New Perspectives on Sport and 'Deviance': Consumption, Peformativity and Social Control

New Perspectives on Sport and Devianceexamines a significant contradiction in our way of thinking about contemporary sport. On one side, there is a growing awareness of behavior that is judged to be deviant or outside the frameworks of 'normal' sporting practice, such as drug taking, violence, corruption, cheating, racism, homophobia and sexual abuse. On the other side, there exists a tendency within sporting, political and popular discourses to regard sport as an activity that is conferred with a whole series of positive attributes, a view that conceives sport as an unquestionably positive force in terms of individual and social development. In this systematic assessment of deviance in sport, the authors employ innovative theoretical approaches, building on Foucauldian notions of a 'normalizing gaze,' to reveal the ways in which deviant behaviors are defined, and inclusive and exclusive practices are policed, within specific sporting cultures.

Tim Crabbe is a Reader in Social and Cultural Studies in Sport at Sheffield Hallam University.