Seeing space and place: the distance runner's view

What is it about?

The precise ways in which we go about the mundane, repetitive, social actions of everyday life are central concerns of ethnographers and theorists working within the traditions of the sociology of the mundane and sociological phenomenology. In this article, we utilize insights derived from sociological phenomenology and the newly developing field of sensory sociology to investigate a particular, mundane, and embodied social practice, that of training for distance running in specific places: our favored running routes. To date, little analytic attention has been devoted to the actual, practices of “doing” sports and sporting activity, and we wanted to address this gap in the research. Drawing upon data from a 2-year research project, here we explore the visual dimension, focusing upon three key themes in relation to our runners’ visualization of, respectively, (1) hazardous places, (2) performance places, (3) the time–space–place nexus.

Featured Image

Photo by Andrew Slifkin on Unsplash

Photo by Andrew Slifkin on Unsplash

Why is it important?

To date, little sociological analytic attention has been devoted to the actual, mundane practices of “doing” or "producing" the senses in sports and sporting activity, and this paper addresses this gap in the research.