Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

Skateboarding and snowboarding are practices loaded with symbolic expressions. They are also activities profoundly understood as physical. This paper will investigate the narrated impressions of these activities – in other words the expressions of impressions. Skateboarding and snowboarding are discussed as aesthetic learning processes, which to a large extent are both bodily and informal. The paper builds on ethnographic fieldwork and cultural analysis. Kirsten Drotner’s theory of aesthetic practices is used as a starting point. Aesthetic practices/production works on three levels: the individual, the social and the cultural. The individual level is characterised in terms of emotional intensity and corporality. The sensation is described as so encompassing that it becomes ones life, ones identity. The body is acutely present in these descriptions. It is the body that experiences, and it is there that the sensation of riding comes alive.

Indoor skate parks are purpose built environments for physical activity and bodies in motion. These settings are designed places of learning in both social and material respects. Skate parks in Sweden are usually large halls in buildings previously used for industries, now filled with wooden and sometimes concrete constructions. The solid and rough material consolidates the environment as hard and durable. Ceilings are most often high which influence the acoustics. The sound level is elevated from the noise of board riding on the wooden constructions, besides music from loud speakers adds to the aural experience. In spite of, or thanks to, the strident soundscape it is common by skateboarders to use a personal music device such as an mp3-player or the equivalent when skateboarding. The purpose of this paper is to discuss sensory and affective learning processes in relation to indoor skateboarding. In focus is the crossroads between senses, affect, place and learning. Empirical results are drawn from an ongoing ethnographic study on predominantly female skateboarding, embodied knowledge and board sport culture. The empirical material consists of field notes (in written, auditory and visual form), interviews and examples from media such as videos, magazines and internet pages. The aural sense and its capacity to include and exclude other sensory experiences, mainly balance, is examined and associated with affective incitement. Sharing and non-sharing spaces and experiences are discussed. The paper draws theoretically in large from the anthropological research on the senses in culture, and the psychology of affect. In addition the paper pays particular interest to the idea of “the risk of experience that is learning” (Ellsworth 2005).

Senmoderna reflexioner. Festskrift till Johan Fornäs, är en antologi med tjugotre artiklar tillägnade Johan Fornäs på hans 60-årsdag den 7 mars 2012. Flera av artiklarna utgår från teman i Johan Fornäs böcker, medan andra på olika sätt behandlar ämnen relaterade till hans breda och mångfacetterade intresseområden. Boken är indelad i fyra tematiska delar, som behandlar olika praktiker: teoretiska, mediala, estetiska och litterära. Under rubriken ”teoretiska praktiker” diskuteras olika aspekter av hermeneutik, kulturalisering och kulturellt kapital. Under ”mediala praktiker” återfinns studier av samtida mediefenomen och deras relationer till demokrati och politik. ”Estetiska praktiker” innefattar bidrag som diskuterar kulturella praktikers funktion i den offentliga sfären. I den avslutande delen, ”litterära praktiker”, analyseras utvalda litterära texter och den diskurs som omger dem. Huvuddelen av artiklarna är skrivna på svenska, med undantag av tre engelska bidrag.

Skateboarding is known as a predominately male activity; however, there are female skateboarders and they are growing in number internationally. The purpose of this paper is to analyse how female gender and feminist issues appear and are negotiated by female skateboarders in ethnographically documented dialogues in a local setting. The dialogues are historically, socially and culturally contextualised invoking mediated discourses on female skateboarding. My assumption is that mediated discourses interact with local practice in an intricate way. This paper will hopefully shed some light on this interaction as well as works on femininity (and masculinity) in skateboarding and other board sports. In addition how female attendance is promoted. Theoretically, the paper draws on post structurally influenced cultural studies and theories of gender. The paper discusses practices of gender division and images of girls and women in board sports and their media from a feminist perspective. In this context, inviting pain as a girl has been interpreted as a way of challenging unappreciated forms of femininity. Accidents and falls are portrayed in niche media, both in print and television programmes, as evidence of courage and authenticity. However, there are alternatives to the aggressive femininity in recent media forms, such as blogs and personal web pages. But replacing one alternative of femininity with another raises new questions. The ambiguities of discourses put girls and women in a position where they are empowered subjects using their own micro-media, and, at the same time, tend to preserve ‘the separate-and-different-cultures model’ when it comes to gender.

Forty Years of Transformations - Swedish Skateboarding Culture and Organisation

Aim

The aim of this presentation is to sum up findings from ethnographic and historic datacollected for a period of twenty years in order to outline the transformations of skateboardingculture and organisation in Sweden from the 1970’s to present day.

Theoretical Background and Literature Review

Skateboarding has a celebrated subversive past claiming heritage from Californian surferssneaking into emptied backyard swimming pools during summer draught. The (hi)story hasbeen commemorated through the classic movie Dogtown and the Z-boys. Ever since, socialresistance has been part and parcel of skateboarding’s cultural image (Borden, 2001).Although stemming from subcultural and underground practices, skateboarding has nowreached worldwide audiences through X-games. In June this year, the sport’s firstinternational conference titled Pushing boarders was held in London. It gathered academicscholars, skateboarders and engaged people from the industry. Moreover, in 2020,skateboarding will be launched as a new sport in the Olympic Games. Skateboarders onceopposing the sport industry and nine-five-jobs have transformed from core practitioners toconsumers (Dinces, 2011; Dupont, 2014; Lombard, 2010). This depicts a transformation fromsubculture to a professionalised sport, at least for some and in some places. In Sweden,parallel to these trends, skateboarding contrastingly formed a national federation under theNational Sports Confederation (RF) for the first time 2013.

