Abstract

Sport is based on the moving human body. Almost any cultural generalities regarding the body apply to our social-cultural attitudes towards sport as well. The body has been rediscovered as a subject in recent debates about its representation historically and in social-cultural theory . ;This paper applies principles of Somatics and Social Constructivism to an analysis of the sporting body in contemporary sport. The Somatic and Social Constructivist views have quite different understandings of the human body. Somatics focuses on the subjective experience of the body through body awareness practices. Somatics therefore studies inner bodily processes. Social Constructivism, on the other hand, focuses on the construction by society of the "subject" through the control and discipline of the body as "object." According to Foucault's social constructivist perspective, modern forms of discipline permeate and characterize the bodily experience of human beings. The somatic perspective breaks down the dualism between the self and society which characterizes the social constructivist view and provides a vehicle for bringing about personal change. The relationship between the social nature of sport and the models of the body developed by the above paradigms is examined in this study, and practical implications arising from a socially dominated body experience are identified