The Consumption and Representation of Lifestyle Sports Sport in the Global Society – Contemporary Perspectives Series

Since their emergence in the 1960s, lifestyle sports (also referred to as action sport, extreme sports, adventure sports) have experienced unprecedented growth both in terms of participation and in their increased visibility across public and private space. book seeks to explore the changing representation and consumption of lifestyle sport in the twenty-first century.

The essays, which cover a range of sports, and geographical contexts (including Brazil, Europe, North America and Australasia) focus on three themes. First, essays scrutinise aspects of the commercialisation process and impact of the media, reviewing and reconsidering theoretical frameworks to understand these processes. The scholars here emphasise the need to move beyond simplistic understandings of commercialisation as co-option and resistance, to capture the complexity and messiness of the process, and of the relationships between the cultural industries, participants and consumers. The second theme examines gender identity and representations, exploring the potential of lifestyle sport to be a politically transformative space in relation to gender, sexuality and ?race?. The last theme explores new theoretical directions in research on lifestyle sport, including insights from philosophy, sociology and cultural geography.

The themes the monograph addresses are wide reaching, and centrally concerned with the changing meaning of sport and sporting identity in the twenty-first century.

This book was previously published as a Special Issue of Sport in Society.

1. Introducing the consumption and representation of lifestyle sports Belinda Wheaton Section one: (global) industries and medias 2. A battle for control: exchanges of power in the subculture of snowboarding E. Coates, B. Clayton and B. Humberstone 3. Maverick’s: big-wave surfing and the dynamic of ‘nothing’ and ‘something’ Becky Beal and MaureenMargaret Smith 4. Surface and substructure: beneath surfing’s commodified surface Mark Stranger 5. Commercialization and lifestyle sport: lessons from 20 years of freestyle BMX in ‘Pro-Town, USA’ Bob Edwards and Ugo Corte 6. The historical mediatization of BMX-freestyle cycling Wade Nelson Section two: the female athletic revolution? Gender identity and representation 7. Rhizomatic bodies, gendered waves: transitional femininities in Brazilian Surf Jorge DorfmanKnijnik, Peter Horton and Lívia Oliveira Cruz 8. ‘I just eat, sleep and dream of surfing’: when surfing meets motherhood Lucy Spowart, Lisette Burrows and Sally Shaw 9. Mountain biking is for men: consumption practices and identity portrayed by a niche magazine Sherry M. Huybers-Withers and Lori A. Livingston Section three: new theoretical directions 10. ‘Your Wave, Bro!’: virtue ethics and surfing S. Olivier 11. Chancing your arm: the meaning of risk in rock climbing Amanda West and Linda Allin 12. Entering scapeland: yoga, fell and post-sport physical cultures Michael Atkinson 13. Alternative sport and affect: non-representational theory examined Holly Thorpe and Robert Rinehart

Belinda Wheaton is Principal Research Fellow at the Centre for Sport Research, University of Brighton, where she teaches in the areas of sport and leisure studies.