Normativity in sport: an ethnomethodological reespecication Normativity in sport: an ethnomethodological reespecication

Abstract

This paper presents an ethnoethodological reespecification on the analysis of the different kinds of normativity in sport. In sports competition two kinds of rules are normally differentiated: rules of the game and ethical rules or fairplay. The ethnomethodological analysis affords us to distinguish a third kind of normativity, referred to what can be called praxical rules. The interest of the ethnomethodological proposal is not in the formal analysis (FA) of the different types of sport rules but in offering detailed analyses of the in vivo work of the members within real game situations through the use of ethnomethodological alternates (EA). To select the cases of analysis we conducted a search on Youtube, introducing labels such as ‘curious play’, ‘strange play’, ‘tricks’, ‘foul’, ‘dirty play’ for sport in general and for speci"c sports (finally we restricted the cases to football), in Spanish, English and Italian. The analyses of the images allowed us a better comprehension of sport normativity, making visible the praxical dimension and showing the complex articulation among the different kinds of normativities.