Sport as a vocation: The effects of injury on the socialization processes involved in the production of sporting elites

Abstract

This article deals with the construction of the sporting expertise of high-level athletes by focusing on the socialization processes which take place while athletes are injured. The analysis uses results from qualitative research based on interviews and ethnographic surveys in several training centers exclusive to French top-elite athletes. Various socialization contexts (both in sport and outside of sport) were observed in order to understand how injuries can affect the symbolic marking and the symbolic imprisonment processes which go together with the development and the maintenance of high-level vocations. The results show that the effects of injuries are equivocal: when the conditions of symbolic imprisonment remain strong during the time of care and rehabilitation, and when the close circle keeps on nurturing the marks of election, the chances of maintaining sports vocations are high. In contrast, when injuries strongly weaken the signs of election and when the socialization contexts are more heterogeneous, sporting vocations are likely to decline significantly.

Keywords

habitus injury socialization track and field vocation

Introduction

In the field of sport, the body is the focus of constant attention. This is underlined by Wacquant:

The fighter’s [sportsman’s] body is simultaneously his means of production, the raw materials he and his handlers (trainer and manager) have to work with and on, and for a good part, the somatized product of his past training and extant mode of living. Bodily capital and bodily labor are thus linked by a recursive relation which makes them closely dependent on one other. (Wacquant, 1995a: 67)

Athletes have a relatively contradictory relationship with their body, both in pushing and preserving it. In other words, the body is the instrument of their performances; but the body is also the capital they must take care of. Indeed, despite all the precautions taken to preserve and maintain the bodily capital, attacks against physical integrity stand out as milestones in top athlete’s lives. From elongation to sprains, from strains to muscle tears, from cracks to fractures, many athletes injure themselves seriously, at some point. This paper aims to study the effects of injuries on sporting careers by questioning the way injuries redefine, or not, the socialization processes which are involved in the production of sporting elites.

Review of literature and theoretical framework

In line with Nixon (1992) research has shown that the occurrence of ignoring and trivializing pain, injuries and health risks is quite common in sport practices. For example, Allen-Collinson (2005), Pike (2003, 2005) and Howe (2001) noticed that distance runners, rowers and rugby players normalize a certain level of pain and consider that suffering is a necessary aspect of their sport. To be more precise, Nixon (1993) identified a relatively coherent ‘culture of risk’ communicated to athletes through the ‘sportsnets’ and his work paved the way to a rich literature which devoted much attention to the socialization processes operating in the sports sphere. Generally speaking, these studies broadened the spectrum of analysis offered by Nixon (1993) by observing that the network of relationships in which athletes are bound up can be analyzed as a figuration in Norbert Elias’s sense. Indeed, as suggested by Roderick (1998; see also Malcolm, 2011), Elias (1978 [1970]) can be useful for understanding the ‘culture of risk’ as he invites us to consider the historical construction of figurations, and stresses that social structures are the result of the constraints exerted by people on one another and on themselves.

Social determinants of athletes’ relationship to pain and injury

In the field of contemporary soccer, Roderick (1998, 2006) and Roderick and Waddington (2000) showed that the work stoppage of professional players is situated within specific historical and social relationships between different categories of individuals (salaried soccer player, trainers, coaches and assistants, doctors, physiotherapists, club director, managers, sport scientists, family, long-time friends, sponsors, members of the media, supporters, etc.) having multiple and, to greater or lesser extents, convergent interests (see Howe, 2001; Malcolm and Sheard, 2002). In this context, the preservation of the bodily capital is not always a priority. In brief, the research highlighted the fact that injured sportsmen and sportswomen experience processes of isolation, demotion, ostracization and stigmatization which lead them to ignore their injuries and pains: they are socially pressured in particular to train and compete because to do so is considered the ‘right attitude’ in their area of sport (Anderson and Jackson, 2012; Howe, 2001; Malcolm, 2009; Mayer and Thiel, 2018; Thing, 2006; Turner and Wainwright, 2003). They also ignore their pains and the risk they take because they are driven by a passionate relationship with their sporting practice (Bertrand, 2009; Hanold, 2010; Markula, 2015). In addition, the fact of trivializing their pains and injuries provides an opportunity to add value to their symbolic capital in the sporting field (Roderick, 2006; Wacquant, 1995a). As a result, sportsmen and sportswomen oscillate between masking their pains and injuries or staging them (Viaud and Papin, 2012). These dispositions, which are incorporated in different spheres of socialization, can also be understood by taking account of the masculine subculture of the sports field (Messner, 1992; Young et al., 1994). As underlined by Young (2012), the athletic identity is part of hegemonic masculinity and the fact of playing or training through pain can be interpreted as a way to prove one’s prowess and maleness. In line with these surveys which considered the socialization processes involved before, during and after the hardship of injury, here we focus on the way injuries redefine (or not) the socialization processes which are involved in the production of sporting elites.

Sports as a vocation: the incorporation and the inculcation of a top-level athlete habitus

To understand the potential impact that injuries can have on sports careers, it is necessary to give attention to the social determinants of engagement in high performance sporting careers. In this part of our literature review we will stress that access to such a career is marked by a form of conversion which occurs in certain contexts of socialization and leads to the strengthening of the commitment in the conversion process. Indeed, adopting a Bourdieusian perspective (Bourdieu, 1979, 1980), we can consider that growing up in the context of elite sport refers to a conversion process in which athletes become members of a distinct social field by incorporating field-specific dispositions which influence their perceptions, thoughts and actions (concerning the historical and social contexts involved in an exceptional career, see also Elias, 1993 [1991]). These socialization processes take place in different spheres both in sport (club, training center, national teams, etc) and outside of sport (family, school, friendships, romantic relationships, etc.). The analysis of high level sports institutions reveals that they are particularly enveloping and that they function in the manner of a quasi-total institution (Wacquant, 1992; for a definition of total institution, see also Goffman, 1961: XXI). Thus, throughout different phases of talent identification, selection and confirmation orchestrated by sports institutions, athletes are invited to work on themselves and transform themselves both physically and symbolically (Papin, 2007). In fact, the construction of a performing body involves a conversion process (Coquet et al., 2016; Wacquant, 1992) thanks to which athletes gradually focus on the quest for maximal efficiency – ultimately building a self-image solely based on their sport and considering that this life project was freely built. This conversion is essential for supporting the heavy price of a practice which becomes more and more intense, restrictive, exclusive and stressful (Burlot et al., 2018; Roderick, 2006; Theberge, 2008; Wacquant, 1995b). This process is supported by a form of symbolic imprisonment which is characterized by the gradual entrance into a world apart (cut off from the ordinary world because of its different time and space) and promotes the inculcation and the embodiment of a high-level athlete habitus. For instance, the gradual entrance in this world implies different forms of socialization (both in sport and outside of sport) which nurture a feeling of predestination and a feeling of having been elected into an elite group. These feelings are inculcated as a result of a symbolic marking process organized by the sporting institution (during moments of talent identification, selection and blessing) or carried by significant others (in particular athletes more advanced in their career or close circle). Several authors have compared the effects of those socialization processes to a calling for athletics. They established analogies between the social contexts likely to nourish priestly vocations (Suaud, 1975) or artistic vocations (Sapiro, 2007) and those likely to nourish high-level sporting vocations (Faure and Suaud, 1999; Papin, 2007). In the same vein, the production of excellence in track and field involves a conversion which leads to the inculcation of a sporting vocation (Forté, 2008).

