Figurational Sociology and the Sociology of Sport

This entry provides an overview of the origins and development of figurational sociology and the sociology of sport. It discusses the overlapping principles of this sociological tradition, and gives an overview of the intellectual ambition of its founder, Norbert Elias, best encapsulated in The Civilising Process, and some examples of the ways in which his ideas have been tested, refined, refuted, and expanded by subsequent generations. Overall this work retains a marginal outsider status in the sociological canon, but not in sport. Elias, with Eric Dunning, established the case for understanding sport as a thoroughly social and sociological phenomenon and their work was a significant breakthrough in this regard. The development of research by figurationalists of sport since the 1980s is also previewed here, demonstrating that figurational sociology was not tantamount to an analysis merely of violence and aggression, in sport and society. This corpus of work on sport has not only contributed to understanding figurational sociology itself but has made important contributions to other areas of knowledge and has also impacted positively on the work/ideas of other theoretical and disciplinary proponents of research on sport.