Sport and Identity in France : Practices, Locations, Representations

This series aims to publish new research (monographs and essays) into relationships and interactions between culture and identity. The notions of both culture and identity are broadly conceived; interdisciplinary and theoretically diverse approaches are encouraged in a series designed to promote a better understanding of the processes of identity formation, both individual and collective.

How does sport shape society? This book seeks to answer this question by examining the meaning of sport in French society and the construction of local, national and, increasingly, global identities through sport. It begins by reassessing modern sport’s emergence and consolidation in France in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and then traces developments from the Second World War to the present, reflecting on the current status and future role of French sport. Horse racing, cycling, tennis, adventure sports, rugby and football, as well as the role of the Olympic Games, are discussed. The author investigates the interaction of these mass and elite physical practices with a wide variety of sporting locations – spatial and temporal, concrete and imagined – and in a rich field of representations, including literature and the fine arts, the press, cinema, radio, television and digital media. Related concepts of sporting celebrity, stardom and heroism also inform the discussion, offering new contributions to this developing critical area.