Foucault, Flying Discs and Calling Fouls: Ascetic Practices of the Self in Ultimate Frisbee

Abstract

Dominant analyses of sporting subjectivities suggest the contemporary athletic subject embodies a win-at-all-costs instrumental rationality. Yet, as Carless and Douglas (2012) argue, athletes are able to find less problematic alternatives to this understanding of sport. In this article, I use Foucault’s concept of “practices of the self” to undertake a sociological analysis of ethical subjectivities within Ultimate Frisbee. I focus specifically on ascetic, or self-controlling, practices of the self through which players create relationships between their self, Ultimate’s moral code and others. I use this case study to argue that ethical subjectivities offer a productive perspective for sociology of sport.

Problematizing Foucauldian Ethics

“…A final set is those studies that selectively draw on aspects of Foucault's ethics to examine specific features of ethical self-formation (e.g., Crocket, 2014Crocket, , 2015aCrocket, , 2015bMarkula & Pringle, 2006). Markula and Pringle's (2006) monograph on Foucauldian theory included analyses of Markula's attempts to become an ethically engaged Pilates instructor and Pringle's engagement with ethical pedagogical practice.…”

“…In two further studies, I followed Foucault's approach in The Use of Pleasure focusing on practices and problematizations to examine ascetic and pleasurable practices of the self in Ultimate Frisbee, respectively (Crocket, 2015a(Crocket, , 2015b. After identifying problematizations relating to excessively competitive behavior, I explored how players interpreted and implemented ascetic practices of moderation, tolerance, and honesty and pleasurable practices of humor and irony recommended within the Ultimate community.…”

“…Broadly speaking, studies drawing on technologies of the self can be split into four groups, namely, those who conduct an analysis focusing on tensions between technologies of domination and technologies of the self (e.g., Bridel & Rail, 2007; Hanold, 2010; Jones & Aitchison, 2007; Young & Dallaire, 2008), those who structure their analysis in relation to Markula’s (2003) Foucauldian feminism (e.g., Hardin, 2011; Markula, 2004; Spowart et al, 2010; Thorpe, 2008), those who structure their analysis in relation to Foucault’s mode of subjectivation (e.g., MacKay & Dallaire, 2013; Pringle & Hickey, 2010), and those who emphasize select aspects of Foucault’s ethics (e.g., Crocket, 2014, 2015a, 2015b; Markula & Pringle, 2006). Although it is useful to use these groupings to review the literature, I stress that there is considerable overlap between these groups and they should not be viewed as fully distinct.…”

Coaching and ethical self-creation: problematizing the “efficient tennis machine”

“…Thought is freedom in relation to what one does, the emotion by which one detaches oneself from it, establishes it as an object, and reflects on it as a problem … for a domain of action, a behaviour, to enter the field of thought, it is necessary for a certain number of factors to have made it uncertain, to have made it lose its familiarity, or to have provoked a certain number of difficulties around it. (Foucault, 2000b, p. 117) While the first part of this quote emphasises an explicit, rational process of critical thought, it is important to note that in the second part of the quote, Foucault emphasises that this thought process is contextual: An individual might be prompted to problematize an aspect of their sport as a result of a traumatic event (Crocket, 2014), they may be incited to problematize an aspect of their conduct as the moral code of their sport actively problematizes that aspect of conduct (Crocket, 2015), or they might come to problematize an aspect of their involvement in sport through engagement in other games of truth (Pringle & Hickey, 2010). Moreover, problematizations might be expressed by coaches and athletes on their own terms, which may not always match with the discourses of critical sociological and pedagogical scholarship of sport and coaching (Crocket, 2016).…”

Too good to be a sport? Why dog agility struggles in gaining recognition as a sport

“…Recent studies on Ultimate Frisbee (Ultimate) offer valuable insight into this debate. Crocket (2015) argues that Ultimate offers an alternative to the win-at-all-cost instrumental rationality of traditional sports. His ethnographic study shows how Ultimate players work to make themselves ethical athletic subjects through the Foucauldian 'practices of the self'.…”