This book examines how different stages of adult life affect participation in lifestyle sports and in the construction of identity. Drawing on multi-disciplinary perspectives, it explores how gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and location, in conjunction with age and stage in career, affect lifestyle sport practices and meanings.

Tracing engagement with lifestyle sport across the lifecourse, from young adult to older age, the book examines the concepts of authenticity and identity in subcultural and alternative sports, exploring how individuals develop lifestyle sport identities, maintain authentic identities, and how they manage those identities as older adults. It presents a range of fascinating, cutting-edge case studies from around the world, covering sports as diverse as climbing, surfing, mountain biking, skateboarding and roller derby, and considers key contemporary issues such as professionalisation, sports labor, and digital technology. It also highlights political tensions and shifts that shape the identities of lifestyle sport communities.

This is essential reading for anybody with a serious interest in alternative or lifestyle sports, the relationships between sport and wider society, or the development of subcultures and cultural identity.

About the Author

Tyler Dupont is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York, Oneonta, USA.

Becky Beal is Professor of Kinesiology at California State University, East Bay, USA.

Reviews

"In our opinion, the book can be considered as essential reading, both for scholars interested in topics, such as youth sports, alternative sports, sports policy disputes, and the sociology of sport in general and for practitioners (athletes and exercisers) engaging in lifestyle sports. It is definitively a book worth looking into, either to inform your understanding of the deeper meaning of doing lifestyle sports, or just for an inspirational read, or, as in our case; both. Against this backdrop, we have no doubts about recommending this book." - Frida Wagan and Mads Skauge, Nord University, European Journal for Sport and Society

"Dupont (State University of New York, Oneonta) and Beal (California State University, East Bay) have edited a volume that explores an important, understudied area of sport and leisure. Twenty different chapters address guiding questions about how sport identities and participation change over time in "lifestyle" sports ... The first section of the book on career and activity in midlife is particularly strong, and the section about making a career of one's alternative sport offers intriguing perspectives. This anthology begins to answer some key questions about the aging sporting population and encourages further research. Summing Up: Highly recommended." - S. K. Fields, University of Colorado Denver, CHOICE

Book Information
ISBN 9781032052397
Author Tyler Dupont
Format Paperback
Page Count 310
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 480g