CFP: [Film] Calls for papers: On the Edge: Leisure, Consumption and the Represention of Adventure Sports
Calls for papers: On the Edge: Leisure, Consumption and the Represention of
Adventure Sports
March 18th and 19th, 2008 Organiser: Joan Ormrod
Representations of adventure sports in the mass media demonstrate what Beck
describes as the importance of experiencing danger and ‘living life to the
full’ in a ‘risk society’. The late 20th and the early 21st centuries seem
to signal a major shift in leisure participation in industrialised
countries. Millions of people now apparently seek ‘danger’ and discomfort
in unpredictable or physically threatening settings in the performance of
their leisure activities. The representation and consumption of these
sports is big business, and the association of ‘adventure’ with a product
or service seems to lend a glamour and desirability formerly only achieved
using sexual imagery as marketing gloss.
Contemporary culture is saturated with images of adventure sports.
Advertisements use the excitement of adventure sports to sell aftershave
lotion, cars, soft drinks and mobile phones. Magazines such as such as
Snowboard Uk, Skateboarder, On The Edge, Carve and Wavelength devoted to
specific sports.fill newsagents ‘ shelves. Films such as Blue Crush, Stone
Monkey, and Dogtown and Z-Boys present the danger but also the vertigo
inspired by the sport. National and global networks of adventure sports
subcultures are supported by the internet with enthusiasts and clubs
setting up websites and chatrooms providing information about venues, news
and local activities. However, one of the issues surrounding lifestyle
sports is how can they be represented? Lifestyle sports enthusiasts would
argue that the feelings evoked by surfing, skateboarding, rock climbing etc
cannot be described in words.
This interdisciplinary international conference is organised by the
‘Images, Narratives and Cultures’ research group affiliated to MIRIAD in
Manchester Metropolitan University. It focuses on the consumption and
representation of adventure sports, the communities and subcultures that
practice them, and the effects that they have on individuals and groups.
It will be of interest to researchers in subject areas such as sociology,
sport, film, media, design, geographies, leisure studies and cultural
studies.
Possible topics might include:
• Can adventure sports be authentically represented?
• Representations of adventure sports through place and space
• The interplay between global and local representations
• Performing ‘adventure’ - e.g. as otherness/belonging.
• Ethics and values expressed in subcultural and mainstream representations
of adventure sports
• What is the relationship between consumerism, representation and the
objectification of adventure sports?
• Motors of communication: advertising, consumption and participant
networks for adventure sports (eg: celebrity endorsement, sponsorship,
brand identities, Professionalisation, club structure)
• Lifestyle sports and new media technologies
• Parody - extreme ironing, extreme housework
• Emerging lifestyle sports such as parkour, urban freeflow and their
interaction with popular culture
Deadline for abstracts 1st February 2008.
Abstracts of up to 200 words and CV to be submitted to Joan Ormrod
j.ormrod_at_mmu.ac.uk
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Received on Sun Oct 21 2007 - 11:52:46 EDT