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Description
In Norwegian sport there are political and ideological tensions between a deeply held belief in ‘sport for all’ as a fundamental basis for all sporting activity and an emphasis on elite sport that aims to achieve great results in a wide variety of sports. Immediately, it seems like a struggle to achieve this dual task, still, dealing with this balance between fostering democracy and fostering competition appear as a strength of the Scandinavian sports model (Peterson (2008). The field of elite sport in Norway, in addition, comprises two important dichotomies: first, an ascetic view of elite-level sport versus a more playful attitude, and second, a standardized elite-level system versus a more pluralistic one. How can we understand these dimensions in the Norwegian sport field, sport for all versus emphasis in elite sport, and in the latter, between an ascetic, standardized approach, and a more playful and pluralistic approach? In this paper we use these dimensions, or paradoxes one may add, as a stepping stone for a theoretical discussion. We apply Bourdieu’s ‘feel for the game’ analogy, highlighting the difference between the feel for the game in itself and the feel for the game for itself. Further, we introduce morality (cf. Lamont, Bennet, Skarpenes) as an important feature to be included in studies of social fields, herein the field of elite sports. The combination of these two theoretical approaches will shed light on the dimensions of the Norwegian sport field, , and consequently as important theoretical tools to study sport in general.
