåkare, som analyseras av Peter Dahlén, åskådliggör både den moderna tävlingsidrottens utveckling, 1900-2000, och betydelseglidningar i idrottshjältebegreppet.

Issues of purity are central to modern sport, as well as to modernity in general. This paper ponders the role of purity in modern sport by also including its counterpart, hybridity, in the discussion. In sport studies, the concept of the ‘human’ is identified as something taken for granted, and therefore remains under-theorized. Bruno Latour's conception of modernity and scientific practice is here combined with Sigmund Loland's analogy between scientific experiments and sport competitions. Purity is assumed to be related to the idea of modern sport as a practice, which revolves around distilling samples of ‘humanness’ that should not be polluted by non-human interference. This paper argues that while modern sport strives to minimize non-human impact, it acknowledges the hybrid material that sport results are moulded from. The concept ‘Human’ is therefore not an a priori in modern sport but an a posteriori.

Issues of purity are central to modern sport, as well as to modernity in general. This chapter discusses the role of purity in modern sport by also including its counterpart and hybridity. It argues that while modern sport strives to minimize non-human impact, it acknowledges the hybrid material that sport results are moulded from. The chapter discusses purity in modern sport as an ontological issue. From a science and technology studies perspective, sport studies’ understanding of modern sport as a set of formalized, physical contests among human beings could be approached in many ways. If science aims to produce truths and facts about the properties of natural objects, modern sport aims to produce results, which reveal something about human performance and properties. In any event, modern sport alludes to the scientifically experimental method of producing a distilled form of pure nature, without retaining the claim that the moderns differ totally from our predecessors.

How fares the sociology of sport? How can it continue to make sense to and of its object of study and knowledge? By introducing the philosopher Roy Bhaskar as a viable option for critical scholars of sport, Graham Scambler grapples with those questions in his A critical realist theory of sports. © Kalle Jonasson 2024

Recension av Den moralske stedfortræder – og andre historier om idræt og politik, Jørn Hansen (2008).

Kritik och analys är adelsmärken i akademins systematiska frambringande av kunskap och allra helst amalgamerade i form av det ”kritiskt analytiska förhållningssättet”. Etymologiskt denoterar dessa ord gränsdragande, finfördelning och fragmentisering. Men om kunskap, i linje med vad föreliggande workshop föreslår, ska kunna vara gränslös, är vi då inte bakbundna från början när våra främsta instrument för kunskapsproduktion redan är kalibrerade för uppdelning i fack och kategorier? Denna presentation funderar över ett alternativ till denna akademins minsta gemensamma nämnare.

Vetenskapssociologen och modernitetsantropologen Bruno Latour (1993, 1998, 2005, 2010 & 2013) uppmanar oss gång på gång att finna alternativ till kritik. Han menar, tvärtemot vad akademins disciplinära beskaffenhet indicerar, att världen och verkligheten inte främst förstås som uppdelad i natur och kultur. Hybrider mellan dessa förmenta poler uppstår bortom vår blick när vi tar detta moderna påstående för givet. Just för att vi tänker oss existensen som en dikotomi på detta vis möjliggörs fler oheliga allianser, eller naturkulturer (Latour, 1993; Haraway, 2008), att uppstå; genmanipulation, kloning, global uppvärmning och nukleära tillbud är bara några exempel.

För att finna en repertoar som inte har denna utgångspunkt, vänder sig Latour till den filosofen Michel Serres, vars omsorgsfulla kartografi över i stort allt är baserad på en princip att utmana all påstådd inkommensurabilitet. Varsamhet, nyfikenhet och upptäckarlust präglar Serres strövtåg genom konstformer, vetenskap, teknologi, och idrott i det som han kallar en encyklopedisk strävan att framlägga en syntes (Serres & Latour, 1995). Just dessa anspråk – encyklopedi och syntes – gör honom till en sällsam figur i det posthumanistiska fält han skrivits in i, då denna tradition snarare vänder sig mot det omnipotenta och imperialistiska etablerandet av slika företeelser. Spänningen mellan det encyklopediska och kärleken till det lokala är en fruktbar paradox som präglar Serres och hans forskarpersona ”kunskapens trubadur”. Hemligheten är att inte upprätta fasta förbindelser mellan företeelser, utan efemära kopplingar, eller ”spårningar, inte spår” som Latour uttrycker det.  