Research Design and Data Analysis

Through four ethnographic projects extending over two decades, and related historicalmaterial, this presentation draws from participant observation and multiple empiricalmaterials. Ethnography has the potential to capture “inside” views of everyday life (Atkinson,2014). The research participants are diverse in terms of age, gender and positions in the fieldetc. The data includes interviews, photographs and various media in both printed and digitalfrom. It contains both commercial and non-commercial content and spans from the late1970’s until present day. The semi-structured interviews follow thematically structured guidesand were conducted face-to-face with snowball samples. For this presentation Stamm andLamprecht’s (1998) model for describing the life cycle of trend sports is used as a startingpoint for a thematic content analysis over time. The model indicates the interrelation oftechnological innovation, marketing and socio-cultural factors.

Findings and Discussion

Every stage in Stamm and Lamprecht’s (1998) model is characterized by different degrees ofcommercialisation, as well as diverse types of organisation and various degrees ofrecognition. The trend sports are also pursued by different groups; in the early stages pioneersand further on by young people in subcultures, followed by athletes in the fourth stage toanybody in the final stage. Confrontation against the established sport organisations andglorification of a presumed authentic past is part of the third stage. This is followed byfashion in mainstream culture as part of the fourth stage.298It is argued that skateboarding in Sweden to some extent has followed this model. Numerousexamples point to the fourth stage characterized by maturation and diffusion. For instance it ispossible for practitioners to make a living from skateboarding in various ways; skateboardingis popular in mass media; goods are mass produces and skateboarding has been integrated incertain school forms. In short, processes of commercialisation and professionalization arepresent.The straight forward processes proposed in the model are however complicated byskateboarding in Sweden since 2013 being formally organized though the National SportsConfederation. Through this organisation some skateboarders are now part and parcel ofmainstream sports, however their subcultural ideas persist, not least when it comes toleadership and coaching. This is paradoxically partly challenging the National SportsConfederation in that funding systems are urged to be re-negotiated. Simultaneously, theSwedish skateboarding association opens up activities for inclusion and equality urged by theNational Sports Confederation.

Conclusion and Implications

The presentation contributes with new empirical findings on the socio-cultural developmentof skateboarding in Sweden and beyond, which confirms but also complicates the straightforward model of the life cycle of trend sports. Skateboarding has gone from innovativephysical activity recognised by few, to highly commercialised and familiar, but it is also anational association with no commercial profit promoting democratic values.

References

Atkinson, P. (2014). For Ethnography. London: Sage.

Borden, I. (2001). Skateboarding, Space and the City: Architecture and the Body. New York: Berg.

Dinces, S. (2011). ‘Flexible Opposition’: Skateboarding Subcultures under the Rubric of LateCapitalism. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 28(11), 1512-1535.

Dupont, T. (2014). From Core to Consumer: The Informal Hierarchy of the Skateboard Scene. Journalof Contemporary Ethnography, 43(5), 556-581.

Lombard, K. (2010). Skate and create/skate and destroy: The commercial and governmentalincorporation of skateboarding. Continuum: Journal Of Media & Cultural Studies, 24(4),475-488.

Stamm, H-P. & Lamprecht, B. (1998) The life cycle of trend sports. In: C. Jaccoud & Y. Pedrazzini(Eds) Glisser dans la ville: les politiques sportives a` l’e’preuve des sports de rue[Gliding in the street: sporting politics related to street sports], Acts from the Neuchâtel.Colloquium of the 18th and 19th Septembre 1997 (Neuchâtel, Editions CIES).

I samband med att idrottsforskningen i ökande utsträckning fokuserar sportens stjärnor har ett intresse växt fram för vad som händer med elitidrottare efter det att sportkarriären är över. Det är uppenbart att övergången från kändis till föredetting är plågsamt och svårhanterbart för många. Men internationell sport erbjuder också många exempel på framgångsrika civila karriärer. Tony Hawk är ett bra exempel. Hawk var världsstjärna inom skateboard på 1980- och 90-talen, och trots dess subkulturella karaktär var hans stjärnstatus enastående där sådant räknades. Hawk drog sig tillbaka 1999 som sann legendar, och två år senare kom hans självbiografi, Hawk: Occupation Skateboarder (HarperCollins, skriven med Sean Mortimer). I Åsa Bäckströms kunniga och intresseväckande recension följer vi Tony Hawk från tiden som tanig och mobbad skolgrabb, över tiden som skateboardkung, till efterkarriären som dataspelsutvecklare – bland annat – och under tiden tvåbarnsfar med två olika fruar och gift en tredje gång. Underhållande och lärorikt, tycker vår recensent, som också följer upp historien efter det att boken publicerades. Och visst är det lite speciellt, det där amerikanska, den klassiska framgångssagan med lyckligt slut.

The Nordic countries score high gender equality ratings and we have a long tradition of working with feminist agendas promising liberal futures to both young women and men. Still, today’s young women struggle to make room for female participation in male-dominated space. Based on ethnographic research, this article explores gender manoeuvring, i.e. manipulations of the relationship between masculinity and femininity in the patterned beliefs and activities of Swedish skateboarding. The three most apparent femininities in the empirical material, ‘the tomboy’, ‘the bitch’, and ‘the lesbian’, are discussed and how they sometimes give rise to gender manoeuvring and sometimes not. It is argued that the formation of a national network harnessing feminist strategies has been successful in making space for female skateboarding in local skateparks and the mainstream media. The negotiations these actions result in have the potential to transform the hierarchical gender order between and among masculinities and femininities. However, simultaneous tendencies to preserve the unequal gender structure through valuing both hegemonic masculinity and femininity become visible.

Aesthetic learning processes are being notified in current Swedish pedagogical research. The philosophical term aesthetics is used in multiple modes, some of them borrowing an agenda from the studies of fine art, some more with inspiration from cultural studies and popular culture. In this emerging field both ethnography and every-day-aesthetics are in focus. Despite new ways of doing ethnography the results still tend to look (!) like traditional ethnography. Field-notes saturated with sensuous and stinking data; e.g. moist socks, sweaty t-shirts and car fumes, still tend to depend upon written texts and photography as scientific proof. Moreover ethnography is still judged against a positivistic framework drawing from natural science. Is a change required? And in that case, can the future of visual anthropology challenge this hegemonic scientific paradigm?

