SPORTS RESEARCH AND PRIVATE LIVES
Organised by the Institute of Sport Studies, University of Århus and the Institute of Sport Science and Clinical Biomechanics, University of Southern Denmark
11 November 2005 at the University of Aarhus
From Antiquity to modernity the lives of athletes have had great appeal to common people. In odes and biographies sporting excellence has been hailed as a sign of human character, strength and determination. The modern label “stars” signifies their societal function as lodestars. Their attitude to life works as inspiration in ordinary people’s pursuit of success. Their achievements exemplify what living in the modern world is all about: efficiency, productivity, and rationality. So conservative pedagogues praise sport as educational.
The public interest in the lives of sports stars is not at all matched by scholarly attention to the fate of athletes. The exploitation of sport stars has been addressed in general terms, but there is still plenty of research waiting to be done on the personal outcome of sporting lives. Life history of former athletes may generate valuable insights into sport’s complex consequences. It is obvious that some high-performance athletes do extremely well after ending their career while others leave the limelight to turn into alcoholics, drug addicts, even suicide victims. This may be due to intrinsic factors. However, there are also extrinsic factors that influence the private lives of high-performance athletes. One is the media hype around sport celebrities. Another thing is the increasing measures being taken to control and restrict the lives of athletes.
Not all sport is high performance. Participation in sport on lower levels also play a significant role in forming identities and networks. Hence, life histories of recreational gymnasts and athletes should also be analysed if the influence of sport on private lives shall be understood in depth.
The intention of the seminar/conference is to present and discuss key aspects of the broad demarcation line between sport and privacy, as well as theoretical and methodological implications involved in the growing research field of sports biography.
Provisional Programme
Verner Møller, ‘Managing sporting lives’.
Ask Christensen, ‘Surveillance and Identity: The effect of the doping campaign on the self-conception of elite cyclists’.
Jørgen Povlsen, ‘Oda Memborg: A life in gymnastics’.
John Bale, ‘Some ethical questions and the public and the private in sports biography’.
Neils Kayser Nielsen, ‘Nacka Skoglund, Public and Private lives’.
If you are interested in attending the seminar and/or giving a paper, please inform John Bale at bale@idraet.au.dk
Further details will be circulated nearer the date of the seminar.
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