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Over the last forty years, running has grown from a niche sport for a handful of committed club athletes into one of the Western world’s most popular pastimes. In Running, Identity and Meaning, Neil Baxter asks: What kinds of people have been drawn to running in such numbers? What do they seek from the sport? And what does running’s popularity tell us about ourselves and the society we live in today?
Delving into the great paradox of running: that despite its low cost of entry and inclusive ethos, the sport remains riven by inequalities, Baxter showcases how gender, class, age and ethnicity influence whether and how different groups participate in the sport, and explores its role in the reproduction of social structure and the search for distinction. By considering running simultaneously as a technique of self-cultivation, a social field in which forms of capital and status are at stake, and an important source of meaning and identity for millions of people across the world, this book equips readers to understand the many diverse links between the sport, society, and individual identities.
Price: $104.99
Pages: 232
Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
Imprint: Emerald Publishing Limited
Series: Emerald Studies in Sport and Gender
Publication Date:
30 June 2021
ISBN: 9781800433670
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
Writing as both a runner and a scholar of running, Baxter brings a unique perspective to this engaging and insightful study of running as a classed and gendered social practice, drawing out the diverse investments and identity-producing possibilities across different categories of running. This enables him to explore running’s embeddedness in, and reproduction of, middle-classness, exposing the complexity of the superficially simple and coherent leisure practice of putting one foot in front of the other. The book offers a clearly and engagingly articulated account that brings empirical data into dialogue with social theory in ways that will be of interest to those working in the fields of gender, class, sport and leisure studies, health, embodiment and social theory. And it is a must-read for anyone who has ever pulled on a pair of running shoes and hit the pavement, track or fell.
Neil Baxter is an independent sociologist and writer who completed his PhD at the University of Warwick. His research centres on lifestyle, identity and the relationship between mind and society, and includes a five-year research project exploring the social meaning of recreational running.
Chapter 1. Introduction: Why running matters
Chapter 2. Researching running: Embodiment, lifestyle and identity
Chapter 3. The evolution of a field: A brief history of running as sport in Britain
Chapter 4. Running the numbers: Quantitative insights and a map of the field
Chapter 5. Disciplining body and mind: Running as a technique of the self
Chapter 6. The price and the meaning of success: Training, competition and performance
Chapter 7. Running places: How the sites of running matter
Chapter 8. Conclusions: Running, society and identity