Anthropology in Sporting Worlds

To do anthropology in a sporting world, one must reckon with the digital. As digital technologies become more widespread and increasingly sophisticated, people develop new ways to use them when playing, watching, teaching, and learning sport. This volume adds to the growing literature in the Anthropology of Sport by framing key debates in the light of this digital context. More importantly, the authors articulate how apparently trivial contexts such as sport are crucial for exploring the ways human beings incorporate digital technologies in their everyday lives.

From taekwondo in Argentina to horse-riding in Morocco, the contributors to this volume explore a diverse range of sports across a variety of global locales. Through insightful ethnography, they show how fundamental elements of sport, including movement, competition, relationships, and values are increasingly mediated...  by digital technologies. Whether it is Sri Lankan cricketers analysing their practice frame-by-frame, English youth swimmers curating their Instagram feeds, or women footballers navigating urban spaces safely in Brazil, such examples provide a clear indication of the diverse relationships that exist between sport and the digital. Throughout, the authors reflect on issues of epistemology, representation, collaboration, and ethics as they consider the implications these relationships have for undertaking anthropological work. This discussion reveals how the fundamental relationship between anthropologist and interlocutor continues to change in the digital age.

This book will be of interest to both students and scholars in anthropology and the social sciences, including sociology, sports sciences, cultural studies, geography, and history. The nuanced yet accessible discussion of method will be particularly useful to students preparing to undertake ethnographic work, while the substantial contribution to theoretical debates will aid researchers exploring sport and/or the digital. The international scope of this volume, combined with the broad scope of the arguments therein, ensure a wide appeal for many readers.
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Sean Heath is an MSCA Postdoctoral Fellow in Anthropology at KU Leuven. He has carried out extensive research amongst swimmers in the UK, Canada, and Norway. His previous research has examined the sensory aspects of sociality and the construction of identity in club swimming and how these affect youths’ well-being. His current research explores how relational notions of well-being in blue spaces, in experiences in outdoor environments, yield new insights into environmental politics, sensory knowledge, and the cultural values of water and recreation.

Ben Hildred is an ESRC Postdoctoral...  Fellow in Anthropology at Durham University. His research examines the potential of cricket for reconciliation in post-civil war Sri Lanka. His broader interests include the Anthropology of Sport, social change, rhetoric, Sport for Development and Peace (SDP), phenomenology and anthropology of the tacit, including visual and multi-sensorial approaches.

Henrike Neuhaus holds a Doctorate in Visual Anthropology from Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. Her research explores dimensions and tropes of ethics of care and caring relationships in the realm of martial arts practice. She is an associate lecturer at the University of Buenos Aires teaching documentary practice. She facilitates methods courses that focus on both visual and multimodal approaches in the UK and Argentina.

Thomas F. Carter is a Reader in Anthropology at the University of Brighton. His research interests include the relationships between the individual and the state, the movement, migrations, and mobilities of various peoples, the politics of spectacle, the dialectic relations of spatialized embodiment. He was a co-author of the seminal 'Anthropology of Sport' (U California Press). His latest book 'On Running and Becoming Human' (Palgrave Macmillan 2018) explores questions regarding the importance of movement towards being and becoming through the interlocutions of mind, body, and environment.
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sport anthropology, anthropological ethnography, digital ethnography, ethnographic methods, participant observation, sociology of sport, qualitative methodology, research ethics, Sport for Development and Peace, Visual anthropology, organizational ethnography, apprenticeship, film, ethnographic documentary