G5 Doctoral dissertation (article)
Urheilun aika ja paikka (1995)
The time and place of sport

Sironen, E. (1995). Urheilun aika ja paikka [Doctoral dissertation]. Liikunnan ja kansanterveyden edistämissäätiö. Liikunnan ja kansanterveyden julkaisuja, 100. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-86-0537-9

JYU authors or editors

Publication details

All authors or editors: Sironen, Esa

ISBN: 951-790-127-5

eISBN: 978-952-86-0537-9

Journal or series: Liikunnan ja kansanterveyden julkaisuja

ISSN: 0357-2498

eISSN: 2342-4788

Publication year: 1995

Number in series: 100

Number of pages in the book: 269

Publisher: Liikunnan ja kansanterveyden edistämissäätiö

Publication country: Finland

Publication language: Finnish

Persistent website address: http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-86-0537-9

Publication open access: Openly available

Publication channel open access: Delayed open access channel

Additional information: Julkaistu digitoitaalisena 2025

Abstract

The aim of these studies from the year 1987 onwards was, by means of conceptual and material analyses, to de- and reconstruct: a) sport as popular culture, as an expression of the sensuality and spontaneity of the common people, b) new cultural conditions för sports and corporeality at the treshold of modernity/postmodernity, c) the specific forms of perception (e.g. the "record", the "landscape") and mentality in physical activity along with the new conceptuality of cultural and microhistory; and finally to develop d) some fresh models and possibilities för a new body-cultural approach in sport research and physical education. The purpose in the final instance was not to generate a new "grand theory" of sports, but, in accordance with the present ethnography, to deepen and further differentiate the local, minute understanding of the phenomenas in physical activity. The basic approach in these articles w as to confront theoretical concepts and phenomenological observation, or to put it in a more philosophical way, "the universal" and "the specific", even "the peculiar", and to dwell deeper into this specificity - various experiences of time and space, an old, censored (?) nude picture, the old feast tradition of the local fire brigade or a certain natural landscape, a mountain – and to specify here, by means of proper concepts, something common and generalizable on a wider scale. Section I deals with the historical background of sport in Finland in the late 19th century, locating the accurate points and minor events where the new, sporting dynamics breaks through the shell of the old, rural mentality and atmosphere. The second section discusses some major cultural sociologists (Th. W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Norbert Elias, and Henning Eichberg) of the locality and temporality in everyday life, corporeality and sensuality. In section III, an attempt is made to sketch and estimate some new trends in the physical culture of the late 1980 's in Finland, with new games, exercises, bodily movements and expressions. In the last section I try to make some more synthetic conclusions, and apply the method of the study to some local historical and natural examples.

Keywords: physical culture; future; history; physical training; sports; exercise culture; culture; doctoral dissertations

Contributing organizations

Ministry reporting: Yes