ABSTRACT
One of the key concerns of the book is with the gaps and silences in what has been written about drinking and sport. In the previous chapter, I was critical of the seeming failure or reluctance of analyses of sport-related drinking to move beyond the argument that links the consumption of alcohol with assertions of ‘hegemonic masculinity’, and I argued that sociological accounts of sport-related drinking, in particular, have relied on fairly limited and predictable theoretical perspectives through which to frame their analyses. I suggested that social scientists with an interest in drinking more broadly have seen the possibilities of other theoretical frameworks for explaining the cultural practices, social interactions and, indeed, the consequences of consuming alcohol. For those of us with an interest in the consumption of sport as well as the consumption of alcohol, drawing on perspectives such as ‘calculated hedonism’, ‘symbolic capital’, ‘serious leisure’, ‘governmentality’, ‘biopower’ and the normalisation or banalisation of drinking may lead to a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of sport-related drinking.
