Everyday Masculinities and Extreme Sport doc

[...]... in sport has been confined to young men in mainstream organized sports Non-mainstream or marginalized sports have been neglected But, this is steadily changing and, as Everyday Mascu master:Open Fire 22 12/8/08 09:46 Page 22 Everyday Masculinities and Extreme Sport noted in the Introduction, there have been an increasing number of works that seek to expand the study of ‘new sports’ or ‘life style’ sports... sport climbing, competition climbing, big wall climbing and soloing, for example, as a diversifying and rapidly changing sport Everyday Mascu master:Open Fire 12/8/08 09:46 Page 13 Introduction 13 IMAGE AVAILABLE ON HARD COPY Figure 1 Soloing: Joe Picalli, The Knock, Burbage Edge Photographer: Seb Grieve Everyday Mascu master:Open Fire 14 12/8/08 09:46 Page 14 Everyday Masculinities and Extreme Sport. .. the sport can also be seen to be spatially fluid Throughout this volume, I compare the experiences and sporting practices of my participants with others in diverse, alternative sports My main aim in carrying out the research that informs this book was to explore (extreme) sporting masculinities in everyday contexts To realize this, I Everyday Mascu master:Open Fire 4 12/8/08 09:46 Page 4 Everyday Masculinities. .. introduced: masculinities in transition’ and ‘mundane extremities’ Extreme Sports Wheaton (2000a and 2000b, 2004b, 2005, 2007) defines lifestyle or extreme sports as non-aggressive activities though embracing of risk and danger, as usually individualistic in form or attitude and predominantly white, middle-class and Western in composition However, there are differences between some of these sports in... Page 24 Everyday Masculinities and Extreme Sport Transformatory Sporting Masculinities Schutz’s (1973) argument that social reality is constantly reconstructed through the everyday actions of individuals, informs this study of everyday cultures by considering climbers as reflexive actors involved in the creation of diverse, fluid and contradictory identities The analysis illuminates the ordinary and extraordinary... certain contexts, such as at home, at work and simultaneously in sporting sites, despite the relatively recent proliferation of theorizing on men and masculinities and this study draws on empirical data to address this absence To achieve this, I have drawn out differences between men (and between women and men) in how they think about, and practice, extreme sports How masculinity is ‘done’ is, as I... the organization of diversity and not uniformity: ‘(n)ew sports Everyday Mascu master:Open Fire 12/8/08 09:46 Introduction Page 3 3 such as windsurfing, hand-gliding and snowboarding have emerged and extreme sports” have become the cutting edge for some devotees of peak experiences’ (Maguire 1999: 87) Further, within globalization, Maguire sees the existence of extreme sports as evidence of resistance... Photographer: Seb Grieve Everyday Mascu master:Open Fire 12/8/08 09:46 Page 15 Introduction IMAGE AVAILABLE ON HARD COPY Figure 3 Ice climbing: Seb Grieve, Scotland Photographer unknown 15 Everyday Mascu master:Open Fire 16 12/8/08 09:46 Page 16 Everyday Masculinities and Extreme Sport IMAGE AVAILABLE ON HARD COPY Figure 4 Sport climbing: Neil Bentley, Mecca, Raven’s Tor Photographer: Seb Grieve Everyday Mascu... Masculinities and Extreme Sport investigated how the sport of rock climbing is experienced and practised at the everyday level The everyday world of male rock climbers that I have documented has been explored in this study as a ‘largely taken for granted world that remains clandestine, yet constitutes what Lefebvre calls the “common ground” or “connective tissue” of all conceivable human thoughts and activities’... traditional masculinity, and the challenges of new masculinities in the contexts of nonmainstream sports, especially rock climbing, that fundamentally concern this book Chapter 2 will therefore initially explore how a range of extreme, or new sports, have been conceptualized and defined It will also consider how such extreme sports might allow for the possibility of transformatory masculinities and gender relations . organization of diversity and not uniformity: ‘(n)ew sports 2 Everyday Masculinities and Extreme Sport Everyday Mascu master:Open Fire 12/8/08 09:46 Page 2 such as windsurfing, hand-gliding and snowboarding. an extreme sport effect men’s everyday sporting experiences and agency?  How do sporting risks taken by men connect to their performances of mas- culinities? 4 Everyday Masculinities and Extreme. Everyday Masculinities and Extreme Sport Everyday Mascu master:Open Fire 12/8/08 09:46 Page i For Colin Gibberd and his son, Fast Eddie Everyday Mascu master:Open Fire 12/8/08 09:46 Page ii Everyday