ABSTRACT
This chapter explains interpretive sociology within the larger field of sociology, and focuses on the two main expressions of interpretive sociology in the sociology of sport: hermeneutic analyses and ethnographic analyses. The critical turn in North American and British sociology saw an increasing emphasis on power and the constraining features of social structure, even in the interpretive approaches to sociology. The contemporary (pre)dominance of hermeneutic research in the sociology of sport is likely a consequence of the widespread availability of readily accessible data, the relative ease of analysis, and other academic trends and pressures. Some of the more striking hermeneutic research in the sociology of sport is grounded in the recognition that media construct frames, employing stereotypes to assign events to categories and failing to capture the complexity of individuals and events. Hermeneutic analyses have been used in large-scale cross-cultural studies incorporating the complexities of race, gender, and international relations.
