COURSE STRUCTURE
Module 3: Collectivities and Spaces
The final module within this course examines the relationship between various sporting communities, and the spaces within which these communities exist. The goal of such a multifaceted analysis is to highlight the extent to which sport exists and operates in numerous spatial dimensions. Turning to the relationship between space and particular sport subcultures (Topic A), this topic examines the spatial dimensions (or lack thereof), of particular generation, social class, and ethnic based subcultures. This leads to a discussion of the relationship between physical culture and the neoliberal city (Topic B), focusing specifically on Baltimore. This examination unpacks the structure and influence of sport within entrepreneurial regimes of city governance, that key on the reinvention of the city, at least partially, around corporate sport spectacles, and the concomitant retrenchment in public provision for sport and physical activity. The following topic keys on the relationship between sport and the manifestations and experience of community, with specific reference to representative sport culture (Topic C). This involves engaging with the concept of the organic sport community, as constituted through small town, prolonged and extensive face-to-face social interactions, through which individuals derive a sense of collective affinity and belonging. The discussion then moves to the concept of the extended/metropolitan community, as constituted through largely imagined collective affinities through which individuals garner a symbolic sense of collective and communal belonging. Moving up the socio-spatial ladder, leads to an examination of the relationship between sport and the cultural constitution of distinct nations, as mediated through the establishment and promotion of sport based national identities and nationalisms (Topic D).