Traceurer (Franska för spårare) kallar de som utövar förflyttningskonsten Parkour sig själva. Deras sätt att upprätta nya kopplingar mellan punkter och byggnader i stadsrummet är som en direkt översättning av Serres filosofiska kartografi. Inspirerad av filosofen Gilles Deleuze, som också verkade i Latour och Serres grannskap, skulle man kunna beskriva parkour som ett slags ”mindre arkitektur” (Jonasson, 2013), vilket för posthumanismens vidkommande medför att människan intar rollen som icke-människan som skapar (nya) förbindelser i givet kollektiv. Genom att ”spåra” mellan Michel Serres och parkourlitteratur avser denna presentation att utveckla ett ”ickekritiskt” – sammanfogande istället för sönderdelande – förhållningssätt att inta inom forskning. Själva demonstrationen – spårandet mellan Serres och Parkour – och de spårande demonstrationerna i dessas praxis skapar förutsättningar för att kunna diskutera ”konsten att spåra” som ett alternativ/komplement till det kritiskt analytiska förhållningssättet. Serres, med den grekiska guden Hermes som inspiration, söker efter en kunskapsinhämtning vars fundament har vingar på sina fötter. Det blir svårt att finna något som svarar bättre mot denna beskrivning än en traceur.

Detta paper belyser kultur~natur-temat ur ett idrottsfilosofiskt och idrottssociologiskt perspektiv. Texten behandlar det, för att vara en idrottsliknande verksamhet, relativt nyligen uppkomna kroppsliga och rörelseorienterade uttrycket Parkour–the Art of Movement.

Parkour går ut på att så snabbt och effektivt som möjligt förflytta sig genom i stort sett vilka miljöer som helst; företrädesvis, om än inte uteslutande, i offentliga utomhusmiljöer. Detta, att den går att utöva på platser som tillhör de båda förment motsatta polerna kultur och natur, skiljer ut Parkour från de flesta andra idrotter, både moderna och postindustriella sådana. Problemområdet förstås med Johan Huizingas och Roger Caillois” klassiska” lek-och spel-teorier, enligt vilka ett kollektiv springer ur sina lekar och/eller att de senare tyder på (samt reproducerar) det förra.

Främst diskuteras Parkour utifrån antropologen och vetenskapssociologen Bruno Latours teorier om” den moderna överenskommelsen”, vars nitiska uppdelning av världen i natur och kultur kommit att representera motsatsen till hållbar utveckling. Att förneka dessa polers isärhållning för vetenskapen kan ses som, vad Latour har uttryckt som, en” amodern” strävan. Detta anspråk kan också kallas posthumanistiskt. Om ett samhälle tyder på, springer ur eller reproduceras av sina idrotter, spel och lekar, bör följaktligen de moderna idrotterna granskas noggrant. Essän syftar till att diskutera idrott med Latours ”amoderna” begrepp och undersöker Parkour som en möjlig amodern idrott.

Given the focus on body and movement in physical education (PE), it is noteworthy that this particular subject has been so little discussed in relation to posthumanism. From a posthumanist perspective, body and movement could potentially be features of human existence that are able to evade the pitfalls of humanism, such as free will, intentions, logos, representation, etc. Even if meaning and symbols surely can be projected onto body and movement, they nevertheless possess dimensions not exhaustible by such cultivation.

The present text aims to outline a field of investigation performing precisely the encounter between PE and posthumanism. While a few studies within PE research (cf. Larsson & Quennerstedt, 2012) have identified posthumanism as an asset, much more need to be done. Within the nascent research field of early childhood education (ECE), posthumanism has grown exponentially more influential (cf. Palmer, 2011; Lenz Taguchi, 201X; Hultman, 2014; Änggård, 2015). Aspects of materiality, body, movement, knowledge, and play are in those studies seen from the viewpoint of the feminist philosopher Karen Barad (2007).

Sport scholars publish mainly in sport journals, hence sport doesn’t seem to make it to the fine salons of academia. Hasn’t sport really got anything to contribute with to the wider field of social studies? Sport scholars’ oeuvres and effort of applying perspectives and methodologies from their mother disciplines(sociology, history, geography, etc.) doesn’t seem to find impetus to shuttle back and inform the latters. Aren’t the general theories of social science enough reworked, and revolutionized within the social science of sport? Or, is it the connotations of pastime that holds sport back from affecting wider academic attention?

