Snowboarding Bodies in Theory and Practice

Snowboarding Bodies in Theory and Practice provides the first in-depth analysis of the global phenomenon of snowboarding. Drawing upon an extensive array of sources gathered from six countries over seven years, the book offers fresh insights into snowboarding culture, including the sport, lifestyle, industry, media, gender relations, travel and tourism, and physical experience, in both historical and contemporary contexts. It also contributes to recent debates surrounding the practices and politics of the active body. Facilitating a multidimensional analysis of snowboarding bodies, each chapter draws upon, and extends, a different theoretical perspective--i.e., cultural memory studies, Marxist political economy, post-Fordism, Foucauldian theorizing, Pierre Bourdieu's theory of embodiment, feminism, sociology of mobilities, and non-representational theory. Creatively blending theory and empirical research, this book offers both a comprehensive investigation of snowboarding bodies in local and global contexts, and an engaging commentary on the use of social theory and research methods for understanding sport and physical cultures in the early twenty-first century.

HOLLY THORPE Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sport and Leisure Studies at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. She has published widely on the topics of sociology of sport, social theory, physical youth culture, gender, and extreme sports.