This Sporting Life: the antithetical novel's revelation of the organisation and work of sport

Beverly Geesin, Simon Mollan

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    2 Citations (Scopus)
    102 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    The novel This Sporting Life by David Storey is used in this article as fictive, ethnographic data to explore the relationship between sports work, industrial organization, identity, and the management of the body. Drawing upon the work of Pierre Bourdieu on sport, and rugby specifically, and the relationship between sport, the body, class, and rationalization, this paper argues that David Storey provides a vivid, if pessimistic, fictional, and semi-autobiographical account of the ways in which sports, and sports work specifically, is driven by management discourses of rationality and control. We examine how this functions as class exploitation where labour is embodied and expended as a form of bodily capital. Lastly, we offer a critique of the precarious social mobility that sports work promises. Through Storey’s Rugby League playing fictional anti-hero – Art Machin – we explore the central struggle between social structures and individual agency.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)368-382
    Number of pages15
    JournalCulture and Organization
    Volume25
    Issue number5
    Early online date20 Nov 2017
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 20 Oct 2019

    Keywords

    • Sport
    • Rugby League
    • industrial labour
    • class
    • management of the body

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