By: Frida Austmo Wågan
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Sport, performance and sustainability, by Daniel Svensson, Erik Backman, and Susanna Hedenborg, Sverker Sörlin, 2023
Edited by Daniel Svensson, Erick Backman, Susanna Hedenborg and Sverker Sölin, this Routledge anthology seeks to explore whether the dominant logics of elite sports (‘faster, better, stronger’), the professionalisation of sports, and the exponential growth in sports economy are compatible with the climate crisis and sports’ social and environmental responsibilities. It examines a variety of topics related to sports, physical education and the environment, like environmental activism through social media (chapter 3), youth sports and physical education in relation to sustainability (chapter 7 and 8), artificial ‘nature’ in sporting spaces (chapter 4) and the environmental footprint related to the sportification of sports (chapter 5).
The concept of sportification describes the process where ‘technological, scientific, and economic developments make most sports increasingly complex and demanding’ (p. 7) is especially prominent throughout the book. Here, Guttman’s (Citation1978) ‘Sportification model’, that explains how modern sports have developed through the emphasis on records, measurability and quantification, works as an overall theoretical frame for the book, and as a theoretical contribution that informs many of the chapters included in the book. For instance, various chapters employ the term sportification in order to explore how sportification processes affect the opportunities for sports and physical education to be environmentally and socially sustainable. Other concepts related to sportification, as described by Guttman (Citation1978), like rationalisation, standardisation, regimentation, organisation and specialisation are further used to discuss questions like ‘Is it possible to pursue sportification without increasing the environmental impact?’ (p. 9).
Drawing on various perspectives (i.e. sport pedagogy, sport history, sport philosophy), and modes of empirical data (i.e. netnography, mixed-methods questionnaires, historical analyses, document analysis, track records), the book includes 8 chapters structured in three sections. The first section, Overreaching Logics and Issues includes two chapters, where the first is an introduction chapter by the editors of the book, and the second is a theoretical chapter on ‘The idea of Natural Athletic Performance: An Interpretation and a Defence’ by Sigmund Loland. This section gives us an introduction to the relationship between the competitive logics of sports and environmental sustainability, and further explores how sports’ increased focus on competition and performance (with reference to Guttman’s (Citation1978) sportification model) in many ways has been prioritised at the expense of the natural environment.
The second section on Developments and Processes consists of four chapters, namely ‘Adventure sports, Social media and Environmental Activism’ by Simon Beames and Jack Reed, ‘The Changing Landscape of Sport Facilities: the consequences for Practitioners and the environment’ by Erik Backman, Daniel Svensson and Itai Danielski, ‘Environmental Sustianability in a Fast-Emerging Sport: The Sportification of Padel’ by Johan Carlsson & ‘Diagnosis of sportification and Indigenisation in the History of Samì Lassoing’ by Isak Lidström and Bo Carlsson. This part explores the contemporary developments and trends in sport, using case-studies of emerging sports, adventure sports and traditional sports that are not focusing on competition all alone to showcase how these ‘could challenge the sportification model’ (p. 10) if aspects like environmental sustainability or indigenisation processes are considered. For instance, Isak Lidström and Bo Carlsson, show how a sportification of lassoing contradicts the original purpose of this sport, namely indigenisation, cultural authenticity and local ecological utilisation of resources. Furthermore, Johan Carlsson, gives some examples of environmental aspects that need to be considered in the sportification of emerging sports for these to develop in a more environmentally sustainable manner than what has been the case for similar sports earlier. More specifically, he discuss how the use of new materials in sports equipment (e.g., rackets, turf) should be considered from an environmental as well as a performance standpoint in emerging sports like padel.
The third and last section, Education and Sports Sustainability, includes two chapters. One on environmental sustainability in physical education by Andreas I. Karlsson and Erik Backman (chapter 7), and one on social and environmental aspects of sustainability in school sports by Marie Larneby (chapter 8). Here, the current management of the balance between learning and performing sports and the social and environmental aspects of sustainability (i.e. gender equality, social inclusion or fostering environmental consciousness) in physical education and school sports are addressed. Karlsson and Backman clearly illustrate how curriculum about environmental sustainability is given less time and focus than other topics in physical education, and that many PE-teachers fail to see the link between physical education and environmental sustainability. Furthermore, Larneby concludes that physical education is dominated by a performance logic adapted from sports, and that this logic contradicts social aspects of sports in various ways. This is especially prominent when it comes to fostering gender equality and social inclusion.