Analyzing high-level sports careers as vocations

As suggested by Weber (1946 [1922]) in his discourse about academic man’s vocation, the interest of a sociological analysis lies in its capacity to reveal the ‘external conditions’ involved in this ‘internal process’. In other words, the concept of vocation offers interesting tools with which to examine structural aspects of the conversion to the field of elite sports. Previous research has shown that two levers play a main role in this collective enterprise which is orchestrated by sports institutions and relayed by other spheres of socialization. The first refers to an enterprise of revelation which brings the young athlete to consider that he/she must invest him/herself ‘body and soul’, because he/she has natural qualities, some kind of gift, so that he/she builds a particular vision of his/her sporting skills – which are naturalized (Schotté, 2012). Paraphrasing Wacquant (1995b: 509), we may say that athletic prowess ‘is considered by many to be a sacred “gift”, a charismatic skill bestowed by a higher authority whose possession carries with it the moral obligation to cultivate and use it well’. The second finds its foundation in the development of a passionate and enchanted vision of the sporting career which is presented as a way to stand out, to distinguish oneself, to satisfy the expectations of the environment both in sport and outside of sport (Lefèvre, 2010) and which is also experienced as a second nature. As a consequence, athletes develop a predestination and election feeling based on the belief that because they are ‘special’, they have been chosen to represent an elite and have the duty not to disappoint all the people who participated in the revelation and the development of their gift. The effects of those socialization processes can be observed in particular in the evolution of the way athletes consider their relationship with regard to space or time, or to their body (Burlot et al., 2018; Forté, 2008; Roderick, 2012; Wacquant, 2004; Weedon, 2012).

The effects of injury on sporting vocations

However, the strength of this enterprise of socialization must not overshadow the fact that sporting vocations are highly dynamic and unstable (Bertrand, 2009; Sorignet, 2004): at each stage of the career, the socialization processes can be more-or-less congruent and may allow the consolidation or the transformation of the belief that sport is a vocation. Consequently, analysis of high performance sporting careers requires that we distinguish the socialization contexts and processes related to a strengthening of the feeling that sport is a vocation from those related to a transformation or a reconversion of this feeling (which can lead to a temporary or permanent disengagement). In this perspective, the present article will consider the hardship of injury both as an event and as a socialization framework (Darmon, 2014) which is likely to generate crisis: in a field where the body constitutes the main tool for performance, in which the reference to natural qualities, talent and gift appears to be self-evident, self-definition is based on a strong feeling of ‘being made for this’ and injuries may compromise one’s own sense of life as a top-level athlete. Thus, we will consider the hardship of injury as a socialization event which is likely to operate on the feeling that sport is a vocation. In order to understand the impact injuries can have on top-level athletic careers, we will analyze their effects on the athlete’s belief that sport is their vocation and on the symbolic imprisonment process which goes with their accomplishment. To this end, we will re-examine this event in its broader social trajectory and social configuration (which combine the realms of sport, family, school/university, friends and lovers). The question of the congruence of the different contexts of socialization and their connection with the athlete’s earlier socialization will be central in the following reflections. We will try to understand to what extent injury (as a socialization event) and its socialization contexts can contribute (or not) to the erosion of sports careers. In line with Bourdieu (1980), we will consider that athletes’ behaviors are the products of social contexts and we will study their positions and dispositions by focusing our attention on: (1) the relation they have to their practice – which should strongly be connected to a feeling that athletics is their vocation; (2) the interaction in the spatial and symbolic structure of the sporting field; and (3) the social configuration in which they are situated outside the field of athletics.

Methodology

The article is based on data collected during a wider research project dedicated to the socialization processes involved in the production of excellence in track and field. From a Bourdieusian perspective, the goal of this survey was to study social configurations (both in sport and outside of sport) and forms of socialization which are likely to favor (or not) the development of a high-level athlete habitus and evolution in an elite sporting career. In other words, the aim was to break open the ‘black box’ of socialization by bringing its different components to light, its modes of operation and its effects. To do so, it was necessary to study the socialization processes involved by observing the genesis, the strengthening and the transformation of individual dispositions and by focusing on the way they had been transmitted, inculcated and/or embodied.

In order to grasp the key factors and the socialization contexts likely to promote the shape of a high-level athlete habitus, 32 biographic interviews (Bertaux, 1997) were conducted with top-level athletes, and ex-top-level athletes, registered on the lists established by the French Ministry of Sports. To generate a panel of athletes representing a variety of situations, the constitution of the group was based on several criteria: specialty, level of performance, sex and social class. The fact that I was a national-level athlete who started athletics at the age of 11, and that I had frequented several training institutions during my youth, facilitated my access to the field as well as the respondents’ freedom of speech. The face-to-face semi-structured interviews lasted between two and four hours; they were conducted wherever was convenient for the participants (workout sites, homes, workplaces, coffee shops, etc). The athletes were asked to talk about their: (1) socialization during childhood; (2) career and sport story; and (3) socialization in other spheres of life (notably family, school, studies, work, friendly relationships, romantic relationships). They were encouraged to talk about and offer anecdotes, dilemmas, tensions and concrete examples of their experiences inside and outside the field of athletics. The aim was to identify the effects and the congruence (or the absence of congruence) of their different spheres of primary and secondary socialization, and to reconstruct their sporting careers by considering both the subjective and objective dimensions of their careers (Hughes, 1937). For this purpose, athletes were invited in particular to talk about the turning points (Strauss, 1962) of their careers and the various events that had positively or negatively marked their trajectories (such as injuries, defeats, successes, changes of coach or training structure, pairing-off with a girlfriend/boyfriend, romantic breakdown, events related to studies or other aspects of extra-sport life). I also conducted five other interviews with sports managers and coaches in charge of top-level athletes in order to understand better the various stages of the sporting career, the organization of the sporting institution, and the structure and hierarchy of the milieu. My insider status was clearly advantageous because this population is difficult to reach owing to media exposure (Glesne, 2011) and because the field of high-level athletics operates as a world apart, isolated from the ordinary world by real and symbolic barriers which are difficult to cross when you are not part of it.

The interviews were audio tape-recorded and transcribed with the permission of athletes. The verbatim transcripts resulted in 710 pages of typescript. For the purposes of data analysis, I worked from this transcription. A close reading of the corpus permitted a thematic analysis.

