Defamiliarizing heavy-contact sports: A critical examination of rugby, discipline, and pleasure
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Citation
Export citationPringle, R. (2009). Defamiliarizing heavy-contact sports: A critical examination of rugby, discipline, and pleasure. Sociology of Sport Journal, 26(2), 211-234.
Permanent Research Commons link: https://hdl.handle.net/10289/3410
Abstract
Pleasure can be regarded as a productive force in the constitution of the social sig-nificance of sport and desiring sport subjects. The organization and use of sport plea-sure has been a relatively marginalized topic of examination. To promote and examine sport pleasure, I conducted semistructured interviews with seven passionate rugby players. Transcripts were analyzed via Foucauldian theorizing and revealed the inter-twined workings of technologies of dominance and self in the constitution of rugby pleasures. As a strategy to defamiliarize and disrupt habitual and uncritical accep-tance of rugby aggression, I argued that rugby pleasures were akin to sadomasochism. Rugby can be understood as a taboo-breaking game associated with transparent rela-tions of power connected with the pleasure induced from physical domination and the fear of pain.
Date
2009Type
Publisher
Human Kinetics, Inc
Rights
This article has been published in the journal: Sociology of Sport Journal. Used with permission.
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