Completing sportisation
Elias on the diffusion and differentiation of sport in "modern" society
pp. 137-152
in: Jan Haut, Paddy Dolan, Dieter Reicher, Raul Sánchez García (eds), Excitement processes, Berlin, Springer, 2018Abstract
Norbert Elias's widely known papers on the development of sport largely deal with early processes of sportization, in Greek antiquity and especially in seventeenth and eighteenth century Britain. However, only in the hitherto unpublished writings Elias addressed the development of sport in the second half of the nineteenth century. In this chapter, I will show how the analysis of this crucial period in the history of "modern" sport continues and completes the figurational theory of sportization. It is described how the changing class constellations deriving from bourgeoisification (functional democratization) affected the further development of different sports in different ways. Thus it can be explained that aspects which are often ascribed to "modernization", are not only included but put even more precise in the figurational perspective on sport.