I focus here on how athletes coped with injuries within the context of their socialization both in sport and outside of sport. In most cases, athletes had been confronted with ankle sprains, tendonitis or muscular strain. In some cases, they faced more serious pathologies such as chronic pubalgia, herniated disc, pneumothorax, stress fracture, muscle sprain, ligament or ruptured Achilles’ tendon. In order to facilitate the analysis, I arranged the data into ‘common clusters” (Roderick and Waddington, 2000) based upon the core themes of interviews. The clusters used for this article included in particular: (1) the athlete’s experience of injury and rehabilitation; (2) the attitude of training partners, coaches, parents, friends and other significant others towards injury; (3) the motors of the engagement in the sporting career both before, during and after injury; and (4) the relationship with their practice of track and field both before, during and after injury.

The interviews were complemented by (and interpreted in the light of) extensive notes from my field diary as well as information culled from informal conversations with athletes and trainers. In effect, a 10-year-long ethnographic investigation in various ‘Pôles France’ (national training centers), training camps and rehabilitation centers complemented this work. Both during sports practice and off the field, I met with 40 top-level athletes and ten top-level trainers more than once a week. Less intensively, I regularly followed 160 top-level athletes and 40 top-level trainers. My insider status and my long period of immersion gave me the opportunity to establish a relation of trust and mutual respect based on close links with athletes and coaches (for a discussion of friendship and interpersonal trust as a necessary social condition for the production of non-artifactual ethnographic data, see Wacquant, 1995b, 1996). It also allowed me to meet members of the athletes’ non-sporting entourage (parents, friends, partner, etc.) and to experience the process of inculcation of the athletic illusio – that is, the belief in the value of the game and the progressive incorporation of its core tenets (see Wacquant, 1995b). Moreover, my repeated interviews and observations at different stages of the sporting careers provided for analysis of the trajectories ‘being made’ and for limiting the risk of biographical illusion (Bourdieu, 1986). It also helped me take into account the tensions and the effects of contextual and situational variables – whether social or individual (Fillieule, 2001). As pointed out by Balland (2012), the diachronic mode – unlike retrospective and synchronic modes of inquiry – makes it possible to grasp in fine detail certain biographical oscillations, ruptures or evolutions and to highlight what the retrospective interviews tend to flatten. Furthermore, the diachronic approach sometimes gave me the opportunity to be present at the point where injury occurred and to observe ‘step by step’ the rehabilitation process.

In the following section, the analysis will focus on interviews and observations involving top-level athletes who had gone through (or were going through) a serious injury while they were U20 or U23 and who were residents of the National Institute for Sports, Expertise and Performance (INSEP), the main national training center for athletics in France. The analyses will focus more specifically on four case studies which show similarities at a sporting level. All of them belong to the category of athletes situated in an ‘intermediate space’ (Damont and Falcoz, 2016): they are neither amateurs nor professionals. As a result, their career development is characterized by permanent insecurity and precariousness which goes beyond the single uncertainty of the sporting outcome (Fleuriel and Schotté, 2008). In addition, Serge, Maxime, François and Marc¹ experimented with exceptional youth athletic careers: Serge broke highly symbolic U18 French records (held by one of the most titled French athletes); Maxime reigned over his discipline for five years (retaining his French champion title even when he was among the youngest in his category); François won the U18 World Championships and U20 European Championships the same year; and Marc started athletics at the age of sixteen and achieved the qualifying standard which permitted him to be eligible for the U20 World Championships a year and a half later. During their careers each of them was confronted with a ‘significant’ injury – that is, an injury which affected their bodily integrity and which resulted in an interruption to their technical training for two months or more. Serge and Marc suffered elongations and chronical tendonitis; Maxime had chronic lumbago and a herniated disc which required a surgical intervention; François fractured his wrist and had a stress fracture. The data from interviews and observations provided for analysis of the socialization processes at stake during the time of injury, care, convalescence and rehabilitation. More specifically, we sought to question the effects of injuries on the dispositions shaped before getting injured and their impact on the feeling that athletics was a vocation. In this regard, these four cases were selected because they offered contrasting illustrations of the effect of injury on the vocations’ dynamics. Indeed, while Serge and Maxime faced an experience of injury which was accompanied by an erosion of their vocation, this was not the case with François and Marc who experienced an overcoming of their physical condition which confirmed their elective status.

Findings and discussion

When injury coincides with an erosion of the vocation

Using the analysis categories constructed by Bertrand (2009), this section will focus on downgrade and maladjustment crises that injuries are likely to generate (the former result from a reconsideration of the position in the sporting hierarchy, whereas the latter are the consequence of new conditions of practice and existence which require an acculturation process). Through two case studies, we will give attention to the effects of injuries on sports vocations. In Serge’s case we will see how difficult it is to overcome the experience of downgrading when family and sport socialization contexts do not favor the maintenance of an election feeling. In effect, in this period of strong destabilization, the indifference or absence of clear support from parents and coach can contribute to the erosion of vocations and the development of a more rational relationship to practice. With the case of Maxime, we will see that when primary or secondary socializations are plural and not very homogeneous the temporary exit from the sporting sphere caused by the injury can favor the release of constraints. These prolonged and non-congruent modes of socialization sometimes make it difficult to reactivate ascetic or self-disciplinary dispositions during the resumption of sports activities – especially when athletes identify new ways of personal fulfilment.

Injuries and downgrade crisis

In an occurrence of injury, physical damage is likely to have a negative affect on the election feeling and the athlete’s belief that sport is his/her vocation, for two reasons. First, as underlined by this top-level athlete, injury can destabilize the feeling of predestination.

When you get injured, you always have an apprehension because you don’t know if you will be able to come back. I remember, just before my ankle surgery, I hopped on one leg in my hospital room, wondering if I would retrieve my foot [‘retrieve my foot’ relates to an indigenous French idiom ‘having some foot’ which refers to vertical jump strength used by athletes practicing explosive events such as sprint, hurdles or jumps].

Even though vertical jump ability results from the combination of physical and technical qualities (acquired in particular through training), the fact of being recognized in the field of athletics as ‘having some foot’ constitutes an element of symbolic marking which is closely linked to the naturalization of sports skills. This operation of symbolic marking is very powerful for the development of the feeling of being predestined. Consequently, the belief in a presumed superiority related to the possession of a gift can be highly disrupted, particularly in case of surgery (Thing, 2006).

Furthermore, injury can lead, to a greater or lesser extent, to lasting stagnation and even regression of sports performances. Some athletes spoke about a dizzying fall (real or symbolic) in the sports hierarchy: ‘the coach didn’t care about me anymore’, ‘my adversaries weren’t scared of me anymore’, ‘I wasn’t competitive anymore’, ‘I didn’t have the same aura’, ‘my progression curve stopped all at once’, ‘I felt I was set aside’, etc. In this context, the doubts generated are likely to destabilize the election feeling and the faith in having the capacity to achieve the vocation.

The case of Serge illustrates this process. After three years of seeming invincibility in the national U18 and U20 championships, he experienced a series of injuries for two years. When I met him, three years had passed during which he had not improved his best performance. When he talked about his first injury (considered as a turning point) it was clear that his election feeling had been affected.

