The everyday makeup of contemporary sport is increasingly characterised by a perceived explosion of 'deviance' - violence, drug taking, racism, homophobia, misogyny, corruption and excess. Whereas once these behaviours may have been subject to the moral judgments of authority, in the face of dramatic socio-cultural change they become more a matter of populist consumer gaze.
In addressing these developments this book provides a new and insightful approach toward the study of 'deviance' in the realm of sport.
New Perspectives in Sport and 'Deviance' awakens the sociology of sport to the possibilities of re-imagining 'deviance' and offers an evocative approach which will appeal both to academics and students in the field of sociology of sport and sociology of deviance.
Blackshaw and Crabbe (both social and cultural studies in sport, Sheffield Hallam U.) provide a sociological analysis of the relationship between sport and deviance. Deviance in sport is no longer functional or dysfunctional, as generally perceived in the sociology of sport literature, they say, but is by definition necessarily and inevitably consumptive and performative. That is, deviance is not the work of monsters or deviants, but more often the ways in which individuals choose to accessorize themselves. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
