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Drawing from participant observation and interviews, I examine the attitudes and beliefs of elite and former professional cyclists and team personnel regarding performance-enhancing drug (PED) use and the neutralization techniques they employed to excuse and justify PED consumption. Participants most frequently adopted accounts in which they condemned the condemners, viewing as hypocrites those labeling PED use as deviant, and arguing that all manner of PED use is commonplace throughout society. Participants further expressed distrust of sporting federations, law enforcement, and medical professionals, whom they viewed as exaggerating and distorting information about the dangers of PED use. Riders also appealed to higher loyalties and defense of necessity, claiming that PED use was for many professional cyclists nearly an occupational necessity. Members viewed PED use as a rational means to an end while also embodying fundamental tenets of professional cycling culture which prizes risk taking and commitment.

Be(coming) clean: confessions as governance in professional cycling aBstractDrawing from the public confessions of performance-enhancing drug (PED) use by high-profile riders and interviews with current North American-based professional cyclists, we examine the role that confessional accounts play in anti-doping regulation and governance of the sport of cycling. Our research examines the ways in which the confessional accounts make sense of cycling's PED use and then become the raw material that the current generation of professionals use to both explain the past and inform their own thinking on PED use. We argue that these accounts are key to the emerging narrative of clean cycling, a narrative that legitimates and bolsters the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) strategies, rationalities and cultures that are distinctive to sport governance.

Reviewing literatures from sociology of sport, surveillance, and internet studies, we consider the processes by which social media regulate the behavior of athletes. Nowhere is this more evident than in the current regulation of anti-doping in elite sport where athletes 0 social media postings have been highly critical of fellow competitors. As social media becomes increasingly blended into everyday routines, this form of surveillance extends the gaze of those who watch and increases the pressure for online disclosure while making traditional distinctions between formal and informal social control less meaningful. Contemporary social media acts as a form of social control that has become more preemptive and grassroots. When athletes internalize surveillance and disclosure as consistent with their professional norms, the power relationships that surround sport performance become increasingly difficult to discern. This article helps to illuminate the ways in which surveillance through social media have become a part of everyday routines, extends and amplifies the power of more traditional agents of surveillance, and calls for continued research into the role of contemporary social media as a surveillance practice. | FROM OMERTA TO SPEAKING IN A LOUD VOICEAs the Russian swimmer Yulia Efimova raised her hand to display the universal "number one" gesture after winning a preliminary race at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, the American swimmer, 18-year-old Lilly King, shook her head and wagged her own finger at Efimova 0 s televised representation. This scene, live captured on television and broadcast globally, became a major news story from the 2016 Rio games, encapsulating the simmering tensions regarding the exclusion of many of Efimova 0 s compatriots following revelations of a Russian state-sponsored doping program. In stark contrast to the long held omerta or silence that characterized athlete public responses to performance-enhancing drug (PED) use, King openly criticized Efimova calling her a "drug cheat" and questioning why she was allowed to compete at all. Almost completely absent was coverage of Efimova 0 s backstory and King was generally lauded on social media for "standing up" to "dopers."Drawing from surveillance, social media, and sport literatures, our experiences as cyclists and internet users, as well as our research involving professional cyclists and sport sponsors, we reflect on how social media logic transforms the social control of professional athletes. Examining how the assemblage of surveillance made possible by athletes 0 use of social media changes the very dynamic of social control, we argue that social media amplifies the evidence in ways similar to consuming the blood boosting drug erythropoietin (EPO): It does not introduce new types of evidence, just as EPO does not introduce a new drug into one 0 s system. Rather, both fortify and "boost up" an already existing product. In the case of EPO, it is the augmentation of red blood cells. In the case of social media, it is the continual stream o...

This research examines media, interview and legal-historical documentation surrounding the current proposal to manufacture snow using reclaimed water at the Snowbowl ski area located on the San Francisco Peaks mountains near Flagstaff, Arizona. The proposal has drawn sharp protest from both American Indian Nations who call the area sacred, and environmentalists who question the safety of the reclaimed water. We examine the process by which local coalitions attempt to define environmental, spiritual, and economic values that will resonate with others. These highly mediated activities create contested territory whereby groups attempt to package and frame specific definitions of these values. This debate exposes hegemonic assumptions that aid us in deconstructing conflicting understandings of colonialism, racism, and other issues that typically go unacknowledged. Weber's discussion of rationality and commensurability is employed for understanding why sacred justice claims continue to be largely ignored. This research indicates that not only is this a case of epistemological incompatibility, but an active attempt to discredit and disenfranchise a specific group. Two interwoven themes emerged from our analysis: `Indians as Greedy' and `Indians as Hypocrites'. These themes are also found in the legal history of sacred site protection in the United States. We argue the fundamental lack of acknowledgement of Indian cosmology persists via a dichotomous conception of religion and civic society, which also suggests a separation of dominant forms of civic decision-making.