I went through three really difficult years: you are not recognized anymore, you are not recognized. I can see that I am not as popular as I used to be. It seems like people aren’t scared of me anymore… Well, I think my adversaries still have some respect for me; I guess even if I’m not number one I am still a reference point: the man to beat. It helps me to hang in there because it’s not easy. I must admit that it’s hard because since then, I discovered something new; something I never felt before: fear. Before, when I was getting into the starting blocks I wasn’t stressed. Now, I am petrified. I don’t show it but I am scared of being beaten or of having a bad performance. (Serge)

This experience of relegation which settled in over the course of several athletics seasons cast doubts on his belief that he was ‘born to be a winner’ in athletics. Feeling weakened, he searched for signs of his own recognition in the reflection of others in order to reassure himself. However, during those difficult times, it did not work: his training partner (and friend) had a spectacular progression, so Serge gradually became a kind of ‘sparring partner’ in the group in which initially he had held a dominant position. Moreover, the slight interest demonstrated by both his family (his parents had never really been interested in his sports results) and his coach also contributed to the weakening of his belief that sport was his vocation.

My first injury occurred when I was 20. What really stands out is that when you are injured, the coach doesn’t care about you anymore. It wasn’t done out of bad intentions, but he didn’t have any workout for me. He didn’t give me something to do and it bothered me. (Serge)

In a way, his injury led to a change in his relationship with his coach which made both Serge and others aware of the decline in his position in the field (Thing, 2006) and of the way his coach perceived his sporting potential (Schubring et al., 2015). The downgrade crisis he went through became apparent in his furtive desire to give up athletics.

When I was 21, I thought of quitting. I got injured once again and I became ‘blasé’. I didn’t set foot in training for a whole week. It was in the middle of the summer season. I realized that I was not going to be able to compete for the national championships, that I needed to seriously study my exams for the Baccalaureate degrees, that I didn’t have a girlfriend… As a result, I wanted to stop. Plus, all my friends were going forward… It was difficult for me to remain by the wayside and to see them performing. (Serge)

This experience of relegation, which happened in different contexts (training, championships, moments shared with his friends), led him to an awareness of all the sacrifices he had made in order to follow his vocation. Among other things, he realized that some of the difficulties he encountered were partly due to the strong level of symbolic imprisonment which goes hand in hand with his sporting accomplishments (concerning the effects of conversion on conjugal trajectories, see Coquet et al., 2016: 827).

I don’t have any girlfriend. It’s not so easy… I don’t want to date an athlete because the world of athletics is full of rumors. I want me and my girlfriend to have a certain privacy. But at the same time, it is not so simple because it’s difficult to meet a girl who does not practice track and field. It’s really tough to date a girl who does not practice any sport. She might not understand why you don’t go out to a party, why you don’t smoke, why you don’t drink… We might not be in the same mood… (Serge)

It has been observed that, generally speaking, it is quite common that crisis leads one to reflect on life in general and involvement with sport in particular (Thing, 2006: 369; Wacquant, 1989: 45). Finally, during these three years of repeated injuries, the achievement of Serge’s career was characterized by a weak return on investment. This durable context and his extra-sporting socialization led him to question the enchanted vision of top-level careers he had built during the prime inculcation of his vocation. The consciousness of the sacrifices he made favored his switch into a form of involvement less passionate, more rational and more deliberate which had nothing to do with the catalyst for his first involvement.

Injuries and maladjustment crises

After a long time away from sports training, some athletes experienced a maladjustment crisis during the resumption of sports activities: they were no longer able to cope with the constraints and, in particular, with the asceticism and symbolic imprisonment which characterize life in training centers. As illustrated by the case of Maxime, whose goal at the time of the interviews was to qualify for the Olympics in a few months (after a season spent mostly out of the track because of a recurrent back pain which led to surgery), injuries can encourage the investment of alternative social spaces.

[Excerpt from author’s field diary, Friday 26 March. Maxime returned to training on 01 January.] Shortly after his warm up, Maxime feels pain in his back. He seems worried and after his second jump, he tells his coach he wants to stop. He immediately calls his osteopath who offers him an appointment on Sunday. Then, he calls his doctors and obtains an appointment the next week. Around him, the workout goes on as if nothing had happened. No one cares about him, everyone is focused on what they have to do, none of his training partners comes to ask about the way he feels. Maxime, who sat next to the vaulting pit, seems to look for support. But athletes pass in front of him without stopping and his coach is focused on the technical feedback he must make: jumps and instructions follow one another. Ten minutes will elapse before his coach will take an interest in him and the only interaction they will have will last not more than 30 seconds: he asks Maxime if the new exercise they experimented with on Thursday could be the cause of his pain. Maxime answers that he doesn’t think so, and that he’s worried because the location of his pain reminds him of his hernia. The coach doesn’t seem to be listening to him anymore: he turns back to Hugo who’s about to plant his pole and screams: ‘Commit yourself Hugo! You’re not committed enough in your jump, I want to see you more in rhythm in your last strides!’ Maxime remains sat next to his coach for a few minutes, but nothing happens. He finally gets up and picks up his things without having received any sign of support from the other athletes. While he leaves, no one pays attention to him except his coach who will just give a brief goodbye. (Author)

Beyond the feelings of disillusionment and disenchantment generated by this exclusion (which also refers to a version of being ostracized), the return to an ‘ordinary’ life seems unbearable to Maxime whose sporting and social trajectories are marked by a strong desire for distinction and upward social mobility.

My parents always did everything for their children, they bent over backwards for us. But I don’t share their vision of life. While others want to be out and busy, they enjoy spending time at home… I see things differently. I have other… more important goals. I have a very different way of living: I earn three times what they earn together; I don’t have the same life. And I don’t have the same ambitions either. I’ve always wanted to raise the bar very high. (Maxime)

In search of spaces of distinction and driven by the desire to live an ‘extraordinary’ life, Maxime relied on the social capital conferred by his sporting status (he established very strong friendships and relations with players, former players and managers of a major Parisian rugby club) and his professional context (he is a commercial manager and had just created a company specializing in the organization of festive and sporting events in non-federal contexts such as ski resorts or ‘Paris plage’) to invest in the very exclusive milieu of ‘Parisian nights’. He would meet his future wife, a Brazilian dancer who performs mainly in bars and discos, in one of the trendiest clubs in Paris.

