Sport Ethnography

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Sport Ethnography is a complete introduction and resource in the emerging discipline of sport ethnography. Written by Robert R. Sands, PhD, an anthropologist well versed in the use of the ethnographic method in sport, Sport Ethnography is an all-inclusive guide for anyone interested in the field.

Sport Ethnography incorporates methodological case studies to illustrate field techniques in specific sport situations. Sands relays his real-life experiences in sport ethnography, which include confrontations with “surf Nazis” and becoming a tackling dummy for football players. In addition, the book provides you with multiple reference points that include experiences of others trained in fieldwork who explore triathlons and professional wrestling, go behind the TV camera and inside the dugout, and wrap ankles and windsurf. These insights will allow you to perform sport ethnography with greater cultural accuracy.

Ethnographic methods and the fundamentals of fieldwork conveyed through examples of sport ethnography give you a familiarity not found in the sea of other ethnography texts. Sport Ethnography also addresses the recent controversy, both in anthropology and other social science fields, on what the data actually mean and how you can use the data that are ultimately collected.

Professional ethnography is far more than recording behavior through a video lens or a microphone, catching behavior in a snapshot, or describing it in a notebook; it requires a thorough knowledge of fieldwork. Sport Ethnography provides you with this comprehensive understanding by presenting detailed information on
-participant observation,

-culture shock,

-cultural relativism,

-establishing rapport,

-interviewing,

-a contemporary definition of ""culture,""

-interpretation of experience,

-analyzing and writing about culture, and

-an understanding of ethics.
Sport Ethnography equips you with the proper techniques to perform sport ethnography. Through case studies and captivating life experiences, the author will demonstrate how you can apply these techniques in real settings. Sport ethnography is an exciting and expanding field, and Sport Ethnography is required reading for anyone interested in this discipline.

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The foremost authority in the field of sport and culture, Robert R. Sands, PhD, has published extensively on sport and culture. Sands, no stranger to participant-observation fieldwork, authored Instant Acceleration: Living in the Fast Lane and Gutcheck! An Anthropologist's Wild Ride Into the Heart of College Football. He also authored the first-ever primer on sport and culture, Sport and Culture: At Play in the Fields of Anthropology, and edited a first-ever volume on anthropology of sport, Anthropology, Sport and Culture.

Sands' unique hands-on participant-observation method of research produces not only an insider's perspective but also allows Sands to experience the same cultural experiences as those he is studying. He has studied African-American and Caucasian collegiate basketball players, African-American collegiate sprinters, and junior college football teams. He is currently involved in participant-observation ethnography of the Southern California surfing culture.

Sands earned his doctorate in anthropology from the University of Illinois.