TY - BOOK

T1 - Running and swimming

T2 - a materialized account of careers and practices

AU - Gillett, Joe

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - While regular exercise can bring a range of benefits, the social processes underpinning how participation in various exercise activities starts and, in particular, is sustained and changes continues to be contested. This thesis explores the relevance of an approach that takes practice – and the associated proposition that ‘materials’ are part of practice – as the central unit of conceptualization and analysis when examining changing patterns of participation in running and swimming.Drawing on interviews with 30 runners and swimmers in two English cities, Bristol and Lancaster, as well as desk-based historical research, I focus on what is involved in the ‘doing’ of runs and swims, how this has changed in recent decades, and how this links to patterns of participation in interviewees’ lives. My research sheds insight into the processes through which different forms of running and swimming (various indoor and outdoor forms, including mass participation events) come to intersect with people’s ‘careers’ in these practices, and the cumulative effects of the ‘materialized doing’ of runs and swims in shaping where, when, and how these practices are conducted. I argue that these dynamics are important for understanding how participation is sustained and changes, and that the premises which inform current sports policy, and the interpretations of participation on which these ideas depend, do not capture the ways in which ‘materialized careers’ in running and swimming unfold. In response, I discuss ways of conceptualizing participation that better capture the processes through which running and swimming evolve.

AB - While regular exercise can bring a range of benefits, the social processes underpinning how participation in various exercise activities starts and, in particular, is sustained and changes continues to be contested. This thesis explores the relevance of an approach that takes practice – and the associated proposition that ‘materials’ are part of practice – as the central unit of conceptualization and analysis when examining changing patterns of participation in running and swimming.Drawing on interviews with 30 runners and swimmers in two English cities, Bristol and Lancaster, as well as desk-based historical research, I focus on what is involved in the ‘doing’ of runs and swims, how this has changed in recent decades, and how this links to patterns of participation in interviewees’ lives. My research sheds insight into the processes through which different forms of running and swimming (various indoor and outdoor forms, including mass participation events) come to intersect with people’s ‘careers’ in these practices, and the cumulative effects of the ‘materialized doing’ of runs and swims in shaping where, when, and how these practices are conducted. I argue that these dynamics are important for understanding how participation is sustained and changes, and that the premises which inform current sports policy, and the interpretations of participation on which these ideas depend, do not capture the ways in which ‘materialized careers’ in running and swimming unfold. In response, I discuss ways of conceptualizing participation that better capture the processes through which running and swimming evolve.

KW - Social practice theory

KW - Materiality

KW - Exercise and environment

KW - Running

KW - Swimming

KW - Qualitative research

U2 - 10.17635/lancaster/thesis/435

DO - 10.17635/lancaster/thesis/435

M3 - Doctoral Thesis

PB - Lancaster University

ER -