To understand Maxime’s relationship with the ‘night-life milieu’, it is necessary to look back a few years and to retrace the contours of his sporting and academic trajectories: Maxime’s father was a regional level middle-distance runner. Relatively involved in his club, he took his son to practice. Thanks to him, Maxime discovered jumping, throwing and running. Until the day he was introduced to pole vaulting, Maxime practiced in a range of sports without a real desire to specialize in any one athletic discipline. He discovered pole vault during a demonstration featuring Pierre Quinon (Olympic champion) and Thierry Vigneron (former world record holder). The demonstration was followed by an initiation which played a significant role in the inculcation of his vocation:

Pierre Quinon came to see my father and told him that he had to take care of me because I had understood the essence of pole vaulting. After this encounter, I became passionate about pole vault and I only wanted to do pole vault. My father accompanied me on this adventure: he started reading books and became my first coach. Then I reached such a level that he couldn’t coach me anymore: if I wanted to progress, I needed an experienced coach; I had to leave. (Maxime)

As observed elsewhere, with professional cyclists (Lefèvre, 2010) and professional footballers (Faure and Suaud, 1999), the family and the sporting institution both play a crucial role in the symbolic marking process: as the object of a paternal investment (his father, little inclined to reading, would read books to train him as best he could) and of a symbolic recognition by champions who possess high legitimacy in the community, all the conditions were in place for Maxime to attach importance to this collective enterprise of detection which refers to a process of revelation of a ‘natural gift’ and permits the development of the feeling that sport is a vocation. The specificity of the discipline he practices (few clubs are able to offer good training conditions for national- and international-level pole vaulters because of a lack of equipment, materials and competencies) meant that he left his club two years later in order to join a high-level training center located more than 250 miles from where his parents lived. The integration of this new training group bore fruit because Maxime ranked among the best young performers in the world. His vocation was consolidated by the many signs of recognition he received in the world of athletics: in seven years, he won all the French youth championships except one, and qualified for three finals at the U18 and U20 World or European Championships. He remembered his first French title with a lot of emotion. This title was one of his best memories: after his last jump he cried with joy in his father’s arms. At that moment, he remembered having realized that he was fulfilling the dreams of his father and grandfather both of whom never managed to be top athletes. However, while his sporting and family socializations favored the consolidation of his vocation, a breach began to open: his conversion was not complete because he did not enter into a life in a world apart as expected by the sporting community. Indeed, from the age of 16 he lived by his own in a studio graciously provided by his new club. With little control imposed by his parents or coach, he was left to his own devices. He then discontinued his schooling (between the ages of 16 and 18), developed most of his friendly and amorous relationships outside the sporting world and began to frequent the ‘night-life milieu’. Thus, although his father’s investment may have generated a form of ‘moral debt’ requiring a sort of ‘return on investment’ (Lefèvre, 2010), the real and symbolic distance that was occurring between him and his father did not favor the development of an ascetic relationship to practice and the acceptance of the conditions of symbolic imprisonment that go hand in hand with the realization of the vocation. Maxime’s case underlines the importance of taking into account the conditions of concrete socialization (Lahire, 2011): it is not because his father and grandfather were involved in the work of inculcating a sporting vocation that this work remained systematically effective and efficient (concerning the transmission of sporting capital, see Coakley, 2006; Forté and Mennesson, 2012; Key, 2000). He then acquired a reputation of being an athlete who ‘liked to party’ which led (a few months before he was injured) to his non-selection for the French senior team, despite having achieved the qualifying standards for the European Championships and having finished second at the qualification events.

That year, the Federation only took one pole vaulter to the European Championships. I was told that they were not taking me because the budgets were limited and they had to make a choice. The national coach told me they had preferred to take a girl but that was just an excuse. Actually, I was someone known to love the ‘night-life milieu’ (laughs). I don’t have the lifestyle of an exemplary high-performance athlete who stays at home, goes to bed at 9:30 p.m. in order to be fit for the next workout. I need to see people, I like to go out, I like to party and federal leaders disagreed with that. (Maxime)

As noted by Papin (2008), the power of sports institutions to give their blessing to an individual is particularly evident in their selection power. Indeed, although athletes imagine they carry out a project they have freely built, they are largely chosen (or not) by top-level sports institutions (concerning sports ethic and social control within sport, see also Hughes and Coakley, 1991). Over the years, the way in which the sporting institution treated Maxime changed considerably: he gradually moved from the status of a ‘child prodigy’ to the status of an ‘enfant terrible’. During the last few years, he did not manage to accumulate the signs of recognition which constituted a powerful driving force behind his first involvement. The excerpt from the U23 European Championship gazette (Maxime had finished in 8th place), written by a national director, provides a good illustration of the disqualification process that he was subject to. In the red card section the director wrote: ‘Red card to Maxime, who, after losing his identity papers on the plane, lost his bib number in the hotel. We are looking for a volunteer who is kindly willing to keep his poles’; and in the humour section of the gazette, it said, ‘Marc’s guessing game: What was Maxime’s worst year? Answer: the 6 years of the baccalauréat!’. While the inherited cultural capital and the symbolic sanctions produced by the school institution could have reinforced his conviction of being athletically gifted (on the model of the negative vocation), the symbolic sanctions to which he was subjected in the world of athletics favored his investment in an alternative socialization space which also had a strong distinctive power: the ‘night-life milieu’. It is therefore easier to understand why, during this phase of injury, the disinterest shown by his coach and the return to an ‘ordinary life’ (which would be anything but ordinary) acted as a catalyst for his distance from athletics and led him to rebuild or stabilize a new image of himself; an image that fully satisfies him because he still can fulfill his desire to live an extraordinary life and to experience a strong social ascension.

When injury coincides with a reinforcement of the vocation

In this second section we will see that in some cases injuries are likely to contribute to the strengthening of the feeling that athletics is a vocation. In particular, we will stress that injury can reinforce the feeling of living an extraordinary life and reactivate the election markers (i.e. the minor and major events or attentions which contribute to the conversion and the maintenance of sporting vocations by reminding the athletes that they have something ‘special’, that they have been chosen to represent athletics’ elite and that they have a duty not to disappoint all the people who believe in them). We will see that it is likely to happen when family and sports socializations are strongly enveloped and overlapped, allowing the stabilization of ascetic dispositions and the maintenance of a symbolic imprisonment. With François, we will observe that the phase of injury was not associated with a reconsideration of his feeling of being chosen or ‘special’ and of his privileged life in a world apart. His case, as does that of Marc, underlines the central place of the concrete conditions of family and sports socializations in the production and maintenance of sporting vocations.

Injury and the reactivation of election markers

In some cases, a long-term experience of injury can result in an occasion to reactivate certain markers of electionThe case of François offers a perfect illustration of this process. While he was U18 he won the IAAF World Youth Championships and, a couple of weeks later, he also won gold at the U20 European Championships. Considered as a young prodigy, he garnered many signs of recognition and the effects of those consecrations were still palpable six years later:

It’s been a turning point for me because I felt myself ahead, I felt strong, I felt I was a little bit like a champion because when you win some major competitions, when you hear the national anthem, when you wear the France National Team jersey, involuntarily, you have to think that you are in the ‘big league’. Even if you are still in the young categories, you realize that generally, the athletes who did what you’ve just done have done great things after. So, you brace yourself and if things go well, you will do something great. It was an intense moment of my sports life, a moment which allowed me to think ‘well, there is really something to do, you must never give up’. It filled my head with unforgettable memories because it made me happy and it also made everyone happy around me. It was so intense to feel the happiness of those I care about: so good to see them smiling. (François)

When he was 19, he broke his wrist; and a year later, he suffered a stress fracture. He emerged from a three-year period of injuries when he was 21 and did not improve his best performance again until he was 23.

