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SOCIAL DIFFERENCE IN SPORT 161

intimate relationships with women and with on them for loyalty and total commitment to
other men’. a club (Robidoux, 2001: 191).
While much work has been done on
gender, other social categories are also essen-
tialized by competitive sport. This is true of
‘racial’categories. Without being able to give THE DIVERSITY OF RELATIONS TO
a full account of the rich body of work COMPETITION
available on the question, we can point out
that competitive sport fosters a naturalization Without discounting the problems generated
of social behaviour in several ways: through by competitive sport and its spectacles,
a racialized perception of competitive sport researchers influenced by ‘cultural studies’
fed by an ostensibly ‘scientific’ discourse approaches or by ethnographic research have
(scientism) (Coakley, 2003); through the observed a diversification of sports culture.
media which convey racial stereotypes by Their work has attested to a much more com-
recalling clichés about the physical abilities plex and varied vision of sports. Many of
of black athletes, the psychological qualities these authors, including some feminists,
of white athletes and the tactical talents were inspired by Gramsci (1971). The idea
of Asian athletes (McCarthy and Jones, that dominant groups impose their hegemony
1997; Tokiharu Mayeda, 1999); through by ideology and political and cultural prac-
sports organizations, clubs in particular, tices has been influential in the sociology of
which promote racial discrimination in sport. While Gramsci underscores the impo-
play or in the allocation of positions of sition of norms and processes of reproduc-
responsibility in professional teams (coach, tion, he also notes a certain instability and
administrator, etc.) (Smith and Leonard, complexity of practices, particularly owing
1997). to the relative autonomy of grass-roots social
Other authors have shown how, contrary to groups.
the idealization of competitive sport as an Similarly, Gruneau (1983) has concluded
important factor in the promotion of self- that one cannot approach sports as a stable
esteem and personal development, socializa- and uniform social praxis. His neo-Marxist
tion through competition can result in analyses of sporting practices in Canada is
isolation. Sparkes (2004: 409) illustrates informed by the work of the Birmingham
such effects of competition well through an School. He uses the concept of hegemony to
analysis of the case of Lance Armstrong, analyze the singularities of modern sport and
who asserted that ‘the things that were show that sport is not merely a space for the
important to people in Plano were becoming maintenance of hegemony: it also constitutes
less and less important to me. School and a space for dispute. In its combination of crit-
socializing were second to me now; develop- ical Marxism and cultural studies, the work
ing into a world-class athlete was first’. This of J. E. Heargreaves (1986) shows that, while
social isolation can, of course, produce sporting culture may reproduce the social
excellent sports results, but existential suffer- order, it is not a rigid mechanism. Cultural
ing too. Economic pressures on competition hegemony results from the continuous effort
limits the autonomy of athletes and empha- of dominant classes to maintain their pre-
sizes the instability of their social situation. eminence, but this should not let us ignore
Certain very visible organizations take the complexity of the social order and of the
charge of athletes, but the construction of processes of dissent by the dominated classes
self-identity becomes problematical, espe- themselves – their processes of resistance to,
cially because of the contradictions inherent rejection of and re-appropriation of dominant
in the juxtaposition of the instability of ath- practices. In these iterations, sport and sport-
letes’ social situations and the demands made ing competition do not boil down to a simple