What this paper aims to do is to offer one alternative to the suggested problems of sport study’s hardships with going all the way, that is: applying general sociological theories to sport, and, from the internal logic of the same, argue why it could variegate the view of science in general. The theory applied is Bruno Latour’s (1993) notion of the moderns and their ’constitution’, according to which we in modernity have worked hard to purify the poles of nature and society. Science, foremost the ”natural” variety, has been pivotal in this process. In the paper it is argued that Latour’s theories aid to frame a picture of sport as, to a high degree, symmetrical with science. His view of scientific practice is that our definite statements of nature is produced in the laboratory. For scientific ”truths” to be legitimate, intervention of the human (f)actor must be thouroughly assessed. Scientific ”truths” ”produced” thus are certain statements of nonhuman properties.

However, in sport this is reversed. The outcomes of sport must conversely be purified of its nonhuman interference to be legitimate. A world record could not be assisted by nonhuman actors such as the wind, illegal substances or technological assets. Sport, in a much surer way than any other activity, such as social science, produces legitimate, timeless, and universal statements of what humans are.

Thus, it is argued, sport relates to the ’work of purification’ of the ’modern constitution’. Insofar as legitimate outcomes of the laboratory ought to be cherished, sport serves as a vanguard of the ’work of purification’ on the human side of the aisle. Despite its aura as pastime, sport, it is argued, has (had) a far more important function, and/or role to play in the our societies than has hitherto been acknowledged.

Sport has often been understood as a set of formalised physical contests, and moreover as something inherently modern. New conceptions of the term implicates that sport ought to comprise all physical activity. However, the studies and approaches that describe the range and tension between those positions are lacking. The thesis addresses this lacuna and suggests that the aforementioned conceptions could be inquired as the narrow (physical contest) and the broad (physical activity) understanding of sport.  The work presented in this thesis sets out to outline a theoretical and methodological framework that could comprise the different conceptions of sport. This framework is laid out with inspiration from Bruno Latour’s symmetrical anthropology. The empirical material was collected from an array of sources with a broad range of ethnographical methods. Four sporting practices (break time football, parkour, eSport, and company table tennis) that embody the tension between the broad and the narrow are inquired into in the articles. The comprehensive framework that the thesis seeks to outline takes form in shape of the different concepts (“dromography,” “minor sport,” and “the art of tracing”) constructed within the articles. It is concluded that the broad understanding of sport threatens to hollow the term. However, the narrow understanding of sport tends to downplay the material dimension of modernity. It is argued that the connection between the material and the social dimension of sport, with regards to categories such as age and gender, mustn’t be neglected in the study of sport. Furthermore, it is argued that the competitive element of modern sport is related to modern science in an unexpected way that adds new understanding to the ontology of modernity in general.  

This article concerns the use of sport as an asset of knowledge in academia. The background to this is sport’s neglected role and isolation in academia, save for in sundry sports sciences. By mapping the academic use of philosopher Michel Serres’ sport metaphors, a new perspective of the relationship between sport and science is explored. A mixed-methods approach was chosen to review the literature using Serres’ concept of the ‘quasi-object’. The findings show that the concept appeals to a wide array of disciplines within the social sciences and the humanities. The article suggests that there exists a parallel sport science in academia that flies under the radar of regular sport disciplines, a sort of ‘sport AS humanities’. This proposed ‘sportive science’ focuses on other aspects of sport than its already existing sport study counterparts. Thus, sport qua science acknowledges its topic as an asset of knowledge, not as a mirror of society. © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

I sin senaste bok «Kampen om idrættens kulturpolitik: Mere mening – mere skønhed» (Forlaget Spring) efterlyser Claus Bøje en vilja att formulera kulturpolitiska krav på idrottens utveckling, i en samling essäer som också konfronterar bristen på samtal om idrottens många kvaliteter. Kalle Jonasson är vår recensent, och hans läsning av Bøjes funderingar och ställningstaganden präglas av samsyn, respekt och förståelse, men också av en del kritisk distans. Bøje är en utmärkt stilist, menar vår recensent – och det kan sägas om honom också.

Att låta världen och inte bara människan komma till tals är ett centralt anspråk inom den så kallade posthumanismen. Föreliggande tanke- och rörelseexperiment försöker göra detta genom att spela in utsagor yttrade av en löpande kropp som rör sig på ojämn mark. Tendenser inom tillämpning av posthumanistiska perspektiv som eventuellt hindrar världen från att komma till tals identifieras och diskuteras kritiskt: fascinationen över vatten som element; användandet av Latour-litanior, d.v.s. uppräkningen av listor med heterogena beståndsdelar; bannlysningen av subjektet och det mänskliga. De analytiska begreppen är hämtade från Michel Serres så kallat ekonarrativa metod, viken syftar till att låta naturen komma till tals för att berätta sin historia. Slutsatsen är att subjektet inte bör utplånas från posthumanistiska utsagor om världen men att det alltid kommer efter det som i studien betecknas som projektet och interjektet. De senare är först på plats i kontakten med omgivningen för att höra på och bidra till dess berättelse.