When you are young, it’s easy to be motivated. But you can also easily lose your enthusiasm. An injury, a succession of under-performances and all of what you’ve built in four or five years can be destroyed … When I had my stress fracture I really felt it was unfair. I was wondering ‘Why me? Why am I injured once again?’ It’s been a hard time. It’s sure that you want to relax a little bit, you think that you will never manage to come back, you wonder if it will be worthwhile to get back involved again. … Fortunately, I was the center of attention. Thanks to my parents, my friends, my coach, my girlfriend, I soon realized that my place wasn’t on the sidelines. When you have people around you who support you, just by looking at them you know that your place is on the track. … Necessarily it changes your way of thinking a little bit. You realize that others believe in you and that it’s not normal to doubt. It lights a fire under you, because in this story, you’re not alone: there are plenty of people who rely on you. There are people who expect a lot from you. Even if initially, you don’t do that for them, when you win you make them smile and when you lose you make them cry. So, in a certain way, you are indebted to them. Of course, I don’t do this for them, all things being equal. But I must say that I like it better when they smile. (François)

This family and social support – perceived as a resource but which also constitutes a kind of social pressure to maintain the vocation whatever the cost – illustrates the strength of vocations produced in very homogenous, overlapping and enveloping social spheres. As underlined by Wacquant, ‘Government of a body is a collective enterprise requiring “team work” (Goffman, 1969 [1959]: 85–102) and involving the monitoring efforts not only of the trainer, manager, and “stable mates” of the boxer but also those of his wife or girlfriend, kith, and close kin’ (Wacquant, 1995a: 80). Indeed, as Wacquant continued, ‘The web of relations of information and cooperation between trainer, manager, gym mates, friends and wife form a quasi-panoptical apparatus that ideally subjects the boxer to constant surveillance fit to permit the maximal accumulation of bodily capital for the bout’ (Wacquant, 1995a: 81). In François’s case, the fulfilment of his sports destiny fell within a family history and he liked to joke about it, saying that he probably started to practice athletics when he was in his mother’s womb. His father is a coach and a former pole vaulter, his mother is a sports executive in his club and is also an ex-athlete, his older sister as well as his girlfriend (who would become his wife a few years later) are top-level athletes, his little brother (6 years younger) is an athlete (he would become a top-level athlete 6 years later), and his main friends also take part in track and field events. His case highlights the role of close friends and family members who participate in the symbolic imprisonment process: his entire family (up to grandparents) attended the international championships in which he competed; track and field is at the heart of family discussions, and the central place occupied by athletics was also illustrated by the decoration of the room in the family house which serves as an office/library. On the walls of his room, like a tapestry, François’s mother glued posters of national and international competitions, in or at which her children participated or attended. Indeed, while he started to have doubts because of his series of injuries, all his nearest and dearest became mobilized in order to reactivate his sense of ‘duty to live up’. As a result, they managed to mitigate the lack of institutional recognition that comes with the regression in performance. It can be seen here that in addition to the institutional forms of recognition of the gift, some informal modalities of symbolic marking are as powerful in providing the faith in a top-level destiny (Lefèvre, 2010). Furthermore, as with all the other athletes who overcame the crisis they went through, François retrospectively considered that his injury had some positive virtues: it gave him the opportunity to get closer to his coach (who took great care of him) and to carry out his rehabilitation programme alongside a famous champion (a multiple medalist at the Olympics, World and European Championships) who demonstrated a tenacity and perseverance which inspired him a lot (concerning injury as a learning process, see Theberge, 2008: 213). François presents his injury as a hardship which hardened him, saying ‘what does not kill you makes you stronger’. As emphasized by Bertrand (2009), who studied apprentice professional footballers, it can be seen that in certain cases injury can perform the same probative function that Emile Durkheim identified in the ‘negative rites’ of religious asceticism.

The pure ascetic is a man who raises himself above men and acquires a special sanctity by fasts and vigils, by retreat and silence, or in a word by privations, rather than by acts of positive piety (offerings, sacrifices, prayers, etc.). (Durkheim, 1976 [1912]: 311)

Finally, overcoming training pains can constitute a hardship for accessing professionalism, just as suffering constitutes a hardship for access to the sacred. Thus, in a context of pain and injury, the athlete’s resistance and the strength of their vocation can be reinforced by the consolidation of their ascetic dispositions.

To conclude, injuries are not only synonymous with hardship which destabilizes the athlete’s belief that sport is his vocation; in very specific cases, injuries can also contribute to the intensification of this belief and the consolidation of the dispositions which will help to achieve the vocation.

Injury and reinforcement of an enchanted perception of sports careers

In other cases, injury contributes to the strengthening of sporting vocations by providing an opportunity to consolidate the belief that life as a high-performance athlete is a matter of privilege. Marc’s case illustrates this process of enchantment. He started track and field at the age of 16, after challenging one of his high school classmates.

I had a friend who was a good hammer thrower. He competed at regional level. He was so proud about it that he felt he was the star of our high school. So, in order to make fun of him, a few other friends and I decided to come throwing with him on Wednesday afternoons. I wanted to beat him. Once I passed him, I really got involved because I had new goals such as the U20 World Championships. Then you’re caught, you get carried away by the wave and here we are! (Marc)

His rapid sporting progress led to a succession of phases of discoveries, selections and confirmation which nourished his sense of vocation and motivated the intensification of his involvement in athletics. His memory of his entrance into the national team illustrates the strength of the conversion process carried out by sporting institutions.

The first time I was selected in the National Team, I was the one who carried the flag during the opening ceremony. When you stand on the track with your flag, representing France, it’s really a huge satisfaction. Joining the French team is something that definitely marks you: fellows come to take pictures of you, they tell you that you have an appointment for equipment and so on. So, you think ‘here I am: I’m joining the French team. I’m getting into a group of people who are really…’ You know it’s not given to everyone; you know what I mean? It’s not given to everyone… (Marc)

The signs of his election that he detects in the eyes of the national coach (who entrusts him with the flag of the French team), the INSEP coach (who invites him to join his group) and his training partners (who admire and even envy him), nourish his vocation and his sense of duty to live up to the expectations of his entourage:

In my eyes, the INSEP coach was the great pope. I placed him on a pedestal. It was an honor for me to be asked to join his group. I figured, ‘fuck, he asked you to come to INSEP?! You can’t refuse!’ I wasn’t very enthusiastic, because life in Paris is not something that makes you dream when you come from a nice place near the seaside. But I felt I would regret it later… Because it was an invitation to join the national sport Institute! The place where all champions train! To try to do something too. So, it was a really great opportunity; a huge promotion! There are many, but really many people who dream of this. It’s a really big, big promotion. (Marc)

Beyond the signs of institutional recognition which marked his election, the fulfilment of his vocation was also reinforced by a sense of duty to prolong a paternal destiny:

My father played football at a high level, but he had some regrets because his career as a Pro was short as he broke his leg. He always had this regret that he didn’t go through with it, and somehow, I think it’s a revenge for him to see what I do. (Marc)