En djupdykning i SUNY-förlagets backlist har ådagalagt tre angelägna titlar som inte tidigare kommit med i forumets recensionsverksamhet men som trots att de fått några år på nacken av tjänstgörande recensionsredaktör bedömts som angelägna att lyfta fram. I november 2010 recenserade Ingela Kolfjord Mike Messners Out of Play, (2007), och Pirkko Markulas antologi Feminist Sport Studies från 2005 recenseras av Helena Tolvhed på annan plats i denna uppdatering. Äldst av de tre var antologin Athletic Intruders: Ethnographic Research on Women, Culture, and Exercise från 2003, med Anne Bolin och Jane Granskog som redaktörer (State University of New York Press). Vi applåderar SUNY Press för en föredömlig lagerhållningsstrategi (möjlig tack vare print on demand-tekniken), och gläds åt att vi hittade totalt rätt i val av recensent, nämligen Åsa Bäckström, som just då var redo att läsa just denna bok. I en föredömligt välskriven, initierad och intresseväckande recension ser hon bortom de lite ålderstigna referenserna och diskuterar metod, empiri och, inte minst, feminismens historia.

In 1989 the American anthropologist Paul Stoller argued in favour of taking detours in his now classic The taste of ethnographic things, subtitled the senses in anthropology. Detours, he argued, may be theoretical, or artistic. One way is to strive for what he calls “radical empiricism”. This demands a different kind of text (or film), where the senses are given greater prominence. He writes: “This kind of respect directs writers and filmmakers onto a radically empirical detour along which we can achieve the most simple yet most allusive goal of ethnography: to give our readers or viewers a sense of what it is like to live in other worlds, a taste of ethnographic things” (1989: 156). Recently, a “sensory revolution” (Howes, 2005) has fuelled and interest in perception and the senses. This paper draws on research with a sensory ethnography (Pink, 2009) approach. It focuses the un/knowing body and deals with epistemological issues related to collecting and representing sensory ethnographic material. It is argued that scientific texts (in a wide sense) need richer sensory “data” in order to more fully understand learning and knowing in a contemporary world. Moreover, the paper problematizes the prevalent logocentrism in society.

In social sciences and humanities 'the body' is accentuated to the extent that we may even talk about a ‘corporeal turn’. Through ethnographic research on skateboarding I explore the particular corporeal practice of energy transformation and the verbal, visual and bodily expression of what can be labeled explosiveness.

Explicitly, I use the digital audio-visual empirical material to investigate how kinaesthetic knowing is expressed and taught. The paper adds theoretically and empirically to recent arguments of a shift from embodiment to emplacement. By way of conclusion, a more elaborate focus on the sensory experiences is suggested to better understand the intersections of mind, body, place and learning.

The body has become a vital research object in several disciplines in recent years. Indeed, in the social sciences and humanities, a corporeal turn in which embodiment has become a key concept related to learning and socialisation is discussed. This cross-disciplinary paper addresses the epistemological question of how we know what we know and theoretically and empirically contributes to current arguments of a shift from embodiment to emplacement. In other words, this study strives for understanding of the intersection of mind, body and place through a focus on how bodily knowing is formed as part of a moving world. The purpose of the paper is to explore the kinaesthetic experience as bodily knowing in emplaced semi-formal teaching. Through long-term ethnography in a Swedish skateboard setting and in-depth analysis of digital visual material, this paper demonstrates how kinaesthetic experience might be viewed as knowing and how a particular type of this experience might be interpreted as explosiveness and, as such, an act of physical remembrance and energy transformation. Knowing is formed along paths of movement and rhythm, and kinaesthesia is identified as a multisensory experience. It is argued that a fruitful way of bridging the mindbody divide is to view the body as un/knowing, rendering it both knowing and not knowing simultaneously. Moreover, emplaced via its senses in a sociocultural and spatiotemporal environment, this conceptualisation of a moving body in a moving world might allow for re-thinking regarding how a body in context knows, teaches and, possibly, learns.

I stadslandskapet manifesteras människans makt över naturen. Staden är dynamisk; den skapas och omskapas ständigt i takt med förändrade politiska och kulturella ideal. Dess olika miljöer används – medvetet och omedvetet – för olika typer av lärande. Skolgården och slottsparken kan fungera som budbärare med pedagogiska avsikter för både barn och vuxna, gallerian kan ses som ett klassrum och detaljhandeln som kunskaps- och kulturformande faktorer.           När olika grupper intar det offentliga rummet uppstår nya mötesplatser och samspelsmönster. Ser det sociala samspelet likadant ut i förorten, på handelsgatan och i innerstaden? Hur och när tar exempelvis unga kvinnor staden i besittning?

Inom idrott är känsla något en har eller inte. Känsla sätts ofta som förled till idrottsliga attiraljer eller idrottsliga göranden. Bollkänsla innebär en förmåga att hantera bollar på ett skickligt sätt och matchkänsla innebär att ha en helhetssyn på matchen. Till skillnad mot teknik, som kan övas upp, är känsla en förmåga som omtalas termer av kroppslig kompetens som funnits med hela livet. Känsla har också en estetisk dimension. I detta paper diskuteras idrottens känsla i relation till fenomenologisk teori. Genom empiriska exempel från etnografiska studier om idrott, synliggörs hur känslan och dess olika dimensioner kan sägas vara betydelsefulla komponenter i konstruktionen av kunnande.