Ian Buchanan’s (2014) short essay “The ephemeral coast” appears to fixate the coastline as a sort of vantage point, from which multiple worlds, realms, and logics become discernible. Interestingly, Buchanan almost immediately slips on the rocks, so to speak, and falls into the water where his initial thought is swallowed by eddies, currents, and bifurcating fluxes of water. This research-project is a serious attempt to work in the same continental tradition as Buchanan, and more precisely the posthumanist branch of it, but without going so far as to practice what Ian Bogost (2010) provokingly has labelled “Fire Hose Metaphysics”, which he thinks is a common but somewhat erroneous move of process philosophers. Water in movement is spellbinding, as is evident from Buchanan’s essay. What if were to follow the “amphibious anthropology” of Peter Sloterdijk (ten Bos, 2009)? This also amounts to upheaving the land-water binary as pointed out by Lahiri-Dutt (2014)

Epistemologically, what is at stake is the odd task of trying to give the curious posthuman, or perhaps more-than-human, being a voice. One cannot fully get rid of the paradox that posthumanist theories and methods are formulated by the same entities that called themselves human beings not long time ago. In order to do this, I will address another conceptual couplet in posthumanist thinking: the material-semiotic relation. By treading the border of land and sea, my presupposition is that I have found a good conceptual locus for pondering the divide between nature and culture, which according to Bruno Latour (1993, 2013) is an essential labour of thought today; a sustainable ontology of sorts. Rather than an explication of the relation between the material and the semiotic in this setting, what I endeavour to achieve is to urge the material surroundings to use me as a ventriloquist dummy, that is: to press a semiotic content.

I will stand on firm land, or rather: run on not so firm land. The space of Breakwaters has begun to fascinate me in a number of ways, which I aim to explore in the present study. Breakwaters form a jagged, and fractal defence against the sea: a froth of the land in its desperate attempt to avoid erosion. This could theoretically implicate that when the posthuman being is given a voice, culture and society, land and rock, could also be given a voice (that is not fully human). Equipped with an array of technological devices (cell phone, headset, GoPro, Runkeeper), I will run on the Breakwaters of the Öresund Strait and talk at the same time. The data will consist of audio and video recordings, which could be regarded as a sort of “memory writing” (Ceder, 2016) in medias res. The uneven surface and pace will ensure that I will not know fully what I will talk about prior to the event; all to trick my intentionality and in a somewhat post-Socratic manner deliver the posthuman me from the human me, and thus become the frothing voice of the land. This more-than-human testimonial will be treated as a semiotic statement evoked by the blurred materiality of breakwaters.

A review of:

Ulrik Wagner, Rasmus K. Storm & John Hoberman (red) Observing Sport: Modern System Theoretical Appoaches 282 sidor, hft. Schorndorf: Hofmann-Verlag 2010 (Reihe Sportssoziologie) ISBN 978-3-7780-3396-8

This project addresses the discussion of sport science as an unified discipline. Different attempts at unifying the study of sport will be discussed.

In this article, I conceptualize defensive playing in table tennis by analyzing it from the viewpoint of affective philosophy. The spatial and emotional aspects of the atmosphere of such play are investigated through an autoethnography of company table tennis. By using my own body as an “instrument of research” (Longhurst et al., 2008), I practically evoke and feed on the tension between modern competitive sport and “sport for all” (Eichberg, 2010). It is suggested that the defensive stance in table tennis might be seen as a trajectory toward a “minor sport”, i.e. as a mild resistance to the competitive ethos of sport. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

In this article, nonhuman poetry is explored. Departing from an autoethnographic project based on audio recordings made while running on revetments, and which  discussed how to give voice to nonhuman actors the possibilities of nonhuman poetry, this text aims at taking it one step further by extracting poetry from the material. Ethnographically, this is discussed in terms of affect, and an 'ethnography to be'. Theoretically, the study has a posthumanist approach, with a specific focus on the econarratology of philosopher Michel Serres. The method and theory are are discussed in tandem in relation to what philospher Peter Sloterdijk has coined 'amphibian anthropology'. By stacking the bracketed words in my transcriptions, four poems emerge in which background sounds, contextual descriptions, corrections and bodily sounds form the content. Each poem is accompanied by a map made from smartphone screenshots. The prose is found to be evocative of the surroundings of the recording, and also resonating with the ideas of human language as derivative of what Serres calls the Great narrative, the story of universe and nature themselves. The proximity to water and rocks discernible in the experiment is seen as a result stemming from practicing the hope-oriented 'ethnography to be'.