Albeit the introduction chapter defines and operationalises ‘sustainable sportification’ (see p. 15), and further links this concept to the term sustainability, I miss a more delimited and specific conceptualisation of the term ‘environmental sustainability’ to be included in the introduction. How is this concept used in this book? What approaches to sustainability align with those used in the various chapters? Are environmentally sustainable practices understood in a way that emphasises technological innovation, gradual changes and further economic growth as solutions to the environmental problems we are facing, like reformist approaches to sustainability often tend to do (e.g. Ecological Modernisation discourses, Spaargaren, Citation2000)? Or is it used in a way that aligns more with radical approaches to sustainability that focus on degrowth and radical changes (Dryzek, Citation2013)? Are the social aspects of sustainability included in the book, or is the focus solely on environmental sustainability throughout the book?
Since sustainability in many ways has become a ‘buzzword’ that has been linked to many different meanings and concepts in the last couple of years (Fischler, Citation2014), a clear delimitation of this concept would help the reader to get an understanding of what environmental sustainability may look like in the chapters of the book. Adding an additional chapter that explicitly address various perspectives on what ‘natural’ or ‘environmentally sustainable’ sports look like, could have easily solved this issue and provided more clarity for the reader. Another solution could have been adding a definition of environmental sustainability early on in each chapter of the book, like Backman, Svensson and Danielski does in chapter 4. Here, environmental sustainability is defined in line with Morelli’s (Citation2011) definition: ‘a condition of balance, resilience, and interconnectedness that allows human society to satisfy its needs while neither exceeding the capacity of its supporting ecosystems to continue to regenerate the services necessary to meet those needs nor by our actions diminishing biological diversity’ (Morelli, Citation2011, p. 5). Indeed, this is a definition that seems compatible with the way environmental sustainability is understood in other chapters of the book as well (at least my reading of them).
Despite this lack of an overreaching definition of environmental sustainability, the structure of the book and the choice to divide it in to three parts helps the reader navigate through the various topics that are discussed throughout the chapters. Rooted in its aim to explore ‘What environmental implications does sportification have in various sports and in the sports sector in general?’, the book covers a variety of sports and physical activities both within- and between the different chapters. The fact that more ‘untraditional’ activities and emerging sports such as padel (chapter 5) and lassoing (chapter 6) that to date haven’t gained that much research attention are included among more popular sports like cross country skiing (chapter 4), is to me one of the strong points of the book. Yet, it would be beneficial to have a few more chapters where even more sports and cases from the ‘sports sector’ were included in order to cover the aim of the book even better. Furthermore, it would have been nice to see an extended global focus regarding the choice of research context for the sports studied, since a vast majority of the chapters only include examples from Scandinavian or European countries.
Due to the wide thematic focus – from physical education to management of sports facilities and environmental activism – Guttman’s (Citation1978) theoretical framework works well in providing a thread throughout the book, and the implementation of theory appears as thoroughly woven into most of the chapters. This is done by merging theoretical perspectives of sportification into a historical analysis of the development in the sport presented in a majority of the chapters. Although this is a clever way to use theory, and I acknowledge that historical dimensions are important to understand current development processes, I sometimes felt like the historical context of the cases presented got a little too much focus on behalf of deeper analyses of how the specific processes of sportification relate to environmental sustainability in some of the chapters. The inclusion of other complimentary perspectives in some chapters (e.g. the philosophical lenses on ‘what we view as a natural athlete’ in chapter 2 by Loland, or perspectives focusing on the local and contextual aspects of sports in chapter 4 by Backman, Svensson and Danielski on sports facilities) thus helped to create a more nuanced contribution overall, like the book promises to do initially.
Personally, I found the contrasting of multiple theories and ontological viewpoints used by Loland in the second chapter ‘The Idea of Natural Athletic Performance: An Interpretation and a Defence’ especially interesting. Loland plays with various perspectives in a way that creates new reflection upon the dominant view of ‘natural athletic performance’ without being normative on what this term should imply. I also found chapter 3 by Beames and Reed on environmental activism by outdoors adventurers to be an interesting read. Here, the authors draw on Kozinets’ (2019) netnographic approach to curate and analyse web-based data from the social media profiles of five adventurers that use their channels to engage in environmental activism. Due to the fact that my own doctoral thesis looks into environmental activism by athletes in social media channels, I really enjoyed Beames and Reed’s discussion of the problems and complexities associated with this emerging genre of pro-environmental action.
In sum, this book offers a variety of thoughts related to the concept of environmental sustainability in the current sport and physical education context. It is neither a ‘complete’ overview of the literature on the field of environmental sustainability in sports and PA/PE, nor a narrow and in-depth analysis of specific features of environmental issues in a certain sport context aimed at certain stakeholders. It is thus the perfect introduction to various ideas of what environmental sustainability may mean in physical activity and performance settings that can easily be recommended to practitioners and scholars regardless of their pre-existing knowledge about the topic. More particularly, scholars at various levels may gain new perspectives and ideas on how to add various features of sustainability to their research agenda by reading this book.
Reference:
Frida Austmo Wågan (2023). Sport, performance and sustainability, European Journal for Sport and Society, DOI: 10.1080/16138171.2023.2293520