This panel/workshop presents ways that visual methods of investigation, documentation, practice and performance are used in different processes of learning.  Drawing on educational settings in journalism, media studies and art education, and also informal learning settings where visual documentation plays a central role, the panel addresses forms of knowledge that arise through visual practices. The limitations of the visual are also addressed, in particular the forms of knowledge that are precluded when visual regimes are considered primary.

Åsa Bäckström, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm University, draws on her studies of skateboarders to examine the ways they transform visual documentation (both hers and their own) into kinesthetic experience as they refine their bodily knowing in order to become increasingly proficient.  An exclusive focus on the visual ignores the other sensory forms so critical to the integrated knowing which is the basis of the skateboarder’s performance.

Åsa Bäckström är noga med att påpeka att hon inte är den bäst lämpade recensenten för den bok tjänstgörande redaktör valde att skicka henne, nämligen Game Skills: A Fun Approach to Learning Sport Skills av Stephanie J. Hanrahan och Teresa B. Carlson (Human Kinetics). Hon är inte idrottslärare och inte idrottsledare. Och boken avser att vara en inspirationskälla för just lärare och ledare inom idrott och fysisk aktivitet, en idébank för att hålla elever och studenter sysselsatta med lekar och spel och samtidigt ha roligt. Vår recensents specialkompetens, skriver hon, lämpar sig bättre för att göra en kulturanalys av boken. Och just en tilltalande kulturanalytisk ton är det som präglar hennes fylliga, problematiserande och intresseväckande recension. Game Skills presenterar dryga hundratalet ”lekar” för deltagare i varierande åldrar, med detaljerade instruktioner, lättfattligt, och med glimten i ögat. Boken lämpar sig väl, menar Bäckström, för blivande idrottslärare eftersom den också erbjuder en nyttig lektion i engelska. Men hon skulle nog först se vad den svenska litteraturen på området kan erbjuda innan hon själv tog in den i undervisningen.

Det är tveklöst så att ungdomsidrotten och skolidrotten, det vill säga idrott som utförs inom skolans ram, är problematisk; det är inget man bara kan överlämna till idrottsrörelsen respektive skolans idrottslärare att ta hand om. Bara i föreliggande uppdatering recenseras tre ungdomsidrottsböcker, dels en om coachning av barn och ungdom, dels en om sociala supportsystem för ungdomar i fysisk aktivitet, samt dels Ken Greens nya bok Key Themes in Youth Sport (Routledge). Skälen till att så mycket forskaruppmärksamhet ägnas just ungdomars idrottsdeltagande är många och synnerligen godtagbara, särskilt om man accepterar att idrott a priori betraktas som ett gott i sig och därmed något som barn och ungdomar ska dras in i; barn och ungdomar är å andra sidan, till följd av sin åldersbetingade sårbarhet, a posteriori i behov av extra omsorg – och stöd av forskning. Vi gav Ken Greens bok till Åsa Bäckström, som konstaterar att det här rör sig om något som närmast får betraktas som en uppslagsbok, med 45 nyckelteman från ability and talent till youth’s new condition. Man kan i sådana här sammanhang alltid diskutera urval, och det gör vår recensent, kritiskt och sansat, och hon kommer slutgiltigt fram till att Greens sociologiskt konstruerade teman är användbara, inte minst för att boken också pekar ut en fortsatt färdriktning i kunskapsprocessen genom dess definitioner, statistik, referenser och tankegångar.

Den här boken är skriven med avgångsstudenter i åtanke. Boken ska enligt författaren locka till användande av teorier och till tänkande med hjälp av teorier. Den ska presentera teorier på ett tillgängligt sätt. Teorierna i fråga är sociologiska och angränsande till detta akademiska fält. Varje kapitel i boken tar en eller två teorier som utgångspunkt för att belysa snowboard. Studenter skulle då kunna omsätta dessa exemplifierande kapitel och inspireras till att använda teorierna i sina egna arbeten som inte nödvändigtvis behöver handla om just snowboard. Kapitlen är tematiska och handlar till exempel om genus och kropp, om representationer i medier, och om makt och politik.

Det har skett ett antal vändningar inom samhällsvetenskaplig forskning på senare tid. En sådan vändning har beskrivits som kroppslig, och som en konsekvens därav kan vi enligt somliga idag också tala om en sinnlig revolution. Skateboardåkning är en synnerligen fysisk aktivitet där kroppens sinnen används i hög grad. Ljudet av hjulen mot underlaget indikerar till exempel materialets beskaffenhet och brädans fart för utövaren. I den här presentationen diskuteras (kvinno-)kroppens upplevelse av skateboardåkning. I kroppen omsätts omgivningens arkitektur till sinnlig upplevelse och affekt. Där möts den fysiologiska känslan och den sociokulturella. Kroppar uttrycker och gör. De lyckas och misslyckas. De strålar av lycka och böjer sig i skam. Teoretisk inspiration hämtas från Tomkins bland andra.

As one of the many claimed turns in social sciences lately, we experience (sic!) a corporeal one and as consequence we now know of a sensual revolution. Within that framework this paper discusses female skateboarding and its sensuous appearance. Female skateboarders in Sweden are using their bodies to negotiate power. In so doing their performing bodies are sensing subjects but also sensational objects. Bodies are where senses and affect meet with cultural and social assumptions. Bodies express and perform, bodies fail and succeed, bodies beam in pride and are put in place. Theoretical inspiration comes from various areas such as girlhood studies, the anthropological research on the senses in culture, and the psychology of affect.

Today's society is subject to an increased importance of aesthetics and an increasing individualism. New trends are adopted early by young people, which make it interesting to focus on how identity is formed and meanings are constructed in a youth culture context and in relation to ongoing societal processes of change.

The purpose of this dissertation is to interpret and analyse the construction of meaning within the skateboard and snowboard communities in the social and cultural contexts. In particular, this dissertation is about the relationship between three levels, cultural, practice and individual. The title "Traces" alludes to four analytical themes taking different tracks in the book; consumption, gender, place and identity that are reflected in different chapters. However, the individual leaves traces in culture as culture does in the individual. Furthermore, skaters and snowboarders leave actual tracks in their local geography.