This paper concerns the judgement and critique of athletic movement in moving images. Inspired by the ski crash trial case of Paltrow v. Sanderson, and by comparing different media representations of downhill skiing, the essay outlines a framework that discerns as well as connects elements of movement and images, developing the concept of the ‘diorama’ in relation to Deleuze’s notion of the diagram and Kant’s idea of critique. Thus, moving images featuring elite alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin, fictional character James Bond, and an official skiing game for the international ski federation (World Cup Ski Racing, FIS) figure as comparative material to the animation that played a central role in the celebrity trial. Diorama and diagram are posited on a continuum to assess when and how judgement takes place in each of the exhibits. The essay concludes by discussing how the judging of athletic movement in moving images contributed to Paltrow winning the case, and theoretically by connecting this finding to dioramas and diagrams as tools apt for a framework aiming at the critique of athletic movement in moving images. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

In “Postscript on Societies of Control”, French philosopher Gilles Deleuze proclaimed that “Everywhere surfing has replaced the older sports”. By this, he alluded to Foucault’s thoughts on older societal regimes and power diagrams of sovereignty and discipline, and that now such models have been supplemented with governance through control and allegations of increased freedom. This article has as its point of departure the potential of sports to reflect social change. Contemporaneously to the coining of Deleuze’s surfing sentence, a new sport emerges: parkour, in which practitioners “surf” the urban realm. This practice gained attention globally when it was featured in the 2006 James Bond film Casino Royale. The analysis in this article revolves around the different ways of moving in and through the environment in the renowned parkour chase in the beginning of the movie. How do different kinds of displacement in the parkour chase of Casino Royale relate to the transition between the societies described by Deleuze, and what new adaptations emerge and what old logics and models return? It is concluded that the older forms of power prevail and that the ideal of the society of control cannot be realised. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

In “Postscript on Societies of Control”, French philosopher Gilles Deleuze proclaimed that “Everywhere surfing has replaced the older sports”. By this, he alluded to Foucault’s thoughts on older societal regimes and power diagrams of sovereignty and discipline, and that now such models have been supplemented with governance through control and allegations of increased freedom. This article has as its point of departure the potential of sports to reflect social change. Contemporaneously to the coining of Deleuze’s surfing sentence, a new sport emerges: parkour, in which practitioners “surf” the urban realm. This practice gained attention globally when it was featured in the 2006 James Bond film Casino Royale. The analysis in this article revolves around the different ways of moving in and through the environment in the renowned parkour chase in the beginning of the movie. How do different kinds of displacement in the parkour chase of Casino Royale relate to the transition between the societies described by Deleuze, and what new adaptations emerge and what old logics and models return? It is concluded that the older forms of power prevail and that the ideal of the society of control cannot be realised.

Samverkansprojektet DigiFys (Barns berättande och språkutveckling i digitala fysiska aktiviteter) syftar till att bidra till utvecklingen av digital dokumentationsteknik som ett kvalitetsarbetesinstrument i förskolan. Projektåret har kontinuerligt förlupit i och genom möten, diskussioner, konferenser, workshops, såväl fysiskt som digitalt. Kommunikationen under, inför och mellan sådana möten är projektets viktigaste beståndsdel. Ett speciellt empiriskt nedslag i projektet är samtal kring och reflektioner över teknologin som ett gränssnitt mellan olika instanser såsom förskolebarn, pedagoger, IT-ansvariga, specialpedagoger, rektorer, föräldrar och forskare. Anpassning av projektet i förhållande till externa omständigheter såsom rådande pandemi gjordes efterhand och ledde till att projektet kom att handla mer om själva samverkansmodellen än om de enskilda aktiviteterna i förskolorna som det initialt syftade till att härbärgera. Detta ledde i sig till att projektaktiviteter följde en ad hoc- struktur där validering av metoder och insikter gjordes löpande i angränsande samverkansarenor (såsom vetenskapliga seminarier, dialoger med företrädare för övningsförskolor, internationella videokonferenser, examinationsutveckling och näringslivskontakter).

