Assessing the sociology of sport: On ageing, somatic culture and gender

On the 50th anniversary of the ISSA and IRSS, one of the leading scholars of the sociology of sport in Germany, Ilse Hartmann-Tews, considers research on ageing, somatic culture and participation in sport in the contexts of diversity and gender. She reflects first on the increasing interest with regard to research on ageing and somatic culture, and that the broader issues of ‘gender blindness’ and the ‘paradox of the absent body’ have also been evident in the sociology of sport research agenda. The challenges for this agenda can be seen in three key areas of enquiry: (1) the social dimensions and determinants of successful aging, (2) understandings of gendered bodies and the ‘double standard of ageing’, and (3) understandings of diversity in ageing and intersections with gender, race, ethnicity, class and sexual orientation. It is argued that future research on cultural representations of ageing in the sociology of sport need to focus on narratives, images, and media representations of ageing and somatic culture.