Cultural Interpretation in Sport: The Outside World and Pictures Inside Heads

Abstract

This paper aims to give an evaluation of cultural interpretations of sport. There are four parts to the paper, each concerned with a somewhat different aspect of that central task. Part One — overviews some problems in cultural conceptualization and discusses a number of metatheoretical issues involved in cultural analysis. Part Two — gives a brief overview of some of the sociology or sport literature making use of cultural frameworks. Part Three — draws on both previous parts in suggesting the subculture concept is useful in overcoming some of the deficiencies of cultural analysis and this leads to a discussion in the final part of the processes of negotiation which occur in sport settings and which generate, reconstitute or change oultural structures.