Search results for " leisure"
showing 10 items of 738 documents
Identity tensions in dual career : the discursive construction of future selves by female Finnish judo athletes
2019
To date, few studies have explored how changes in the practices, policies, and politics of sport and education may be implicated in how young athletes think about and plan for the future. Drawing on cultural praxis and feminist poststructuralist frameworks, this paper explores whether and how dual career (DC) policies and practices in Finland guide female judo athletes’ imaginings about their future. Discourse analysis was used to analyse interviews with three adolescent (aged 16) and three young adult (aged 20, 23, and 27) elite female judo athletes. Differences were found in the ways the athletes in the different age groups constructed their future athletic, civic and gendered selves. We …
Composite vignettes of Swedish male and female professional handball players’ career paths
2019
The aim of this study was to describe gender-specific career paths of Swedish professional handball players. A reanalysis of Ekengren et al. (2018) career interviews with nine male and nine female players led to creating two composite vignettes using the athletes’ own words, accounted for typical features in the male and female players’ career paths. Seven themes were identified in the analysis of the men’s transcripts and eight themes derived from the women’s transcripts. Further, the themes of both vignettes were aligned with career stages described in our previous study (Ekengren et al. 2018). The male players’ vignette is interpreted as a performance narrative congruent with elite handb…
The Influence of the Lotus Flower Theme on the Perception of Contemporary Urban Architecture
2021
We live in the visual culture times, when images continuously and daily are transferring some information. A visual message is also an indispensable element of architecture, in the semantic layer as an aesthetic value, sometimes fulfilling a narrative function by means of a symbol, which is an international visual code. Most of the symbols, hidden in painting, sculpture, or architecture, are elements of nature. The article discusses examples of architecture whose form is based on a lotus flower. Unification of urban landscapes leads to a decrease in the value of aesthetic impressions; therefore, the unique architecture builds the unique identity of the place.
Being lost: tourism, risk and vulnerability in the post-‘9/11’ entertainment industry
2012
This study explores the ways in which the post-‘9/11’ film industry employs tourism as a plot that re-creates mythical imageries of the ‘West’ in relation to a radical ‘other’. Reflecting on sociological and psychological concepts of ‘vulnerability’ and ‘risk’, the authors undertake a content analysis of four ‘horror’ or ‘terror’ films and reveal complex discourses linked to nationalist sentiment, political ideology, the power of expertise and public insecurity in the post-‘9/11’ USA. One interesting feature of the current horror-movie genre is the extent of violence and sadism exerted on Western tourists going abroad. Drawing on the image of the tourist as victim, the authors further discu…
‘Glocal’ processes in peripheral football countries:A figurational sociological comparison of Finland and Hungary
2015
The aim of this article is to increase the understanding of the global and local contexts in football by finding out what social, cultural and economic dimensions seem to characterize ‘periphery’ football. This study applies figurational sociological perspective, which is applicable to the research on globalization processes and sport. The sources utilized are publications on the history and sociology of football as well as interviews with football practitioners. First, a theoretical framework of the global football figuration is advanced. Second, applying the constructed framework, the concept of periphery football country is discussed. It was found in accordance with previous research tha…
Applying importance-performance analysis to residents’ perceptions of large sporting events
2019
The objective of this study was to apply an importance-performance analysis to analyze residents’ perceptions of a large sporting event. Initially, a confirmatory factorial analysis was conducted t...
‘Whose were those feelings?’ : Affect and likenessing in Halat hisar live action role-playing game
2021
Halat hisar was a live action role-playing game (larp) organized in Finland in 2016. Halat hisar’s ambition as a larp was to mirror the current situation in Palestine. In larps, participants take on different roles and improvise without the presence of an audience. Larps offer a place where emotions and affectivities are transmitted through the embodiment of characters. Larps offer forms of likenessing, which create new affective states for the players. We conclude that larps can be powerful tools for portraying political alternatives of actual events, and they can serve a role in raising awareness. Larps offer a productive context for studying subjectivities where the focus is on affectiv…
Decolonising European minds through Heritage
2019
By analysing three museums exhibition, this article investigates how the history of European colonialism is approached in an attempt to identify potential for decolonising European minds. The case studies consist of a temporary exhibition (2016–2017) concerning German colonialism at the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin; the permanent exhibition of the House of European History in Brussels and the permanent exhibition of the Sagres Promontory (Portugal), a heritage site related to the conquest of the Americas. The analysis will focus on three aspects: 1) acknowledgement of connections between colonial histories and their contemporary influences in and for Europe; 2) the role of histor…
Racism and Xenophobia in Spanish Football: Facts, Reactions and Policies
2009
Racism and Xenophobia in Spanish Football: Facts, Reactions and PoliciesContrary to what is sometimes supposed, racism is not a phenomenon of the past. In fact, it is one of the major challenges of the present and future in Europe and Spain. Besides providing an incomparable sense of belonging, football stadiums are also an excellent platform to express racist and xenophobic attitudes and behaviours. In Spain, for years many players have suffered abuse and insults, although it is black and ethnic minority players who receive the most harassment. Thus, the problem of racism has increased recently in Spanish football, as shown by the emission of monkey noises toward black players and the use …
Women's Body Consciousness and Political Ideologies in Finnish Exercise Culture
2012
For over one hundred years, women’s gymnastics has been one of the most popular sports in the Nordic countries. Since the beginning of the 20 century, hundreds of gymnastics festivals have attracted thousands of gymnasts in Finland alone. Gymnastics has been taught weekly, monthly, and from year to year, in gymnastic clubs and at schools around the country. When teaching gymnastics according to the standards of the day, the gymnasts and their teachers considered the norms of gymnastics self-evident; in other words, as if the movements exercised and the body consciousness born out of the movements were neutral and value-free. Women’s gymnastics cannot, however, be examined separately from th…