Lifestyle Sports and Identities

<p>This book examines how different stages of adult life affect participation in lifestyle sports and in the construction of identity. Drawing on multi-disciplinary perspectives it explores how gender sexuality ethnicity and location in conjunction with age and stage in career affect lifestyle sport practices and meanings.</p><p>Tracing engagement with lifestyle sport across the lifecourse from young adult to older age the book examines the concepts of authenticity and identity in subcultural and alternative sports exploring how individuals develop lifestyle sport identities maintain authentic identities and how they manage those identities as older adults. It presents a range of fascinating cutting-edge case studies from around the world covering sports as diverse as climbing surfing mountain biking skateboarding and roller derby and considers key contemporary issues such as professionalisation sports labor and digital technology. It also highlights political tensions and shifts that shape the identities of lifestyle sport communities. </p><p>This is essential reading for anybody with a serious interest in alternative or lifestyle sports the relationships between sport and wider society or the development of subcultures and cultural identity.</p>