This family socialization, which helped consolidate his vocation, was not limited to the relationships he had with his father. Indeed, the realization of the vocation also gave him the opportunity to distinguish himself from his younger sister, who had a brilliant schooling and performed much better in school than he did. Thus, when I interviewed him, he had been resident at the National Institute for five years and was living a life isolated from the ordinary world, a situation totally in line with the way this institution conceived of work on the athlete’s body and mind. Marc had developed few friendships outside the Institute; had just ended a four-year relationship with a top-level sportswoman; and adjusted his academic studies according to his sports calendar (it took him five years to obtain his Bachelor’s degree as a result of extending his course over four years instead of three and taking a one-year break to prepare for the U23 European Championships). Furthermore, when I interviewed him, he was going through a stage of sporting progress (he had just beaten his best performance) and was back in full training after a series of injuries:

I took a six-month break, but in my mind, I knew I was going to come back. It wasn’t a permanent stop. Actually, when I was injured, I just needed to stop, to do something else. During this break, I partied a lot. Excesses, excesses, excesses… I partied on the seaside and I had a great time because athletes deprive themselves so intensely that when it bursts, it burst! I was fed up with the INSEP cocoon, I wanted to see what life was like! But after two months of parties and excesses, I decided to work [What he does not say here but goes on to reveal, is that his choice to work and limit his excesses notably resulted from a paternal injunction.] I chose something really hard: for three months, I worked in a sawmill from noon to 8pm and in a transport company from 3am to 6am. I was exhausted, but it was a bit like a workout: I like to get high. Finally, I think that I am much hungrier today: This experience has been useful to me because sometimes, when training is difficult, when I’m tired of doing my leg series, I realize that I’d rather be in the INSEP weight room than unloading trucks! I needed to get out of the cocoon to finally appreciate it better, because I realized that I was pretty damn pampered here: we don’t experimence real life here. I saw what real life was like and I can tell you I’ve been through a lot. I think about it every day, and I know by now that during my workout, I have never suffered as much as in these jobs. It led me to relativize and realise that I liked my life here! (Marc)

We can suppose that Marc built particularly strong and durable dispositions due to his socialization in a sporting institution very similar to a total institution, but also because of a strong congruence between his spheres of primary and secondary socialization. Thus, after a short period of partying, his life outside the sporting sphere was soon reorganized around a logic of intensive physical work, which reveals the strength of his ascetic dispositions and the combined influence of his sporting and family socializations. Indeed, the double job he did has some similarities with the world of throwing (a ‘back-breaking labor’ in which he took pleasure ‘in getting high’) and with the out-of-time-and-space life he experiences in the National Institute (11 hours daily of work time, including a part of the night). As suggested by Lahire (2011), all the dispositions do not have the same strength and the disposition expressed by Marc are emblematic of what Lahire calls ‘strong dispositions’ (i.e. dispositions which are difficult to modify and can be transferred to a relatively large number of situations). By reactivating the ascetics dispositions he had put on hold during his ‘party and excesses’ time, and by reinvesting his sports career, Marc finally found a way to satisfy his parents’ expectations (who did not tolerate his idle and dilettantish life) and to live a life perceived as particularly pleasant compared to the one he experienced while he was working. In retrospect, as with the case of François, Marc reinterpreted the hardship of injury as a positive event: he considered that this experience enabled him to realise that he was living a privileged life (concerning the strategy used in order to cope with injury see also Schubring and Thiel, 2014; Theberge, 2008). At the end of this period of injury, his relatively idealized and enchanted perception of the top-level sporting career (which constitutes one of the vocation’s drivers) was thus reinforced.

Conclusion

The feeling of having a gift, or being predestined and chosen to inhabit an enchanted universe, which is developed during the prime inculcation of the vocation, is an important driver for engagement in high-level sporting careers; but this feeling remains fragile. The hazards of sports trajectories which are subject to imponderables are likely to call into question the belief that sport is a vocation. Indeed, injuries can have socializing effects because they are likely to generate crises of adjustment and downgrading: they can affect the election feeling, destabilize the routines related to the spatial and temporal structure of the athletes’ lives, and/or provoke the investment of non-congruent spaces of socialization. However, because they may provide for reactivation of the marks of election and reinforcement of the feeling of living an extraordinary life, injuries are also likely to favor the maintenance, or the strengthening, of sporting vocations. As a result, this research highlighted the impact that injury (as a socialization framework) can have on vocations, while emphasizing the influence of the social conditions (especially sporting, familial, friendship, amorous or scholastic/professional) in which they occur. Indeed, the trajectories and social dispositions of the respondents (who did not necessarily share the same conditions of sporting and extra-sporting socialization) play a fundamental role in the understanding of the contrasted effects of injury: when the conditions of symbolic imprisonment remain strong and combined in different spaces of socialization (as with François or Marc), the probability of maintenance or even reinforcement of vocations is important. Equally, when social contexts (pre- and post-injury as well as sporting and extra-sporting) do not converge, and when the signs of election are fragile (as in the cases of Serge or Maxime), the risk of erosion of the vocation occurring is increased.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Editor and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive remarks and suggestions on an earlier draft of this article. I would also like to thank Emily Hancock and Kate Philip for their assistance in translating excerpts from the interviews.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

References

Allen-Collinson

(2005) Emotion, interactions and the injured sporting body. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 40(2): 221–240.

Anderson

Jackson

(2012) Competing loyalties in sports medicine: Threats to medical professionalism in elite, commercial sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 48(2): 238–256.

Balland

(2012) ‘Un cas d’école’: L’entrée dans le métier de professeur d’une ‘enfant de la démocratisation scolaire’. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 191–192(1): 40–47.

Bertaux

(1997) Les Récits de Vie: Perspective Ethnosociologique. Paris: Nathan.

Bertrand

(2009) Entre ‘passion’ et incertitude: La socialisation au métier de footballeur professionnel. Sociologie du Travail 51(3): 361–378.

Bourdieu

(1979) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bourdieu

(1980) The Logic of Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Bourdieu

(1986) L’illusion biographique. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 62–63: 69–72.

Burlot

Richard

Joncheray

(2018) The life of high-level athletes: The challenge of high performance against the time constraint. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 53(2): 234–249.

10.

Coakley

(2006) The good father: Parental expectations and youth sports. Leisure Studies 25(2): 153–163.

11.

Coquet

Ohl

Roussel

(2016) Conversion to bodybuilding. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 51(7): 817–832.

12.

Damont

Falcoz

(2016) Questionner la frontière floue entre amateur et professionnel. Marché et Organisations 27(3): 83–103.

13.

Darmon

(2014) La Socialisation: Domaines et Approches. Paris: Armand Colin.

14.

Durkheim

(1976 [1912]) The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. London: Allen & Unwin.

15.

Elias

(1978 [1970]) What Is Sociology? London: Hutchinson.

16.

Elias

(1993 [1991]) Mozart: Portrait of a Genius. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.

17.

Faure

Suaud

(1999) Le Football Professionnel à la Française. Paris: PUF.

18.

Fillieule

(2001) Propositions pour une analyse processuelle de l’engagement individuel. Revue Française de Science Politique 51(1–2): 199–215.

19.

Fleuriel

Schotté

(2008) Sportifs en Danger: La Condition des Travailleurs Sportifs. Bellecombe-en-Bauges: Editions du Croquant.

20.