Theoretically the study has a culture analysis approach with a semiotic base where five theories are intertwined. Johan Fornäs contributes with his interpretation on culture as system of signs and signifying practices, Stuart Hall adds the concept of representations, Kirsten Drotner provides her argumentation regarding aesthetic practices whilst Ulf Hannerz enriches the dissertation with his discussion on transnational culture-flows and the social diffusion of culture. Roger Säljö proposes a socio-cultural perspective of learning where learning is about participation in knowledge and skills. The method used is ethnographical. The multifaceted empirical material, from field studies and interviews, Swedish skateboard and snowboard magazines between 1978 to 2002, skateboard and snowboard videos, press articles, and websites, has been triangulated. In addition, there are three personal albums of skateboarder, snowboarder and surfer Ants Neo.

The study shows that there are stereotyped notions about what boarding means and what it means to be a boarder. These notions both create and are created by the boarders themselves but are also used by advertisers for products not related to board sports at all. These notions, based as they are on ideas of resistance and radicalism, serve to emphasise that boarding is masculine. Resistance takes concrete form in its attitude to organized sports and to multinational brands and in the unusual use of places in the urban environment. To be a boarder is, apart form the boarding skills required, to be also part and parcel of these attitudes.

The study explains how meaning and identity are created through informal learning processes in youth culture contexts. In these group-forming processes, both the individual and the community are formulated in social, cultural and aesthetic terms. 

Aesthetic expressions in youth culture have been studied extensively. For the British CCCS and its followers the concept of style is regularly used to explain dress codes, hair fashion and other physical appearances. Sub culture is an often-used term, which enclose these types of expressions, in addition frequently connected to certain kinds music. Lately a growing number of studies on sub culture and sport have been presented. This implies an interest in a slightly different aspect of style – the one focusing more on style in physical activity. The leaderless boarding culture revolves primarily around style and physical bodily activity, in contrast to punk for example, which is held together by style and music. Thus it can be argued that identity through board sports is more clearly incorporated through physical performance. This presentation attempts to fill some of the gap in research around style in physical activity. It focuses bodily aesthetic expressions in skateboarding and the concept of style in relation to the moving body. Style in both senses mentioned above, communicates and creates both bonds and communities. Building on empirical studies on skateboarding in Sweden between 1978-2002, it is argued that also style in physical activity is significant for the construction of cultural and social values. Moreover style in this sense has a highly performative aspect.

Drawing from two long-term ethnographic studies on skateboarding, this presentation will discuss skateboarding as a spatial and multi-sensorial practice where learning and knowing is formed along pathways of movement. I will particularly focus on bowl riding, the particular type of skateboarding practice taking place in so called pools or bowls. The ability to practice bowl riding successfully, requires technical skills which include engaging with material transitions and smooth surfaces, balancing on a moving skateboard, and constantly shifting bodily position. It requires both emplaced knowing and moving. I will address how this skillful mobility and perceptive competence is expressed in two ways: 1) through verbal explanations and 2) as informally demonstrated by bowl riding skateboarders. The research informing this chapter is located in the emerging field of movement culture studies. Theoretically, it is positioned in the intersecting space of anthropology, human geography and pedagogy inspired by recent arguments of a shift from embodiment to emplacement. Consequentially, the conceptualization of a moving body in a moving world, i.e. emplaced via its senses in a sociocultural and spatiotemporal environment, requires re-thinking regarding how bodies in context knows, teaches and, learns.

Drawing from two long-term ethnographic studies on skateboarding, this chapter will discuss skateboarding as a spatial and multi-sensorial practice where learning and knowing is formed along pathways of movement. I will particularly focus on bowl riding, which is a certain type of skateboarding practice taking place in so called pools or bowls. The ability to practice bowl riding successfully, requires technical skills which include engaging with material transitions and smooth surfaces, balancing on a moving skateboard, and constantly shifting bodily position. It requires both emplaced knowing and moving. I will address how this skillful mobility and perceptive competence is expressed in two ways: 1) through verbal explanations and 2) as informally demonstrated by bowl riding skateboarders. The research informing this chapter is located in the emerging field of movement culture studies. Theoretically, it is positioned in the intersecting space of anthropology, human geography and pedagogy inspired by recent arguments of a shift from embodiment to emplacement. Consequentially, the conceptualization of a moving body in a moving world, i.e. emplaced via its senses in a sociocultural and spatiotemporal environment, requires re-thinking regarding how bodies in context knows, teaches and, learns.

Aim and Research Questions

In December 2022, at the prize ceremony for FIFA World Cup in Qatar Lionel Messi wasendowed with a traditional garment – a bisht – by the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin HamadAl Thani. Consequently, the bisht was a highly visible part of the Argentinian celebration onthe podium. All was broadcasted throughout the world. Instantly, the event caused an upsurgeof discussion the lively media debate contained cultural praise as well as accusations of bothislamophobia and racism. How can this debate be understood?Social and cultural ideas are entrenched in sport; however, they are not always interpreted thesame way and the incident described above provides an excellent opportunity to study thecontemporary effects of globalization.

The aim of this presentation is to describe and analyze the mediated value laden expressionsfrom a critical cultural perspective the way they were broadcasted in the coverage of the prizeceremony for the FIFA World Cup 2022 by selected sources.

• Which arguments are audible and visible, who present them, where and in whatways?

• How can these arguments be understood as expressions of transnational culturalflows, cultural complexity, globalization and mediatized values?

