Abstract

Drawing upon a review of related literature, our primary purpose in this paper is to outline and highlight the socially significant aspects of the body, with particular reference to active sport participation. First, we begin with an overview of social studies of the body during the past decade. Second, we focus on the social import of a variety of body techniques developed and displayed in sport situations. Third, we center attention on the self-control and the social control of the body in sport via institutionalized ideological and material constraints. Fourth, we address how sporting fields are contested terrains for the sociocultural construction, embodiment, and experienced meaning of class, gender, and race. Fifth, we review research concerning body politics and sport in modernity and postmodernity in the context of consumer culture. Verf.-Referat