ABSTRACT
Chapter 9 tries to come closer to a method for the analysis of play, to configurational analysis. The mainstream discourse identifies – more or less – sport with play and game and describes sport as just a modernized extension of play or as a universal phenomenon that has existed since the Stone Age or the ancient Greek Olympics. However, before 1800, people were involved in a richness of play and games, competitions, festivities, and dances, which to large extent have disappeared or were marginalized, suppressed, and replaced by sport. Configurational analysis as a procedure of differential phenomenology can help to analyze sport as a specific modern game, which produces objectified results through bodily movement. Configurational analysis casts light not only on the phenomenon of sport, but also on play, movement, and body culture more generally – and on what we call production.
