ABSTRACT

The theoretical perspective which underlies this book is that of figurational or process sociology, which has grown out of the work of Norbert Elias (1897-1990). For the most part, this perspective has been used here implicitly in order to limit the more explicitly theoretical aspects of the book and thus make it as accessible as possible to those who have an interest in sport but who do not have a grounding in sociological theory. I have, therefore, not thought it necessary to describe in detail the central organising concept of figurational sociology-unsurprisingly, the concept of figuration itself-or the closely related concepts of interdependency ties and power balances or power ratios. Similarly, I have not thought it necessary to describe how Elias’s concept of figuration helps us to overcome some of the problems associated with traditional and unhelpful dichotomies in sociology, such as those between the ‘individual’ and ‘society’, or ‘social structure’ and ‘social change’. This has been done elsewhere (Murphy et al., 2000, forthcoming). Readers who wish to find out more about Elias’s general sociological work might usefully consult the excellent works by Mennell (1992) and van Krieken (1998), while those who wish to find out more about how figurational or process sociology and, in particular, Elias’s work on civilising processes, have been applied to sport might look at any of the sport-related works by Elias and/or Dunning listed in the bibli-ography to this book. However, it may be helpful to say something about two aspects of Elias’s work on which I have drawn explicitly and which provide two of the integrating themes for this book. These are the concepts of involvement and detachment, and Elias’s view of the role of the sociologist as a destroyer of myths.