ABSTRACT

The study of built environments such as gymnasiums, football stadiums, swimmimg pools and skating rinks provides unique information about the historical enclosure of the gendered and sexualised body, the body's capabilities, needs and desires. It illuminates the tensions between the globalising tendencies of sport and the importance of local culture and a sense of place.
This collection uses spatial concepts and examples to examine the nature and development of sporting practices. At a time when the importance of spacial theories and spacial metaphors to sport is being increasingly recognised, this pioneering work on the changing landscape of sporting life will appeal to students of the history, sociology and management of sport.

chapter |7 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|17 pages

Locating a ‘Sense of Place'

Space, Place and Gender in the Gymnasium

chapter 2|14 pages

Sensing the Stadium

chapter 3|18 pages

Educative Pools

Water, School and Space in Twentieth-Century France

chapter 4|16 pages

Freezing Social Relations

Ice, Rinks, and the Development of Figure Skating

chapter 6|16 pages

Putting Bodies on the Line

Marching Spaces in Cold War Culture

chapter 7|14 pages

Homebush

Site of the Clean/sed and Natural Australian Athlete

chapter 8|16 pages

Surf Lifesavers and Surfers

Cultural and Spatial Conflict on the Australian Beach 1

chapter 9|14 pages

Playing with Gravity

Mountains and Mountaineering

chapter 11|18 pages

The Space that (In)Difference Makes

(Re)Producing Subjectivities in/through Abjection – A Locker Room Theoretical Study

chapter 12|28 pages

For Pleasure? Or Profit Or Personal Health?

College Gymnasia as Contested Terrain