Short on pages, long on words

Hallgeir Gammelsæter
Molde University College

This comparatively short book comes as part of the Sport and Society Pocketbook Teaching Series which, according to the series preface, “aims to introduce students and a general readership to relevant topics, theories, and concepts within sport history and sport sociology.” The series editors’ “ethos of accessibility” is expressed in a hope that the books will make them readable “in one hour or two”. Having put down such parameters, the question is whether these aims are met.

To make a long story short, with the book containing altogether 93 pages (with references), this rather experienced reader and scholar spent in the range of four to five hours to digest its content, and at times I had the feeling the book was long and tedious. Sure, the reader gets a good grasp of what hegemony means in sport, but in my view, there is much text that could be eliminated, and the book would be better.

The issue of format versus content boils down to what the authors want to say and how. In general, I do think the authors succeed in explaining and illustrating what hegemony means and why it is an applicable concept in sport. The problem is that they want to say too much.

The introduction (pages 1-13) is mostly nice reading, briefly introducing Max Weber, Karl Marx, and Michel Foucault on their understanding of society, power, and culture, before introducing the concept of culture and tying it to the execution of power. Hegemony is basically saved for the next chapter. For a short book, I wonder if the introduction is too long. In essence, I think most readers have got an understanding of hegemony already in the introduction, taking a bit of excitement out of chapter 1.

In all fairness, readers of Hegemony and Sport will learn a lot about the topic, be they students or the general reader. However, the book puts itself in between the textbook chapter and the longer and more profound empirical study.

That chapter, “The Concept of Hegemony. Origin and Development”, covers pages 15-35. It starts with almost a full page outlining the intention and content of the chapter. The reader had just then finished more than a full page on “Book Outline” which ends the Introduction. I find these recurring efforts at carefully laying out what the book/chapter is about tedious and unnecessary in a book that is launched as a quick read. It seems that parsimony is sacrificed for a fear that the readers will find the text too complicated, and so the authors are careful to aid the reader in reading the book. This textbook-style is also reflected at the end of the chapter with two pages dedicated to Conceptual Take Aways and a list of Discussion Questions. The same manner is repeated in chapters 2 and 3. I am afraid it contributes to making a text that is too long, that lacks in stringency, and undermines the ambitions of the Teaching Series.

In terms of content, chapter 1 gives us a nice introduction to Gramsci’s notion of hegemony, and five-six pages into the chapter I assume the targeted readership has achieved a good understanding of the concept of hegemony and its relationship with culture and power. The rest of the chapter is dedicated to application of the concept. This is a more mixed experience, revolving around gender, hegemonic masculinity, and hegemonic regimes in sport. The latter reads as an interception that sits poorly with the sections on gender and hegemonic masculinity. Those sections work better, but as this is the topic of chapter 2, I think the authors repeat the fault made in the introduction: they take some of the blood out of the subsequent chapter.

Chapter 2, “Hegemonic Masculinity and Team Sports”, is the best part of the book. Here the gendering of sport is nicely introduced, and not least well illustrated by drawing on some longitudinal ethnographic studies by one of the authors. The chapter contains no detours but is concentrated and provides voice to both male and female athletes.

Chapter 3, “Sport Governance and the Hegemony of Wada”, does not live up to the standard in the previous chapter. It uses WADA as an illustration of hegemony in sport governance, more specifically anti-doping. It is in large part descriptive and works as an illustrative example of hegemony in sport, but it is not very exciting. One is left with the impression that the effectiveness of WADA is overstated and that the authors invoke a critical, yet obscure, stance to WADA’s hegemony. After all, hegemonies should be viewed with suspicion. Unfortunately, this hinders the treatment of an interesting question: whether hegemony is necessary and functional (even within a cultural frame), not least in sport where a level playing field is seen as a requirement for competition to be meaningful. Enforcing anti-doping is legitimized in this context.

In addressing the issue of hegemony and change, the chapter picks up the Rodchenkov Act passed in the USA in 2019, presenting it as a challenge to WADA’s global authority. The Rodchenkov Act states that the US authorities can go after doping conspirators in any sport competition where US interests are represented, even outside US territory. While this case is relevant, the precursor to the Act, the 2015–16 Russian anti-doping crisis and the subsequent debate around IOC and its relationship with WADA is not discussed, and only briefly mentioned. This is a pity, because it would depict WADA as a more fragile regulation authority and provide basis for a better discussion on hegemony and change in sport.

In all fairness, readers of Hegemony and Sport will learn a lot about the topic, be they students or the general reader. However, the book puts itself in between the textbook chapter and the longer and more profound empirical study. The question is if this book format fills a demand or adds value to those other outlets out there. Measured against its own parameters, I am not convinced by this exemplar. In much of the book, the text flow tends towards being repetitive, inessential, and therefore tiresome. With a more parsimonious writing style and elimination of sections that do not strictly add any value, the ambition of a “one-to-two-hour” book might be realistic, although I would suggest the Series editors aim for a length that do not compete with neither textbook chapters nor easily accessible web pages or the more recent challenger, AI chatbot synopses. In any case, the length of the book is inferior to the authors’ ability to draw the readers into their scholarly universe. In this respect, Hegemony and Sport succeeds only partly.

Copyright © Hallgeir Gammelsæter 2023