Bodies on the margins: regulating bodies, regulatory bodies

Abstract

Sport is all about bodies, but some bodies are seen as on the margins and policies are directed at re-situating them into the mainstream. This article explores some of the ways in which embodied selves are the target of diversity policies and practices, especially those implemented by fan-based, anti-racist organisations. Sport has long been considered a site for the creation of healthy citizens, a tradition which has been rearticulated to encompass diverse groups of people who are seen as under represented in sport. The article looks at which embodied selves are encouraged to participate, non-governmental regulatory bodies in sport, to investigate the tension between the positive and negative dimensions of diversity politics in sport, as an example of what Paul Gilroy calls 'conviviality', in the practices of those who seek to bring in those on the margins in the multi-ethnic UK.

Keeping it liminal. The Mondiali Antirazzisti (Anti-racist World Cup) as a multifocal interaction ritual

“…Thus, the idea of 'diversity as a shared value' seems to be an oxymoron, a paradox which cannot be actualised. Despite these fragilities (or maybe just because of them), the MA remains a remarkable testing ground for social experimentation, confirming the socio-political potential of those leisure events in which new forms of embodied multicultural interaction can be prefigured (Woodward, 2009).…”

‘Weather work’: embodiment and weather learning in a national outdoor exercise programme

“…It focused on encouraging exercise in the outdoors generally rather than specific involvement in 'sports', and sought particularly to increase physical activity and exercise levels amongst socially and economically disadvantaged groups. As Woodward (2009) notes, and as is commensurate with my combined phenomenological and sociological theoretical lens, material bodies embody inequalities and are both represented and experienced as 'marginalised'. Material and social bodies can thus be marginally situated via a gamut of structural and cultural forces, on the grounds of, for example, age, gender, ethnicity, 'race', forms of dis/ability, and so on.…”