Assessing the sociology of sport: On Brazil and Latin American perspectives

Abstract

On the 50th anniversary of the ISSA and IRSS, Wanderley Marchi Júnior, a key foundational scholar in the development of the sociology of sport in Latin America, considers the trajectory of inquiry and the unique challenges confronting Latin American scholars in mounting socio-cultural inquiry about sport. In assessing the development of the field, it is noted that the relatively new academic discipline of sociology of sport grew from its seating in physical education to incorporate understandings from fields such as education, history, sociology, and economics in a necessary ‘academic oxygenation’. The present challenges for scholarly development are regarded as standing at a crossroads of critical and Marxist perspectives, with studies in Brazil being influenced by the work of Elias and Bourdieu, and empirical, statistical and analytical research traditions from the United States. It is suggested that the future for sociology in sport in Brazil and Latin America, where the discipline has developed in three identifiable stages, can be viewed with considerable optimism. In the third stage, the sociology of sport has been expanded by reconstructing its legitimacy through increased intersectional analysis that bridges the knowledge and understanding across the social sciences and humanities.