Description
Equality in the sense of equal access to institutionalized practices is a key ethical principle, while the equality of all human beings is considered the starting point for the declaration of human rights. Yet, in real life, institutionalized practices such as sports tend to reproduce social inequalities and biases in terms of class, ethnicity, gender, religion, and disabilities. In practice, not all sports are for equally accessible for everyone (Price 2017). In the EU-funded project 'Our Sport is for Everyone', we investigate the different forms and causes of discrimination in hockey, swimming, football, cricket, basketball and urban sports. Through focus group sessions, Theory of Change sessions and living labs in collaboration with local sport clubs and communities, the project aims to find effective ways to combat discrimination in sports.In this presentation I will discuss the role of philosophy in studying social inequality in sports. In particular I will focus on the interaction and translation of insights from multiple disciplines, building on the work of Michel Serres (Simons 2022). This philosophical approach focuses on the articulation of processes of knowledge formation such as categorization, classification and filtering (Houterman 2025). Applied to sport, this method could be used to map and assess exclusionary mechanisms of values embedded in sport practices, such as inclusion and safety.
Michel Serres inherits from communication theory that information is a particular filtering of noise in the exchange between the emitter and the receiver (Serres 2025). Noise should not merely be seen as an interruption of communication, but also and paradoxically perhaps as its necessary condition. What does the concept of noise mean for discrimination in sports? Current strategies of communication between associations, athletes and research concerning discrimination can become counterproductive when they focus on the elimination of noise while failing to acknowledge the importance of ambiguity, uncertainty and fluidity.
| Period | 29 Aug 2025 |
|---|---|
| Event title | 2025 International Association for the Philosophy of Sport (IAPS) Conference |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Odense, DenmarkShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |