Parkour and the City : Risk, Masculinity, and Meaning in a Postmodern Sport / Jeffrey L. Kidder.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kidder, Jeffrey L. (Jeffrey Lowell), 1977- author.

Series:

Critical issues in sport and society.

Critical Issues in Sport and Society

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Extreme sports--Juvenile literature.

Extreme sports.

Parkour--Social aspects.

Parkour.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (214 pages).

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press, [2017]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

In the increasingly popular sport of parkour, athletes run, jump, climb, flip, and vault through city streetscapes, resembling urban gymnasts to passersby and awestruck spectators. In Parkour and the City, cultural sociologist Jeffrey L. Kidder examines the ways in which this sport involves a creative appropriation of urban spaces as well as a method of everyday risk-taking by a youth culture that valorizes individuals who successfully manage danger. Parkour's modern development has been tied closely to the growth of the internet. The sport is inevitably a YouTube phenomenon, making it exemplary of new forms of globalized communication. Parkour's dangerous stunts resonate, too, Kidder contends, with a neoliberal ideology that is ambivalent about risk. Moreover, as a male-dominated sport, parkour, with its glorification of strength and daring, reflects contemporary Western notions of masculinity. At the same time, Kidder writes, most athletes (known as "traceurs" or "freerunners") reject a "daredevil" label, preferring a deliberate, reasoned hedging of bets with their own safety-rather than a "pushing the edge" ethos normally associated with extreme sports.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction. Thinking Sociologically about Parkour

1. Developing the Discipline and Creating a Sport

2. New Prisms of the Possible

3. Young Men in the City

4. Hedging Their Bets

Conclusion. Appropriating the City

Appendix A. Brief Note on Data and Method

Appendix B. On the Parkour Terminology Used i n This Book

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 22. Okt 2019)

ISBN:

9780813571973

0813571979

9780813571980

0813571987

OCLC:

978274878