Hitotsubashi University Repository

Title スポーツ社会学者としてのノルベルト・エリアス

Author(s) 大平, 章

Citation 人文・自然研究, 8: 73-102

Issue Date 2014-03-31

Type Departmental Bulletin Paper

Text Version publisher

URL http://doi.org/10.15057/26539

Right

Hitotsubashi Review of Arts and Sciences 8　　5

Norbert Elias as Sport Sociologist

Akira OHIRA

　This paper aims to emphasize the importance of Norbert Elias as a sport sociolo-

gist. At the University of Leicester he launched his sport studies from sociological,

historical and psychological perspectives with Eric Dunning in the 1960s and 1970s,

publishing a monumental book, Quest for Excitement in 1986. This has encouraged

sociologists to have wide-ranging discussions on sport. Here Elias used what is called

“figurational theory” to elucidate the development of sport over time from antiquity

through the Middle Ages up to the present time, thus successfully making his own

theoretical model for sport sociology. What he insists here is that sport should not be

separated from human society because the two have clear interdependencies. The

present paper tries to go deeply into some of these aspects of his sociological thinking.

It also deals with the problem of the occurrence of violence in modern sport, particu-

larly among recent young soccer fans in Britain called “hooligans,” whose behavior

and conduct are said to have something to do with a male-oriented cultural reaction

against modernity and rationality. The paper will finally note the fact that sport has in

fact played an important role in preventing violence and constructing a peaceful soci-

ety.