Theoretical Background and Literature Review

Three decades ago, Hannerz published the now classic book on cultural complexity and thesocial organization of meaning. He described a creolizing world characterized by diversity inorganization. In his words, ‘autonomy and boundedness of cultures must nowadays beunderstood as a matter of degree’ (Hannerz, 1992, p. 261). Moreover, he stated that thedistribution of culture is asymmetrical where internally diverse transnational culture flowsbetween centers and peripheries. Popular culture, such as sport, fits well in the center/peripherystructure and may even model it, according to Hannerz (1992, p. 240).Before the turn of the century, globalization was a key topic among social science researchersinterested in sports (e.g. Maguire, 1999). The risks of global consumer culture eradicating localcultural expressions was debated. Since then, the importance of media has expanded not leastas a mediator of values (Bolin, 2011). At present, the Qatar World Cup caused journalists andfootball fans to address moral concerns related to the placing of the megaevent, and researchersto critique the adverse effects on social and cultural aspects of sports. For instance, Fruh,Archer and Wojtowicz (2023) argue that Qatar’s interest in hosting the event is a clear case ofsportswashing, i.e., to better a dubious moral reputation through distraction from ethicalviolation, reducing or normalizing it.

Research Design, Methodology and Data Analysis

To describe and analyze the mediated value laden expressions broadcasted in the coverage ofthe prize ceremony for the FIFA World Cup 2022 three different media outlets where chosen:Al Jazeera, SVT and BBC. They were expected to have various perspectives on what happenedon screen given their various social and cultural setting. Al Jazeera was chosen as the Qatariexample, BBC as an example from a country renowned for its well-established interest infootball and SVT for convenience purposes.Sport Media and CommunicationSport Media and Communication310310A theoretically informed reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2019) was performedto describe and analyze the mediated value laden expressions in both text and images.

Results/Findings and Discussion

Preliminary findings to be developed further show how the bisht was used to display Qataricultural values as part of a key event during the World Cup. The bisht can be understood as acultural device initiating a debate on mediated values and later commercial values. Intersectingand conflicting understandings are showcased. For instance, Al Jazeera includes a BBCcommentator questioning the bisht in their edited version of the ceremony which in turn isinterpreted as both racism and islamophobia in the comment section. Argentinian supportersare further portraited as positive both towards the bisht and Messi as their GOAT. By SVT,Qatar is described as hitting the jackpot with the bisht: ‘This image which will be historical,where he wears this Qatari bisht, I’d say, for them they hit the jackpot’ (SVT).

Conclusion, Contribution, and Implication

Hannerz (1992. p. 5) stated that ‘electronic media play a part in shaping and channelingculture’. The following three decades demonstrates a vast expansion globally on mediatizationand the broadcasting of values (Bolin, 2011).To conclude, it may be argued that these values flow transnationally along center/peripheryconnections and inform all involved including football and sports per se. Whether the valuesare regarded as sportwashing and distinctively wrong because it exploits basic sporting valuesto fulfill its aims and makes all involved complicit in the misconducts (Fruh, Archer &Wojtowicz, 2023), or a battle of power in a creolized world, or simultaneously both, is arguablya question of perspective.

References

Bolin, G. (2013). Value and the media: Cultural production and consumption in digital markets. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Braun, V. & V. Clarke (2019). Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis, Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 11:4, 589-597, DOI: 10.1080/2159676X.2019.1628806

Fruh, K., Archer, A., & J. Wojtowicz (2023). Sportswashing: Complicity and corruption. Sport, ethics and philosophy. 17:1, 101-118. DOI: 10.1080/17511321.2022.2107697

Hannerz, Ulf (1992). Cultural complexity. Studies in the social organization of meaning. Columbia University Press. 

Maguire, J. (1999). Global sport. Identities, societies, civilizations. Polity. 

Whether practiced in schools or in sports clubs, the changing room provides a site for transforming yourself from the everyday you to the sporting you and then back again. This transformation involves social, cultural, material, sensorial and affective aspects. For instance, shedding the outer skin, metaphorically speaking, reveals what is beneath, i.e. the naked body with all its beauty and fleshly flaws. The commonplace mirrors support not only individual physical scrutiny, as well as social interaction on what is displayed, but visibility per se. This is a place for regulating looks, but also for regulating observational practices. Although perhaps foregrounding the visual, changing rooms are nevertheless highly multisensorial. The echoing glazed tiles in the showers bounce the sound of cascading waters. Bodily odours like sweat mix with smells from shampoo, various skin products and deodorants. Although this space and the transformations occurring here are fascinating and may provide new knowledge on the way we handle our material bodies in relation to sports, it is an ethically challenging space for doing ethnography. How can this space and the transformations occurring here be studied ethnographically without transgressing integrity?

This paper discusses research about how knowing and teaching is formed as part of the physical activity of skateboarding. Through a four-year project in educations sciences focusing on the cross-roads of mind, body, place and learning, the sensory ethnography approach (Pink 2009) made it possible to explore how knowing was expressed by skateboard coaches in their teaching. The semi-structured character of skateboarding contributed with a setting were the moving body is central, but without the formalized educational framework. To begin with, this methodological approach foregrounded how perception and the senses were involved but also showed the need to go beyond the five-sense sensorium, particularly in relation to understanding the process of teaching and knowing balance and explosiveness, which are both crucial for skateboarding proficiency. Moreover, this research revealed the implications of reflective auto-ethnographic elements in the process of field-work. As a researcher it became apparent how this sensory embeddedness not only informed the research participants’ teaching and knowing, but also my own way of understanding the fleshiness of knowing. In this paper I will explore more deeply the question of the researcher’s route to knowing. To develop this discussion I will build on two existing approaches to defining kinesthetic empathy (Sklar 1998; Parviainen 2003) to suggest how this concept might inform our understandings of how learning is sensory and emplaced (Fors, et al, forthcoming), as well as socio-affective (Tomkins, 1962). In doing so I address related epistemological issues regarding the moving, learning and un/knowing body (e.g. Moyal Sharrock, 2004).

