Ethnographies in Sport and Exercise Research

Gyozo Molnar, Laura Purdy, Gyozo Molnar, Laura Purdy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317744559
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Research & Methodology
• Index: Social Sciences

Ethnography has become an important method for researching and interpreting the social world, not least in the field of sport and exercise studies. Ethnographies in Sport and Exercise Research is the first book to provide a contemporary overview of the current state of ethnographic research and its application within sport and exercise, introducing and explaining a range of well-established and emerging ethnographic approaches.

Featuring a heavyweight line-up of sport and exercise researchers, the book is divided into three parts. The first considers the methodological and theoretical aspects of ethnographic research, including:

• a history of ethnography in sport and exercise research
• the definition of the ethnographic field
• methods of gathering ethnographic data
• methods of representing ethnographic research.

In the second part of the book, a series of chapter-length case studies, spanning sports from boxing to fell running and themes from gender to fandom, demonstrate the challenges and rewards of ethnographic research in the context of sport and exercise, helping students and researchers to develop a solid understanding of qualitative research at both a theoretical and a practical level. The final part of the book considers future directions for ethnographic research, including an evaluation of its place in the expanding field of study in sport management.

A comprehensive assessment of the statement of ethnographic research in sport, Ethnographies in Sport and Exercise Research is invaluable reading for any research methods course taken as part of a degree programme in sport and exercise, and a useful reference for all active researchers.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Gyozo Molnar and Laura G. Purdy

This is a brief introduction to what we believe is an intriguing, intellectually stimulating and inspirational collection of essays in the area of sport and exercise research. The extensive growth of the field of sport and exercise ethnography in the last decade is evidenced by the wide range of contributions and contributors to this anthology. Given ethnography’s continuously mounting importance as a strategy and method of researching and interpreting the social world, we felt that there was an emerging need for a contemporary overview on the current state of ethnography and its application within sport and exercise. The majority of previous accounts considering the fields of sport and exercise ethnography either have focused on a specific topic – e.g., women, culture and exercise; ethnographies of injury and risk or evolutionary explanations of human performance – or have provided only a tokenistic account of the potential array of ethnographic approaches within sport and exercise. While these writings have merit in their own right, contemporary ethnography has diffused; has become richer in terms of data production, interpretation, representation and theoretical engagement. Although Robert Sand’s (2002) seminal (though somewhat hagiographic) work may still serve as a good starting point to learning the basics about the trade, we now have access to the writings of scholars who have immersed themselves in many of the spheres of sport or exercise. However, as always seems to be the case, the field of sport and exercise studies is a late-bloomer in terms of letting itself be inspired by what we may refer to as the qualitative and ethnographic turn (Hughson & Hallinan, 2001). Whilst, by and large, we were still preoccupied with the actual nature and applicability of ethnography, in the mainstream social sciences, talks were already emerging around novel forms of this approach to research (see Goodall, 2000). In the spirit of embracing innovative forms of ethnography and creating a platform for raising and discussing recurring methodological as well as practical challenges, we aimed to focus on constructing a collection of essays which draws attention to considerably novel methodological implications, illustrative case studies and the inherent potential for a reality-congruent understanding of sport and exercise via ethnography.

The book has two main objectives, the first of which is to provide a current and accessible key source on the practical and methodological features of well-established and emerging ethnographic approaches in sport and exercise. Second, this book aims to serve to be a tour d’horizon of using ethnography in sport and exercise research, thereby filling a gap in the existing literature and providing a novel, analytical and contemporary collection of essays written by emerging as well as established researchers in this field. Our main goal is to provide clear accounts of ethnographic perspectives by explaining them in the contemporary world and showcasing their application through specific case studies. In doing so, the book will be a valuable companion to help students and academics in their quest for building a solid methodological foundation which, in turn, enable them to get better acquainted with qualitative research both at theoretical as well as practical levels.

Book content: increasing presence of ethnography in sport and exercise

The anthology begins with a historical overview of using ethnography in sport-focused research. Carrie Dunn and John Hughson pay heed to the significance of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in the emergence of football hooligan subculture research. They acknowledge the initial significance of the Leicester School in their covert participant observation of football fans and provide a critical insight into these early studies. One of the major critiques directed at the Leicester School was their lack of ethnographic self-immersion, which later studies aimed to address. Influenced by Paul Willis’s seminal work, in-depth ethnographic studies were carried out in the 1990s centring on young male extreme fans’ life world. Whilst football fan culture remained a central part of sport ethnography (e.g. Sugden, 2002), other areas of sport and exercise subcultural investigation began to emerge, including exercise (Spielvogel, 2003), skating (Rand, 2012), boxing (Wacquant, 2004), etc. Dunn and Hughson also direct our attention towards an on-going debate and tension between field research and ever-increasing institutional ethics scrutiny. The point raised, and, perhaps for the reader to ponder upon, is the potential danger of overly cautious ethics committees and procedures marginalising ethnographic-type field research. Dunn and Hughson note that “A prevailing ‘medical model’ approach to ethical evaluation within universities compounds the problem of over scrutiny for much of the research in social science and humanities areas.” Ethnographic studies following a flexible and reflective approach to research are in a particularly vulnerable position because the possible risks to the researcher working in the field may not be as foreseeable as with more structured, linear forms of research. Consequently, it may be considered credible and significant to ponder upon the long-term contribution and sustainability of ethnography to research in sport and exercise.

As noted above, conducting field research is not without its challenges. In fact, it may be perceived as the most challenging aspect of conducting ethnographic work. Signalling the pertinence of the empirical phase of ethnography, multiple chapters in this volume discuss various aspects of collecting primary data and self-immersion in subcultural settings. Pirkko Markula’s chapter provides an insightful, informative as well as theoretically robust account of fieldwork carried out in the fitness world. Specific focus is given to some of the dilemmas ethnographers encounter when choosing and entering the field. Firstly, with the help of Bourdieu, Markula defines the field as a culturally diverse terrain where the interactions of social agencies can be examined via a theory-informed ethnographic approach. Then she introduces different approaches that other ethnographers have successfully adopted to define and explore the field. One particularly interesting discussion is centred on ‘field trouble’ which points out that only a few ethnographers of fitness have acknowledged challenges when entering the field. While this process may appear trouble free given that “anyone can join a gym” – Markula notes – to do ethnography in fitness requires more than paying monthly membership dues. Here the relevance of ethical approval and gatekeepers re-emerges. Given that in most countries ethical clearance is a basic prerequisite of any primary data collection and, thus, formal approval from a gatekeeper is of the essence, it is of significance to acknowledge how their presence might have influenced the development of data collection strategies.

While gaining and negotiating access to the field is an unavoidable challenge in ethnographic research, so is self-immersion. For the sake of understanding the field and rich data collection, an ethnographer often has to make some tough, potentially life-altering choices to be able to carry out participant observation. In doing so, the researcher may have to put his/her body on the line to become an instrument of data collection. The next chapter, written by Andrew Sparkes, recognises the presence of an ocular-centric bias in contemporary ethnography and provides an in-depth discussion as to how researchers may use and have used other sensory perceptions to explore the complexities of selected social worlds. Since what has been described as ‘sensory revolution’ in social sciences, the hegemony of visual-centric research has been questioned and other sensory modalities have been brought to the fore. Sparkes observes that sensory engagement with the field goes beyond using the commonly acknowledged five senses and that others have argued for the presence of at least 13 sensory perceptions potentially utilised in research. Engaging the multiplicity of the senses in fieldwork manifest in ‘sensory ethnography’ involves the researcher’s somatic faculties. Engaging the senses in research requires training and practice. To help us with our journey in sensory ethnography, Sparkes provides ideas to practise this craft and reawaken our ‘sensory imagination’, along with a range of useful examples of other researchers going beyond the boundary of ocular-centric description. For instance, we get a ‘taste’ of the auditory and olfactory aspects of running as well as haptic perceptions of both running and boxing. Subsequently, Sparkes focuses on representational challenges in sensory ethnography and outlines potential ways of managing them, for instance, via somatic layered and performative accounts.

Representing and communicating ethnographic research are areas of recurring debate, creating uncertainty in regard to the quality of work being produced. Ethnographers and qualitative researchers in general frequently ponder upon how to best represent their data and whether the quality of selected representation is sufficiently robust. Brett Smith, Kerry R. McGannon and Toni L. Williams note that the dominant way of displaying qualitative data is via realist tales and other similarly relevant approaches are currently under-utilised. Therefore, Smith et al. focus their attention on writing creative nonfiction in ethnographic research, which is “fictional in form yet factual in content”. After introducing us to some of the key contributors to the sport and exercise field of creative nonfiction, Smith et al. provide an extensive critical analysis on why we may or may not choose this particular method of representation. They outline seven reasons for – e.g. protecting the identity of participants – and four reasons against – e.g. the potential danger of research losing credibility when associated with ‘fictional’ representation – employing creative nonfiction in research representation. Subsequently, they provide useful guidance as to how we might craft creative nonfiction. That is, how we may turn primary ethnographic data into a story. They prompt us to consider, among many other aspects, fundamental philosophical standpoints, theoretical engagement as well as writing a plot. Finally, Smith et al. outline helpful ways we might use to methodologically evaluate creative nonfictional representation in ethnographic research. Despite providing an extensive list of criteria, the authors acknowledge that the list may be modified in the future as ethnographers generate more experience with using creative nonfictional representation.

While methodological and theoretical discussions and considerations are the bedrock of all types of research, so is their practical application, around which the next section of the book is centred, consisting of seven ethnographic case studies. The first chapter in this section is written by Meridith Griffin and Cassandra Phoenix who offer an insight to ageing women’s perception of their encounter with exercise – running. With the ever-increasing awareness of disease prevention there is more pressure on the general public to engage with exercise. However, the gender gap with regard to exercise participation is persisting and increasing when age is considered. Consequently, this chapter explores the outcomes of a 14-month-long fieldwork in a women-only running club. Griffin and Phoenix adopted a multi-method ethnographic approach and produced rich data via participant observation and informal as well as formal interviews. In doing so, they gained insight into the worries and anxieties that members of the running club had prior to joining up. For instance, participants often expressed their initial fears of ‘not being sporty’, being ‘picked last for the team’ or simple having an elitist, exclusivist perception of running which, for some time, held them back from participation. Essentially, participants displayed the presence of narrative foreclosure that prevented them from exercise participation. Eventually, the participants in the study overcame those fears and decided to try out running. One reason for joining the club was the all-inclusive promotional narrative released in the public domain, which was enriched by both visually and textually displayed success stories leading to narrative hailing. Women also decided to take up running because they wanted to stay/become healthy or they reached a certain significant age-related milestone (e.g., the big six zero). The issues identified and awareness generated by the data presented is pivotal in enhancing our understanding in respect to the barriers women have the tendency to face in exercise participation. Furthermore, Griffin and Phoenix recognised that while narrative hailing appears to work for some women to break through exercise participation-related barriers, there is a possibility that a high number of women’s intention of taking up exercise is recurrently curbed by foreclosed narratives. Here the real danger is that “people can become the stories that they tell”.

Whilst running was considered a health-centred option in Griffin and Phoenix’s study, Michael Atkinson introduces us to an entire different type of running, specifically fell running. The key focus of the chapter is to make a contribution to the sociology of suffering by reflecting on ‘the [suffering] limit’ experiences Atkinson endured during a three-year period as a fell runner in the UK. Firstly, the chapter theoretically locates suffering in Physical Cultural Studies (PCS) and recommendation is made towards a ‘forward-thinking sociology of sport and physical culture’. In doing so, Atkinson encourages the sociologists of sport “to break new ground, transgress disciplinary boundaries, pursue theoretically driven research with much vigour, and research beyond the comfortable subject so regularly studied”. Then we gain an insight into the structure and nature of fell running, which predominantly consists of running up close-to-impossible inclines and coming back down whilst negotiating uneven, inhospitable terrain, wind, rain, shrubs, bogs and, sometimes, even herds of animals. In other words, “a good fell run assaults the runner’s body”. Given the constant suffering that is associated with the activity, fell runners form what Atkinson calls pain communities, in which withstanding pain is a key marker of collective identity. Atkinson then activates Roger Caillois’ six social and personal features of play – free, separate, uncertain, unproductive, not entirely rule bound and fictive – to make sense of fell running (and runners) as a form of play where pain and suffering are part and parcel of the activity.

Pain and suffering are not alien to athletes, exercisers or leisure enthusiasts. It can even be argued that taking sport, exercise or leisure seriously always means the presence of some form of pain. In the next chapter, Alex Stewart, similarly to Atkinson, shows that perhaps enduring some form of physical agony can also form part of ethnographic fieldwork. Along with exposing the multitude of bodily injuries he endured as boxer, Stewart introduces us to his insider ethnographic research, which he carried out amongst amateur and professional boxers over a five-year period. His chapter focuses on some of the practical as well as theoretical issues around the ethnographer being the ‘tool’ of data collection and the interface through which the outside world learns about the subculture under investigation. The main challenge here is, Stewart observes, balancing between participant and ethnographer through developing a reflexive awareness that is often absent from methodological texts. He follows Paul Willis’s comment that the ethnographer must engage in the temporal, symbolic and sensuous dimensions of the field. Consequently, after a viscerally engaging pro boxing scene, we get an in-depth and extensive insight into Stewart’s personal, intricate and gradual journey – identity transformation – from being a pro boxer to going academic. In other words, he aims to articulate “the subtle and barely conscious subplot of…[his] identity transformation from ‘boxing-insider’ to ‘researcher’”. Reflecting on the epistemologically as well as methodologically challenging question of being an insider or an outsider when conducting ethnography, Stewart notes that the insider–outsider debate cannot be viewed through a static, essentialising cultural lens. Instead, the he argues that the “ethnographic-self is reflexively and dynamically crafted in response to the web of interactional and often contingent processes” the ethnographer experiences before, during and after, and within and beyond the fieldwork.

