BSA Leisure & Recreation Study Group


Workshop, Friday June 8th 2012

Centre for Sport Research (CfSR), University of Brighton, Trevin Towers Annex Room G1, Gaudick Road, Eastbourne BN20 7SP, 10.30am-4.30pm

Inaugural Workshop in ‘Reviewing Leisure Theory’ Series


REVIEWING HEGEMONY THEORY I: REMEMBERING JOHN HARGREAVES


PROGRAMME



10.30am: Welcome and coffee

11.00am-12noon: Alan Tomlinson (University of Brighton), ‘British cultural studies, the sociology of sport/leisure and hegemony theory’

12noon-1.00pm: Karl Spracklen (Leeds Metropolitan University), ‘Where has the criticality gone? Re-visiting Hargreaves and hegemony’

1.00pm-2.00pm: LUNCH

2.00pm-3.00pm: Ian McDonald (University of Brighton), ‘”More determined than determining”: Revisiting Hargreaves’s use of hegemony in Sport, Power and Culture’

3.00pm-3.45pm: Christopher Matthews (Loughborough University), ‘Violence, ambiguity, coherence & identity: Critical comments on hegemonic masculinity’

3.45pm-4.00pm: TEA BREAK

4.00pm-4.30pm: Future workshops

Summaries of talks are below. If you plan to attend (there is no cost for this event) please e-mail Gill Rogers at the CfSR, [log in to unmask], copying the email to [log in to unmask] 

END OF WORKSHOP PROGRAMME






Summaries of talks


Tomlinson: This talk reviews Gramsci’s concept of hegemony and the adoption of hegemony theory in British Cultural Studies 1970s/80s critical sociology of sport, including consideration of the work of John Hargreaves. With some reference to the seminal work Sport, Power and Culture and the work of contemporaneous historians and sociologists, I re-assess the contribution of hegemony theory to the overall leisure studies project of the time.    

Spracklen: This talk will examine the state-of-play of leisure studies in the twenty-first century through an analysis of papers published in the journal Leisure Studies. I will show that contemporary critical studies of leisure have become inconsistent in their use, understanding and application of hegemony theory. I will suggest that the work of John Hargreaves, which is mainly absent in this theorization of hegemony and critical theory, should be returned to if leisure studies is to develop a proper sociological account of leisure.

McDonald: Hegemony theory, as developed in Sport and Leisure Studies over the past two decades, is often understood as providing a more ‘optimistic’ assessment of the political possibilities for contestation and resistance by subordinate groups than that associated with more ‘pessimistic’ forms of neo-Marxist approaches (e.g. Brohm and Rigauer). John Hargreaves is quite rightly seen as a pioneer of hegemony theory in Sport and Leisure Studies, and yet his reflection in Sport Power and Culture that sports are ‘more determined....than determining’ suggests that his analysis is more in line with the neo-Marxist approach than what subsequently became accepted as hegemony theory.  This observation forms the point of departure for an examination of Hargreaves’s theory of sport and hegemony.

Matthews: In this talk, moving on from Hargreaves to Connell’s hugely influential theory of hegemonic masculinity (Connell), ethnographic observations and interviews from research within a boxing subculture are drawn upon in reflections upon the hegemonic theory. Men’s understandings of what was considered ‘correct’ male behaviours and identifications in this largely heterosexual male preserve are described. Where one might expect the hegemonic masculinity thesis to explicate such understandings, the tensions, inconsistencies and varieties within identifications as reported from the research suggest the Connell framework to be overly reductive. 





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