With its prominent street style, skateboarding may be described as a fine example of urban sport. Although deriving from the culturally western world which boasts of a high level of gender equality, the representation of women in skateboarding has remained surprisingly low. In addition, urban milieus in the open and liberal European society have lately been described as places where young women may face harassments and aggression. Drawing from long term sensory ethnography and inspired by later theoretical turns in social sciences focusing the importance of the material environment, this paper discuss how women skateboarders experience the physical activity as enmeshed with the material context at the same time heavily depending on the social and cultural context. The urban environment with its smooth marble or rough asphalt surfaces, its alarming sounds and tingling smells forms the experience of skateboarding. Moreover, it forms the construction of femininity. This paper contributes with new empirical findings on what it means to practise a physical activity in urban locations as a gendered minority. In doing so, it also adds to the discussion on how a material feminist theory might be sketched and developed without overlooking the social and cultural aspects.

Skateboarding or ‘sidewalk surfing’ emerged in the late 1950’s southern California, whereby surfers were not in the sea. The aim of this special issue is to benchmark critical research on skateboarding, youth and subculture on an international basis to contribute to the field of research which explores contemporary skateboarding focusing on young people’s everyday lives from a cultural perspective. Skateboarding is a very individual thing; it is about balance, and it is also about how you hold yourself in a collective subculture within local communities and global media where ‘living side ways’ as Friedel (2016) calls it, is a type of philosophy of the everyday. Skateboarding has evolved from a creative urban activity with a legendary past meshed with subcultural values into an Olympic sport and a platform for multinational industry and global enterprises. On this basis there are tensions between subcultural authenticity within skateboarding and the pursuit of instrumental profit sought by corporate companies who are at some distance from the young people themselves. (Introduction)

Idrottens landskap förändras. Två tendenser är särskilt tydliga: professionalisering och kommersialisering. I den här boken beskrivs hur dessa tendenser tar sig uttryck i relation till hur idrotten organiseras. Det handlar om nya sätt att organisera idrott, som skapar såväl nya förutsättningar som utmaningar. Inte minst utmanar dessa nya organisationsformer rådande sätt att betrakta idrott.

Sport management handlar om att planera, organisera, leda och utvärdera idrott. Sedan drygt femton år tillbaka finns universitetsutbildningar som tar det här kunskaps- och forskningsområdet på största allvar. Författarna i den här boken har varit med och byggt upp dessa utbildningar. De har också forskat och undervisat inom området och på så vis bidragit till fältets expansion och vetenskaplighet såväl i Sverige som internationellt.

Boken är den första i en serie om tre böcker om sport management i Sverige. Det är den enda aktuella boken om sport management på svenska. Det är också den enda boken som tar utgångspunkt i svenska förhållanden.

För professionella inom idrottens administrativa värld är det här en oumbärlig bok. Den ger bland annat svar på frågorna: Varför ser idrottens svenska organisationer ut som de gör? Hur kommer det sig att den ideella idrottsrörelsen blivit så stark i Sverige? Varför sitter fler män än kvinnor på styrande positioner inom idrotten? Och har det någon betydelse att barngympan organiseras av ett kommersiellt företag?

Idrottens landskap förändras. Två tendenser är särskilt tydliga – professionalisering och kommersialisering. I den här boken beskrivs bland annat hur dessa tendenser tar sig uttryck i relation till hur idrotten styrs. Styrning handlar om makt. Det är både viktigt och intressant att synliggöra och granska vilka som har den makten, hur den utövas och vilka konsekvenserna blir. Med makt följer också ansvar. Inom svensk idrott yttrar sig ansvarstagandet genom ett väl förankrat samhällsengagemang.

Sport management handlar om att planera, organisera, leda och utvärdera idrott. Sedan femton år tillbaka finns universitetsutbildningar som tar det här kunskaps- och forskningsområdet på största allvar. De flesta författarna i den här boken har varit med och byggt upp dessa utbildningar. De har också forskat och undervisat inom området och på så vis bidragit till fältets expansion och vetenskaplighet såväl i Sverige som internationellt.

Boken är den andra i en serie om tre böcker om sport management i Sverige. Det är den andra aktuella boken om sport management på svenska. Det är också den andra boken som tar utgångspunkt i svenska förhållanden.

För professionella inom idrottens administrativa värld och för förtroendevalda inom idrottens organisationer är det här en oumbärlig bok. Den ger bland annat svar på frågorna: Varför ger kommuner ekonomiskt stöd till byggandet av lokala arenor, och har de juridisk rätt att göra det? Hur kommer det sig att idrottsorganisationer så intresserade av sociala projekt, och varför riskerar många av dessa att hamna på projektkyrkogården?

Idrottens landskap förändras. Två tendenser är särskilt tydliga – professionalisering och kommersialisering. I den här boken tar vi upp hur dessa tendenser, tillsammans med andra samhällsprocesser som urbanisering och starkare miljökrav, påverkar idrottens former och dess arenor. Vi beskriver också hur olika tendenser förändrar yrkesroller inom idrotten och hur idrottens kulturella kontexter uppstår i nya skepnader. Inte minst blir vinstinriktade inslag tydligare, ibland parallellt med att värdesystem förändras.

Sport management handlar om att finansiera, planera, organisera, leda, marknadsföra och utvärdera idrott. Sedan femton år tillbaka finns universitetsutbildningar som tar det här kunskaps- och forskningsområdet på största allvar. De flesta författarna i den här boken har varit med och byggt upp dessa utbildningar. De har också forskat och undervisat inom området och på så vis bidragit till fältets expansion och vetenskaplighet såväl i Sverige som internationellt.

