Fredagen den 3 maj 2013, klockan 13.00, i Orkanens sal D222, lägger mångåriga forummedarbetaren Kalle Jonasson vid Institutionen för idrottsvetenskap, Malmö högskola, fram sin doktorsavhandling “med tillstånd av utbildningsvetenskapliga fakulteten vid Göteborgs universitet för vinnande av doktorsexamen i idrottsvetenskap”.
Avhandlingen, som producerats inom ramen för Nationella forskarskolan i idrottsvetenskap, är av sammanläggningstyp och innehåller följande delar:
- Jonasson, K. (2010). Klungan och barndomens sociala rum: socialt gränsarbete och figurationer i rastfotbollen. Licentiatavhandling Malmö : Malmö högskola, Lärarutbildningen, 2010. Malmö.
- Jonasson, K. (2011). Ett alternativ till kritik?: om parkour, Michel Serres och “konsten att spåra”. I Kulturstudier, kropp och idrott : perspektiv på fenomen i gränslandet mellan natur och kultur. (s. 147-166).
- Jonasson, K., & Thiborg, J. (2010). Electronic sport and its impact on future sport. Sport in Society, 13, 2, 287-299. DOI:10.1080/17430430903522897
- Jonasson, K. (under review). Competitive atmospheres: Toward a minor sport. Emotion, space and society.
Kappan finns tillgänglig i fulltext här: https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/32446/2/gupea_2077_32446_2.pdf
Fakultetsopponent är professor Sigmund Loland, Norges idrettshøgskole och betygsnämnden utgörs av professor Bo Carlsson, Malmö högskola, docent Marie Öhman, Örebro universitet, och docent Mikael Lindfelt, Åbo Akademi. Kalles huvudhandledare har varirt professor Susanna Hedenborg, och bilhandledare Dr. Kutte Jönsson.
Abstract
In the social study of sport, sport is often understood as a set of formalised competitive physical cultural practices. This notion of sport tends to be associated with modernity. In the thesis this notion is referred to as the narrow understanding of sport. However, emergent perspectives of sport both inside and outside of academia have proposed to widen the term to comprehend all kinds of physical activity. The tension of the broad and narrow understanding of sport poses a challenge, since scholars of the subject aren’t able to communicate clearly what their discipline is about. Furthermore, the concept of modernity has been extensively questioned in contemporary theory, which then also poses a challenge to the notion of modern sport.
This thesis deals with sport as a subject of cultural and social study, and as a notion oscillating between the broad and narrow definitions of the term. The aim of the thesis is to outline a framework that can harbour the different notions of sport. By means of symmetrical anthropology, i.e. a diverse set of theories and methods that questions the absolute difference between the modern collective and other collectives, the present thesis sought to improve the understanding of sport as a cultural and social phenomenon. Four different sports (break time football, parkour, eSport, and company table tennis), which embody the tension between sport as physical activity and sport as physical contest were inquired with an array of ethnographical methods.
The present thesis demonstrates that the broad understanding of sport threatens to hollow the term. However, the narrow understanding of sport tends to downplay the material dimension of modernity. Thus, different concepts, with the aim to explore and assess both the material and the competitive properties of physical cultural practices, are constructed and laid out in the thesis. Furthermore, the connection between the material and the social dimension of sport, with regards to categories such as age and gender, is discussed. It is argued that the competitive element of modern sport has a hitherto unexplored dimension, which is illuminated by relating it to another decisive practice in modern collectives: science. This association is explored by drawing on an analogy between sport competitions and scientific experiments.
Sammanfattning
Sport has often been understood as a set of formalised physical contests, and moreover as something inherently modern. New conceptions of the term implicates that sport ought to comprise all physical activity. However, the studies and approaches that describe the range and tension between those positions are lacking. The thesis addresses this lacuna and suggests that the aforementioned conceptions could be inquired as the narrow (physical contest) and the broad (physical activity) understanding of sport. The work presented in this thesis sets out to outline a theoretical and methodological framework that could comprise the different conceptions of sport. This framework is laid out with inspiration from Bruno Latour’s symmetrical anthropology. The empirical material was collected from an array of sources with a broad range of ethnographical methods. Four sporting practices (break time football, parkour, eSport, and company table tennis) that embody the tension between the broad and the narrow are inquired into in the articles. The comprehensive framework that the thesis seeks to outline takes form in shape of the different concepts (“dromography,” “minor sport,” and “the art of tracing”) constructed within the articles. It is concluded that the broad understanding of sport threatens to hollow the term. However, the narrow understanding of sport tends to downplay the material dimension of modernity. It is argued that the connection between the material and the social dimension of sport, with regards to categories such as age and gender, mustn’t be neglected in the study of sport. Furthermore, it is argued that the competitive element of modern sport is related to modern science in an unexpected way that adds new understanding to the ontology of modernity in general.
