Critiquing sport : policies and practices

• Main Author: McDonald, Ian
• Published: University of Brighton 2007
• Subjects: 306.4
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.486668

How do sport policies and practices work to sustain social relations of power and give succour to dominant ideologies? What are the limits and possibilities of sport in providing an alternative and an oppositional vision of cultural politics aild practice? Addressing these questions has been an enduring aim of the critical sociology of sport over the past thirty years. The research upon which this PhD by publication is based can be situated in this critical sociology of sport tradition. In different empirical contexts, drawing on varied (primarily qualitative) methodological approaches, and using diverse conceptual frameworks, my research has been oriented to the problematic of sport, social reproduction and transformation. \. I am not uncritical of the critical sociology of sport. This PhD overview represents a critique of this critical sociology of sport. Focusing on the limitations of the dominant interpretations of Marxist theorising, a distinctive theoretical position described as radical critique is outlined. It is a position that is premised on the irreformability of capitalism's fundamental structures on the one hand (hence the need for social revolution), while acknowledging the social significance of sport on the other (hence the necessity for an engaged critique of sport). It is a position that emerges out of the disjuncture between the revolutionary kernel of Marxist theory and the non-revolutionary history of sport as a social practice. The PhD overview is divided into three substantive sections. After the introduction and a commentary on methodological issues, the first section provides an overview of critique and focuses on the development of critical sociology and its relationship to political intervention. The second section focuses on disciplinary issues and traces the place of Marxism in the critical sociology of sport and outlines the distinctive approach that encapsulates the body of works submitted, namely radical critique. The third section is a commentary on the publications submitted and exemplifies to a greater or lesser extent the radical critique of sporting policies and practices.