Forté

(2008) Les carrières des athlètes de haut niveau: Approche sociologique de la fabrication et de l’expression de l’excellence sportive. Thèse soutenue à l’Université de Toulouse III, Toulouse.

21.

Forté

Mennesson

(2012) Réussites athlétiques et héritage sportif. Sociologies, Théories et recherches, mis en ligne le 15 novembre 2012. Available at: http://sociologies.revues.org/4082 (accessed 25 November 2012).

22.

Glesne

(2011) Becoming Qualitative Researchers. Boston, MA: Pearson.

23.

Goffman

(1961) Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. New York: Anchor Books.

24.

Goffman

(1969 [1959]) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

25.

Hanold

(2010) Beyond the marathon: (De)construction of female ultrarunning bodies. Sociology of Sport Journal 27(2): 160–177.

26.

Howe

(2001) An ethnography of pain and injury in professional rugby union. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 36(3): 289–303.

27.

Hughes

(1937) Institutional office and the person. American Journal of Sociology 43(3): 404–413.

28.

Hughes

Coakley

(1991) Positive deviance among athletes: The implications of overconformity to the sport ethic. Sociology of Sport Journal 8(4): 307–325.

29.

Key

(2000) Sporting excellence: A family affair? International Review for the Sociology of Sport 6(2): 151–169.

30.

Lahire

(2011) The Plural Actor. Cambridge: Polity.

31.

Lefèvre

(2010) Construction sociale du don et de la vocation de cycliste. Sociétés Contemporaines 80(4): 47–71.

32.

Malcolm

(2009) Medical uncertainty and clinical-athlete relations: The management of concussion injuries in Rugby Union. Sociology of Sport Journal 26(2): 191–210.

33.

Malcolm

(2011) Sport medicine, injured athletes and Norbert Elias’s sociology of knowledge. Sociology of Sport Journal 28(3): 284–302.

34.

Malcolm

Sheard

(2002) ‘Pain in the assets’: The effects of commercialization and professionalization on the management of injury in English rugby union. Sociology of Sport Journal 19(2): 149–169.

35.

Markula

(2015) (Im)mobile bodies: Contemporary semi-professional dancers’ experiences with injuries. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 50(7): 840–864.

36.

Mayer

Thiel

(2018) Presenteeism in the elite sports workplace: The willingness to compete hurt among German elite handball and track and field athletes. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 53(1): 49–68.

37.

Messner

(1992) Power at Play: Sports and the Problem of Masculinity. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

38.

Nixon

(1992) A social network analysis of influences on athletes to play with pain and injury. Journal of Sport & Social Issues 16(2): 127–135.

39.

Nixon

(1993) Accepting the risks of pain and injury in sport: Mediated cultural influences on playing hurt. Sociology of Sport Journal 10(2): 183–196.

40.

Papin

(2007) Conversion et Reconversion des Élites Sportives. Paris: L’Harmattan.

41.

Papin

(2008) Capital corporel et accès à l’excellence en gymnastique artistique et sportive. Journal des Anthropologues 112–113(1): 323–343.

42.

Pike

(2003) Injury in women’s sport: Classifying key elements of ‘risk encounters’. Sociology of Sport Journal 20(3): 232–251.

43.

Pike

(2005) Doctors just say ‘rest and take ibuprofen’: A critical examination of the role of ‘non orthodox’ health care in women’s sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 20(2): 201–219.

44.

Roderick

(1998) The sociology of risk, pain and injury: A comment on the work of Howard L. Nixon II. Sociology of Sport Journal 15(1): 64–79.

45.

Roderick

(2006) Adding insult to injury: Workplace injury in English professional football. Sociology of Health & Illness 28(1): 76–97.

46.

Roderick

(2012) An unpaid labor of love professional footballers, family life, and the problem of job relocation. Journal of Sport & Social Issues 36(3): 317–338.

47.

Roderick

Waddington

(2000) Playing hurt: Managing injuries in English professional football. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 35(2): 165–180.

48.

Sapiro

(2007) Je n’ai jamais appris à écrire: Les conditions de formation de la vocation d’écrivain. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociale 168(3): 12–33.

49.

Schotté

(2012) La Construction du ‘Talent’: Sociologie de la Domination des Coureurs Marocains. Paris: Raisons d’Agir.

50.

Schubring

Thiel

(2014) Coping with growth in adolescent elite sport. Sociology of Sport Journal 31(3): 304–326.

51.

Schubring

Bub

Thiel

(2015) ‘How much is too much?’ The social construction of elite youth athlete exercise tolerances from the coaches’ perspective. Journal of Sport & Social Issues 39(4): 308–331.

52.

Sorignet

(2004) Sortir d’un métier de vocation: Le cas des danseurs contemporains. Sociétés Contemporaines 56(4): 111–132.

53.

Strauss

(1962) Transformations of identity.In: Rose

(ed.) Human Behaviour and Social Processes: An Interactionist Approach. Henley: Routledge, pp. 63–85.

54.

Suaud

(1975) L’imposition de la vocation sacerdotale. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 1(3): 2–17.

55.

Theberge

(2008) ‘Just a normal bad part of what I do’: Elite athletes’ accounts of the relationship between health and sport. Sociology of Sport Journal 25(2): 206–222.

56.

Thing

(2006) ‘Voices of the broken body’. The resumption of non-professional female players’ sports careers after anterior cruciate ligament injury. The female player’s dilemma: Is she willing to run the risk? Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports 16(5): 364–375.

57.

Turner

Wainwright

(2003) Corps de ballet: The case of the injured ballet dancer. Sociology of Health & Illness 25(4): 269–288.

58.

Viaud

Papin

(2012) Temps sportif, santé du champion et logique de l’urgence. Staps 96–97(2): 9–27.

59.

Wacquant

LJD

(1989) Towards a reflexive sociology: A workshop with Pierre Bourdieu. Sociological Theory 7(1): 26–63.

60.

Wacquant

LJD

(1992) The social logic of boxing in Black Chicago: Toward a sociology of pugilism. Sociology of Sport Journal 9(3): 221–254.

61.

Wacquant

LJD

(1995a) Pugs at work: Bodily capital and bodily labour among professional boxers. Body & Society 1(1): 65–93.

62.

Wacquant

LJD

(1995b) The pugilistic point of view: How boxers think and feel about their trade. Theory and Society 24(4): 489–535.

63.

Wacquant

LJD

(1996) ‘Un mariage dans le ghetto’. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 113(Juin): 63–84.

64.

Wacquant

LJD

(2004) Body and Soul: Ethnographic Notebooks of an Apprentice-Boxer. New York: Oxford University Press.

65.

Weber

(1946 [1922]) Science as a vocation. In: Weber

(ed.) Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 129–156.

66.

Weedon

(2012) ‘Glocal boys’: Exploring experiences of acculturation amongst migrant youth footballers in Premier League academies. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 47(2): 200–216.

67.

Young

(2012) Sport, Violence and Society. London: Routledge.

68.

Young

White

McTeer

(1994) Body talk: Male athletes reflect on sport, injury, and pain. Sociology of Sport Journal 11(2): 175–194.