Becoming and being an insider – whether it be in the subculture under investigation or the academic establishment where the future of a budding ethnographer may lie – is a recurring practical as well as methodological challenge for ethnographers. Similar to Stewart, the author of the next chapter, Laura Purdy, grants us an insight into one of the empirical aspects of her completed PhD study. As a newcomer to ethnography, Purdy embarked on an in-depth, five-month-long exploration of a male, high-performance rowing subculture. Purdy provides a candid account of what encountering the field might mean to ethnographers and how challenging and frustrating it may be when research designs and expectations do not go according to plan due to events/people outside the control of the ethnographer. In Chapter 9, using her own journal entries, Purdy showcases the level and types of anxieties and worries she experienced as a consequence of difficulties with entering the field and raises questions which perhaps are a concern for all ethnographers during entrée. After successfully negotiating access to the field, further challenges arose revolving around personal uncertainties, (over)active participants and persisting feelings of being an outsider. To alleviate the feelings of uncertainty and vulnerability, Purdy engaged in the micro-politics of the field and developed strategies to ‘earn her place’ on the team and to ‘write her into’ the subcultural scene. These strategies involved a range of activities that the coaches and team members found productive and helpful, and, in turn, aimed to lessen the feeling of being an outsider, in tandem with strengthening the ethnographer’s position in the field. On reflection, Purdy acknowledges that she may not have read all the micro-political aspects of the field correctly and, thus, may have neglected to appreciate other, simultaneously present micro-political forces. However, she notes that this fieldwork experience helped her prepare for “future projects by highlighting that the research process, particularly the data collection, involved appreciating and navigating various, sometimes conflicting, motivations, ideologies and goals”.

The following chapter highlights another type of ‘peril of ethnography’ and provides further empirical transparency by shedding light on some of the major challenges the researcher encountered during fieldwork centring on football rivalry in Birmingham. Adam Benkwitz spent 15 months exploring the historically embedded Aston Villa–Birmingham City rivalry, during which period, as part of his participant observation, he attended football games, and became a frequent visitor to bars and restaurants associated with football fans. Whilst some of the dangers of self-immersion in a football fan subculture had been anticipated and specific measures had been taken to minimise risks, unforeseen courses of events affected data collection and sometimes the personal safety of the researcher. Benkwitz writes of being hit on the head by a coin presumably thrown by an opposing fan, being bombarded with advertisement boards and ketchup bottles, and poor stadium and crowd management by the police. He also acknowledges some of the ethical dilemmas he faced when witnessing violent and/or illegal acts. Though Benkwitz followed Sugden’s (1996, p. 207) advice – “although I witnessed an illegal event, I did not take part in it and, as such, my presence in the field did not contribute to that act” – in the emerging fieldwork scenarios, he acknowledged the limitation of this standpoint and ponders upon potential grey areas ethnographers may need to consider during fieldwork. Then Benkwitz moves on to discussing some of the other key perils of his fieldwork such as going native, the time-consuming nature of data collection, the financial commitments and limitations, along with worries of a neophyte researcher. Arguably, the main message of the chapter is that while reading about and around ethnography is an important and essential part of the preparation for the fieldwork, nothing can fully prepare us for all the challenges producing primary data may entail in ethnographic research.

One of the recurring issues in regard to conducting fieldwork that the previous two chapters referred to was the uncertainty of the novice ethnographer in terms of collecting the ‘right’ data and recording everything potentially relevant. Christian Edwards and Robyn L. Jones give us a glimpse of an ongoing PhD research in relation to data collection, construction and interpretation. After a general introduction to ethnographic fieldwork, the authors critically examine the pros and cons of using ethnographic film in research. This is then followed by the reflections of the first author on his PhD research centring on “exploring the social significance of humour as a critical component ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on contributors
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Ethnography in sport-related research: influences, continuities, possibilities
• PART I Ethnography: methodological and theoretical considerations
• PART II Case studies
• PART III Future considerations and directions
• Index