ABSTRACT
We concluded the previous chapter with a discussion of Robert Putnam’s interpretation of ‘social capital’ in relation to sport.We commence this chapter with further consideration of Putnam, looking more into the cultural implications for sport that appear in Bowling Alone (2000). In the previous chapter we were interested chiefly in developing a position on sport and public life via an engagement with American social commentators, including Putnam. In this chapter we are interested in further developing our understanding of the cultural status of sport, more specifically how we might discursively locate sport within popular culture. We noted early on in the last chapter that the notion of democracy underlies the debate about culture within American intellectualism.This applies very much to Putnam, whose negative prognostications on cultural life in the United States are explicitly related to a decline in civic engagement and political interest. For Putnam a healthy democratic polity depends on people being actively involved in public affairs, not only taking an interest in politics but pursuing active involvement in community matters at the local level, in one way or another.This might involve a formal community engagement with sport as a participant or in an organisational capacity. For Putnam, then, the political merges into the cultural and the activity of people is vital for both political and cultural life.
