ABSTRACT
Where Chapter 4 has focused on the social logic that structures the “outer body” – its size, shape and perceptible features – while Chapter 5 has tackled the social norms governing the “inner body” – its needs, compulsions and repulsions – then this chapter will aim to trace the social rules that govern the particular uses of the body, its movements, postures and gestures. It will do so by examining the way in which differences in social position and trajectory structure the more playful uses of the body as expressed in this particular case by the preferences for different types of sports. In fact, unlike other forms of leisure, such as reading a novel, attending a play or watching a movie, in which individuals largely participate in what Defrance calls a ‘mimetic reality’, sports are a special type of pastime in that they ‘situate the practitioner (amateur) in a physical action which engages the body in its entirety and exposes it to the forces, frictions and inertia of the physical world’ (2003: 49). Instead of providing the type of detached, Platonic enjoyment that accompanies the appropriation of symbolic goods, sports imply a total engagement of the body with all the risks, pleasures and pains this implies. By studying how sports transform the body into a ‘highly restricted medium of expression’, it should be possible, as Mary Douglas suggests, to shed further light on the social pressures that it undergoes.
