ABSTRACT
In the preceding chapters the focus has been on the accumulation and operation of social and cultural capital, with particular reference to the contextual factors that affect these forms of capital. The analysis proffered in these chapters enhances our understanding of the relationship between non-professional forms of sport and social mobility. However, any examination of social mobility through sport, at least in its objective dimension as outlined in Chapter 1, needs to address the issue of economic capital. Even though other types of capital are not reducible to economic capital because they have their own specificity, economic capital may be viewed to be, in the final analysis, at the root of their effects (Bourdieu 1986). In this context, Loizos (2000: 141) rightly argues that while the concept of social capital is “a useful reminder that there is more to life than market or Marxist economics,” it was never part of Bourdieu’s thinking “that we should forget the priorities of economic life, and allow social relations to pretend to replace a more comprehensive social theory” (see also Fine 2001).