Boken är den tredje i en serie om tre böcker om sport management i Sverige. Det är den tredje aktuella boken om sport management på svenska. Det är också den tredje boken som tar utgångspunkt i svenska förhållanden. För professionella inom idrottens administrativa värld och för förtroendevalda inom idrottens organisationer är det här en oumbärlig bok. Den ger bland annat svar på frågorna: Hur hänger medier och marknad ihop inom idrotten? Vad har idrott för betydelse för landskap av olika slag? Hur har idrottens yrken förändrats på senare tid? Hur uppstår nya idrotter och nya konsumtionsmönster? Hur kommer idrotten att ta sig uttryck i framtiden?

[Text från förlaget]

Within education studies there have been calls for systematic attention to how learning is situated, to the notion of context and to experiential elements of learning. In recent decades theories of situated learning and cognitive learning theories have existed in a critical relationship to each other and by the twenty first century a major debate raged between the two positions (Sfard, 1998; Säljö, 2003, Hodkinson et al 2008). At a more sophisticated level situated learning theory offers an alternative to cognitive learning theories that draw on the root metaphor of acquisition. Instead it understands thinking as embedded in social and material practices and conceptualises learning through the metaphor of participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991).

In this context there is an on-going search for new ways to understand the situatedness of learning as well as its experiential qualities. In our recent work we have addressed this need by developing a framework that builds on Lave and Wenger’s ideas of situatedness and Hodkinssons’et. al (2008) call for moving on from the recent debate between cognitive and sociocultural theorists informed by theories of place, perception and the senses. Theories of place, perception and knowledge in human geography and anthropology, offer an ideal route through which to respond to this call. They offer accounts of place that acknowledge the relationship between spatial and temporal process (Massey 2005), and the embodied nature of learning, while advancing the agenda further to suggest that the senses and the environment are central to how we learn (e.g. Ingold 2000, Pink 2009).We call this framework sensory emplaced learning (Fors, Bäckström & Pink, 2013), through which we conceptualize how learning is situated in the dynamics between body– senses – material environments.

In this paper we draw from our respective ethnographic research projects on social and cultural informal learning among young people in two very different, albeit Swedish, contexts. Through our field work with people on the one hand publishing and talking about images and texts on a particular website and on the other hand practicing skateboarding, we have come to question the idea of knowledge as acquisition. This mainly cognitive metaphor for learning and knowing applies poorly to the practices of learning and knowing that we have studied. Instead, we argue for a theoretical development around the Swedish term “känsla”, (pronounced shensla). This Swedish word encompasses feeling, sensation, affect, emotion and style and derives from the verb känna – to feel, to sense. Etymologically the word is closely related to one of the Swedish words for knowledge – “kännedom” (Wessén, 1982). Hence, the main objective of this paper is to develop the theoretical thinking that revolve around the Swedish conceptualisation of “känsla” which, we argue, could provide useful for analysing how we know, handle and make meaning of everyday life in and through our sensorial bodies emplaced in material contexts.

Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used The empirical material analysed in this paper emanates from two different sets of data that was produced in two different research projects with a similar methodological ethnographic approach; sensory ethnography (as developed by Pink 2009/2012). A sensory ethnography approach has the advantage of focusing the experiences of lived space, i.e. the crossroads between people’s bodies, their minds and place. In other words, it may be used to describe and analyse what we have previously labelled sensory emplacement (Fors, Bäckström & Pink, 2013; Pink, 2011). The first research project focused on informal learning processes in women skateboarding contexts mainly including unregulated skateboarding, but also contests, skate camps and a skate tour at indoor and outdoor skateparks. Addressing didactic issues of verbal and non verbal expressions of teaching and learning a sensory ethnography approach made bodily un/knowing apparent. The kinesthetic experience of explosiveness, defined as enforcement and transformation of energy, was remembered and also implicitly imagined as part of movement (Bäckström, 2014). For the purpose of this paper data from the first project predominately consist of written field notes, photographs, as well as interview and video transcripts. During the second project, we spent time with the research participants sharing the same computer screen when they used the Internet to gain an appreciation of how they embed these technologies in the routines and habits of their everyday life (Fors, 2013). We were specifically inspired by the notion of how visual experience is part of the multisensory process of moving through the digital, paying attention to “the ways the body is engaged in imagining and remembering” the localities and persons that Internet content represent and there by “move beyond the notion of ‘looking at’ images on a screen” (Pink, 2012:122). The data produced for the analysis presented in this paper consist of interview transcripts, photographs and entries/comments from the photo diaries, and video-recorded interviews during the sessions when the participants guided us through their use of these digital diaries.

Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings Our analysis made clear that it is possible to deepen our understanding of how learning becomes situated in human practice through identifying alternative and multisensory categories of routes to knowing. In this research, the research participants described their learning experiences through qualities deeply embedded in embodied and emplaced practices. Through a sensory ethnographic approach we identified one specific quality that highlights both embodied and emplaced aspects of learning and may be used to move further sensory emplaced implications on theories of situated learning. We call this quality “känsla”. As mentioned above, this Swedish word includes multiple meanings where feeling, sensation, affect, emotion and style are the most important. Moreover, our analysis shows that “känsla” is a concept that is constituted of multiple aspects of knowing. It engages the senses, it unfolds in the interface between body and the material environment, it engages the body through affect, and it is situated within, and thereby characterized by, distinct social and cultural settings. It is also a concept that becomes evident in both material and digital contexts, and both embodied, emplaced and virtual practices.

References Ingold, Tim. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge. Lave, Jean and Wenger, Etienne. 1991. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marchand, Trevor. 2007. “Crafting Knowledge: The Role of ‘Parsing and Production of Skill-Based Knowledge among Masons.” In: M. Harris (ed.), Ways of Knowing: New Approaches in the Anthropology of Knowledge and Learning. New York: Berghahn Books. Pink, Sarah. 2009. Doing Sensory Ethnography. London: Sage.

Intent of Publication This is an original paper which will be submitted to the Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research.