Abstract

Our analysis lies within the conceptual framework of a type of history which takes cultural diversities into account, if defines the place and the significance of sport in popular culture. We have called modalities the different ways of proceeding, of acting, of thinking and of conceiving things implemented by popular athletes in order to appropriate practices which are conceived and organized by others. Cultural relativism is not a simple matter of viewpoint. It is a rigorous theoretical requirement which is essential in the treatment of cultures of which the historian or the sociologist never knows the code, the grammar, or the language completely. The controlled observation of the soccer club in Voutre gives the opportunity of showing the paradigm of popular sport practice. The behaviour of soccer players is strictly determined by implicit rules which are of a structural nature. The subjection of sport practice to the rhythms of social life and to class memberships, the resistance to asceticism, to ethical requirements of seriousness and efforts imposed by any methodical learning, the oblique and partisan sportsmanship which legitimates the intervention of spectators at the very heart of practice are characteristic aspects, and its organization constitutes a model. Verf.-Referat