Projektets nav är den utbildning som erbjuds av förskolorna i Fyllinge skolområde under ledning av rektorerna Ann-Charlotte Jönsson och Hanna Thorsell. Det var också i nära samråd med dessa ledare som projektet kom att stöpas om baserat på överläggningar, överenskommelser och beslut under tidig höst 2021. De fem förskolorna har under året deltagit i projektet som ägt rum i form av möten via videokonferens och på plats i Fyllinge i olika konstellationer. Under hösten gjordes ett antal fokusgruppsdiskussioner med framåtsyftning mot ett intensifierat reflektions- och analysarbete. Dessa dialoger fördes på åtta avdelningar på fyra olika förskolor i Fyllinge (Halmstad kommun) med 3–4 deltagande förskollärare per gång.

Preliminära resultat visar på förtjänsterna med att arbeta övergripande och gränsöver- skridande mellan akademi och skolhuvudman, framförallt face-to-face med en avdelning i taget, eftersom varje enskild avdelning och förskolas sammansättning medför variationer, utmaningar och möjligheter som gör det svårt att verka i enlighet med centrala bestämmelser om sådant som teknik och dokumentation. Att arbeta med systematiskt kvalitetsarbete via film är utmanande för många pedagoger och mötet med forskare ger inspiration i form av hur dokumentations- och analysarbete kan iscensättas på vetenskaplig grund.

Utmaningen med att arbeta i heterogena grupper, sett till de olika roller och hierarkier de är inlemmade i, är att orientera mellan teori och praktik på ett sömlöst och omsorgsfullt sätt utan att någon av de närvarande yrkesgrupperna känner sig ifrågasatta i sin profession. Riskerna är: för forskare att framstå som obegripliga och orimliga; för rektorer att framstå som dominanta; för förskollärare att framstå som inkompetenta tjänstemän och som några som sviker barnen.

För att skapa ett samtalsklimat där utbyte kan ske, ett där teori och praktik flyter samman, måste diskussioner emellertid röra sig nära dessa ”farliga” positioner. Kommunikationen och den enskilda dialogen är alltså central och vad vi avser demonstrera i denna rapport är hur den kan färdas på intrikata sätt mellan olika instanser, roller och nivåer. Ett sätt att förstå detta är att spåra hur nätverk upprättas i långa linjer där varje ny punkt som information flyttas över till också innebär en transformation (Latour, 2005). Samverkan blir från detta perspektiv något som kan beskrivas fullödigt först i efterhand. Detta illustrerar vi fortlöpande, men framförallt i en handfull narrativa analyser – d.v.s. vittnesbörd om just den specifika samverkan som präglade föreliggande projekt. I rapporten förekommer begreppen modell och ekologi vilket är andra sätt att beskriva samverkan. Tillsammans syftar dessa till att omfatta den odelbara komplexiteten i kunskapsanspråk av det slag som detta projekt tillhör.

Den vetenskapliga delen av projektet är förankrad i idén om samverkan som ett ”wicked problem” (Rittel & Webber, 1973), det vill säga ”lurigt” fenomen. Ett lurigt problem är inte synonymt med komplext, med den distinktionen att de senare kan delas upp i komponenter, vilket de förra är resistenta mot. De narrativa kursiveringarna är ett sätt att hantera denna resistens. Luriga problem uppstår när professioner mångfaldigas och genom sitt ständiga sökande att etableras, och de påföljande legitimitetsanspråk som krävs för detta, riskerar att ”förråda” de ”klienter” bland ”lekmän” som de erbjuder tjänster till.

Den här rapporten handlar om hur några förskolor arbetat med digital teknik i rörelse och förflyttning i förskolans närområde. Syftet med projektet var att undersöka vilket lärande, meningsskapande och kulturellt identitetsskapande som kan uppstå i digitala fysiska aktiviteter i förskolans verksamhet och närmiljö. Det underlag i form av filmmaterial och samtal som ligger till grund för projektets resultat har producerats av barn, förskollärare, IKT-utvecklare samt av oss forskare. Resultaten från projektet Närmiljö som lärmiljö visar exempel på hur det didaktiska arbetet med digital teknologi i förskoleverksamhet kan bedrivas där barns välmående, kommunikations- och lärandemöjligheter tas tillvara utan att göra avkall på leken.