Lifestyle Sports and Identities

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.

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.

Introduction. Part 1. Entering a Career and Forging a Place in the Activity During Midlife. 1. Becoming a Mountain Biker. 2. The Construction of Place Identity via "Shua jie" in Public Spaces of Guangzhou, China. 3. The Objectification of Self in Material Culture: Identity Anchors in Jeep Culture. 4. Gender and Climbing Style: "Dynos" and "Heel Hooks" in the Gym. 5. Maneuvering Microaggressions and Contesting Cultural Beliefs: An Intersectional Examination of Mexican American Surfers Experiences in Southern California Surf Culture. 6. Constructing Queer-Skater Identities: Failure and Futurity. Part 2. Maintaining a Career During Midlife. 7. Identity and Wellbeing in Older Skateboarders. 8. The Working Lives of Professional Rock Climbers: An Ethnographic Exploration of Multilayered Labor. 9. Big Wave Surfing: Fun, Group Cohesion, and Group Identity. 10. BMX in China: Subculture Identity, Family, Career. 11. BMX Freestyle Cycling and Identity. Part 3: Negotiating Careers as Older Adults. 12. Ageing and Nature-based Sport: Sensing, Experiencing and Becoming. 13. Seniors, Lifestyle, and Hobbyist Sport. 14. Lifestyle Sport Identity and National Identity: Thoughts on the Chinese Government's (re)Creation of Dama Image. 15. Gra(c)(t)efully Ageing in Late Capitalist Sport: Coping with the Inevitable in Action Pursuits. Part 4. Shifts in the Fields. 16. Conventional Culture, Subcultural Institutions and Subcultural Careers as Backdrops to Identity Work in Singapore's Esports Scene. 17. Skateboarding in the Iron Cage: An Exploratory Examination of Professional Skate Identities in Street League Skateboarding. 18. From Spectacle to Sport: Shifting Authenticity within Modern Roller Derby. 19. Transforming Gender Identity through Breaking. 20. Understanding Race in Skateboarding: A Retrospection and Agenda for the Importance of Being Seen.