An introduction to a theme issue of the journal Sport in Society, in which the relationship between science and sports are being scrutinized from different perspectives.

Issues of purity are central to modern sport, as well as to modernity in general. This paper ponders the role of purity in modern sport by also including its counterpart, hybridity, in the discussion. In sport studies, the concept of the 'human' is identified as something taken for granted, and therefore remains under-theorized. Bruno Latour's conception of modernity and scientific practice is here combined with Sigmund Loland's analogy between scientific experiments and sport competitions. Purity is assumed to be related to the idea of modern sport as a practice, which revolves around distilling samples of 'humanness' that should not be polluted by non-human interference. This paper argues that while modern sport strives to minimize non-human impact, it acknowledges the hybrid material that sport results are moulded from. The concept 'Human' is therefore not an a priori in modern sport but an a posteriori.

In this article, I conceptualize defensive playing in table tennis by analyzing it from the viewpoint of affective philosophy (Deleuze and Guattari, 1986, 1987). The spatial and emotional aspects of the atmosphere of such play are investigated through an autoethnography of company table tennis. By using my ownbody as an "instrument of research" (Longhurst et al., 2008), I practically evoke and feed on the tension between modern competitive sport and "sport for all" (Eichberg, 2010). It is suggested that the defensive stance in table tennis might be seen as a trajectory toward a "minor sport" (Deleuze and Guattari, 1986, 1987), i.e. as a mild resistance to the competitive ethos of sport. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Idrottslyftet har allt mer blivit en del av förbundens ordinarie verksamhet. Satsningen har öppnat dörrarna för fler, men få har klivit över tröskeln. En stor del av medlen har hamnat i stora idrotter och hos de socioekonomiskt välmående i tätbefolkade kommuner.

Sport scholars publish mainly in sport journals, hence sport doesn’t seem to make it to the fine salons of academia. Hasn’t sport really got anything to contribute with to the wider field of social studies? Sport scholars’ oeuvres and effort of applying perspectives and methodologies from their mother disciplines(sociology, history, geography, etc.) doesn’t seem to find impetus to shuttle back and inform the latters. Aren’t the general theories of social science enough reworked, and revolutionized within the social science of sport? Or, is it the connotations of pastime that holds sport back from affecting wider academic attention? What this paper aims to do is to offer one alternative to the suggested problems of sport study’s hardships with going all the way, that is: applying general sociological theories to sport, and, from the internal logic of the same, argue why it could variegate the view of science in general. The theory applied is Bruno Latour’s (1993) notion of the moderns and their ’constitution’, according to which we in modernity have worked hard to purify the poles of nature and society. Science, foremost the ”natural” variety, has been pivotal in this process. In the paper it is argued that Latour’s theories aid to frame a picture of sport as, to a high degree, symmetrical with science. His view of scientific practice is that our definite statements of nature is produced in the laboratory. For scientific ”truths” to be legitimate, intervention of the human (f)actor must be thouroughly assessed. Scientific ”truths” ”produced” thus are certain statements of nonhuman properties. However, in sport this is reversed. The outcomes of sport must conversely be purified of its nonhuman interference to be legitimate. A world record could not be assisted by nonhuman actors such as the wind, illegal substances or technological assets. Sport, in a much surer way than any other activity, such as social science, produces legitimate, timeless, and universal statements of what humans are. Thus, it is argued, sport relates to the ’work of purification’ of the ’modern constitution’. Insofar as legitimate outcomes of the laboratory ought to be cherished, sport serves as a vanguard of the ’work of purification’ on the human side of the aisle. Despite its aura as pastime, sport, it is argued, has (had) a far more important function, and/or role to play in the our societies than has hitherto been acknowledged.

Recension av antologin Observing sport med redaktörer Wagner, Storm och Hoberman (2010).

Review of Wagner, Storm and Hoberman (eds) Observing sport (2010).

Denna rapport utvärderar Svenska klätterförbundets samröre med Idrottslyftet, ett statligt initiativ som syftade till att få fler att börja idrotta, samt fler att stanna i idrotten). Rapporten visar att det är svårt för unga att börja klättra på grund av de skillnader i normer och etik som återfinns mellan traditionell klättring och sportklättring.

The report investigates how "Idrottslyftet", a governmental initiative to strengthen Swedish youth sport, fell out for the Swedish Climbing federation. A cultural analysis of the differences between traditional climbing and sport climbing shows the inherent tensions of the federation that must be dealt with, and that are in the way of establishing climbing as a youth sport.

Artikeln är en essä som undersöker likheterna mellan rörelsekulturen parkour och den franske filosofen Michel Serres metodologi. I essän skisseras ett förhållningssätt inom kulturstudier vilket ges namnet "konsten att spåra". Detta förhållningssätt kännetecknas av sina anspråk att inkludera och skapa intimitet med det den undersöker. Detta till skillnad från den distans som det, i artikeln till "konsten att spåra" kontrasterande, kritiskt-analytiska förhållningssättet implicerar.

The article is an essay which explores the similarities between the physical culture of parkour and the methodology of French philosopher Michel Serres. What is sketched out in the essay is a stance for cultural studies scholars, a way of doing research which is leant the name "the art of tracing". This stance is characterized by intimacy with that which is investigated, rather than by the distance which the essay ascribes the critical analytical stance.