Fifteenth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

In professional sport, equipment, technologies and other non-humans or ‘technical actants’ are critical in defining, assessing and practicing elite performance alongside humans or ‘social actants’. Though the place of technical actants is always central in any social domain, including sports, their importance has often been neglected in sociology for a focus on the relationships between humans such as athletes, coaches and judges. An Actor-Network Theory (ANT) framework shifts this focus by recognising the mediating force of non-human actants, thereby offering a way to reveal unexpected forms of power. Drawing on findings from an ANT-inspired ethnographic study of a professional freestyle ski and snowboarding (FSS) park and pipe team, I provide a way to understand how non-humans can have agency and affect sports performance, proposing that power is shared among human and non-human actants. For example, to raise the amplitude or degree of difficulty of a trick requires the constant care of the FSS assemblage of human and non-human actants to achieve stability within the assemblage. Importantly, it is the size, shape and scope of the assemblage that will determine what is produced; different kinds of assemblages will produce different kinds of effects; assemblages are individualized rather than universal and therefore can be highly unstable. Thus, tracing the work that goes on to achieve stability within the FSS trick assemblage can provide insights into how professional FSS continues to evolve.