In this guest post, Graham Scambler talks about his recent book on the causal forces at work in elite sport – and the severe consequences they can have for the athletes involved.
Two major themes have informed my applications of critical realist thinking to the study of and engagement with social phenomena. The first is a commitment to help build bridges between the consideration of abstruse philosophical or theorical issues on the one hand and the conduct of empirical research on the other. I have no intrinsic objection to either of these, but only too often they accumulate outputs in intellectual silos, lacking any dialectical capacity for cross-fertilisation. The second theme is to eschew purism. Critical realism is for me a key under-labouring resource for describing and explaining social phenomena, but I am more than happy to draw on multiple theorists and theories. I do this, hopefully, not as a jackdaw randomly nicking sparkling gems, but in the interests of constructing a theoretical synthesis appropriate to the subject matter at hand. Hence my use – and integration – of multiple perspectives in my critical-realist-informed examinations of the fields of health and sport. In this blog I address one matter arising in my ‘A Critical Realist Theory of Sport’ (Routledge, 2023) and focus on some discrete ways in which I think a critical realist perspective or approach pays dividends.
Disciples of critical realism need no introduction to its basic-cum-dialectical conceptual apparatus. It will be sufficient for present purposes to briefly contextualise the notions of upwards or ‘upstream’ causality and downwards or ‘downstream’ causality. In this context I have typically adopted a shorthand in referring to: (i) biological, psychological and social generative mechanisms, (ii) operating at the level of Bhaskar’s real, which (iii) issue in tendencies and in combination allow for causal explanations for phenomena of interest and concern. Limiting ourselves to this expedient shorthand, social mechanisms emerge from, without being reducible to psychological mechanisms which emerge from, without being reducible to biological mechanisms. Causality can travel ‘upstream’ from the biological and psychological to the social, and ‘downstream’ from the social to the psychological and biological. It will be apparent that both upstream and downstream causality are pertinent to understanding and explaining athletic and sporting activity.
With reference to international sprinting, I write in my book:
‘(a) social factors afford amenable contexts for acknowledging, enhancing and realising the ambitions of would-be Olympic 100 metres champions; (b) psychological factors can in socially deliverable contexts condition pertinent reactions; and biological factors matter, possibly exceptionally in the case of top-level sprinting, but in the absence of favourable social and psychological factors can be neglected, fade and wither on the vine’
(Scambler, 2023, p.57).
Put slightly differently, natural talent in terms of speed is typically a biological given for world-class sprinters, but aptitude and optimal coaching networks and environments are typically critical, and gold medals and global renown are of course a function of the existence and socio-economic evolution of mega-events like the modern Olympiad.
In my book my focus as a sociologist is on downstream causality, and a central theme is how rentier capitalism’s post-1970s neoliberal ideology has delivered a ‘fractured society, and how this is impacting on elite (and filters down to impact on amateur and school) sport. I use professional rugby union as a case study.
The gist of my case is that the professionalisation of rugby in the mid-1990s heralded a new phase of ‘civilised brutality’ (in Elias’ sense of civilising process). Elite rugby is more hazardous now, with the area of risk switching from the scrum to the tackle, leading to a generalised shift from spinal injury to traumatic brain injury. Contemporary players are bigger, fitter and, with the introduction of tactical substitutions in 1996, pack more of a punch for longer, rendering tackles not only more frequent but more ferocious (with an emphasis on the ‘big hit’). Ex-England captain Dylan Hartley writes:
‘rugby is good for the soul, but terrible for the body. The intensity of the international game is intoxicating, but the hangovers are vicious, metaphorically and occasionally literally … I eventually became sick of living on painkillers, of having my life controlled by aspirations to play for England. Don’t get me wrong – I cherished each and every cap – but self-imposed disciplines became wearing, because they eventually bordered on the illogical. They were all I thought about, first thing in the morning and last thins at night.’
And former Welsh and British Lions captain Sam Warburton:
‘The bottom line is that the game is evolving faster, much faster, than the human body. Players do much more strength and conditioning work than they ever did, honing muscles and cardiovascular systems to a fine peak, but underneath it all the skeleton is still the skeleton. I’m living proof of this, forced to retire before the age of 30 because my body just couldn’t take it anymore. You could leave me out for scrap … I’ve got a pin in my left shoulder, another pin in my right shoulder, a plate in my jaw and another in my eye socket. And I’m one of the lucky ones.’
Reflecting these experiences, a number of court cases initiated by former elite players are underway (eg involving the likes of ex-World Cup winning hooker Steve Thompson, who now has no memory at all of England’s 2003 victory). Contentious though claims and counter claims are, there now exist serious public health calls for rugby to be banned in schools.
In my book I discuss the pros, cons and tangible policy options in some detail. But the focus of this brief blog is on the extent to which macro-social factors are causally responsible for the enhanced danger of pursuing a professional rugby career. In a nutshell it is now clear that biologically and psychologically ‘gifted’ individuals socially recruited into networks of elite apprenticeships can end up playing for premiership and national teams, and that in doing so they are putting their bodies and minds at a predictable and accelerating risk. Why and how is this? The following have clear and documented causal relevance: (i) the business model deployed in the professional era is straight out of the playbook of our accelerating phase of capitalism, involving the redefinition of players as ‘units’ or commodities to be bought and sold in a highly competitive market where club and national results and trophies are all; (ii) the fact that this business model apes that of football (’the people’s game’) whilst lacking the spectator and fan base enjoyed by football, meaning that it is inclined to precarity via overly ambitious plans; (iii) the pressures placed on individual players in often small squads to play too many games per season; (iv) the related pressures to play whilst injured, which players may readily agree to when they perceive their places are under threat from rival squad members; and (v) the club and international health experts paid to ‘get players back onto the pitch’ as speedily as possible.
Professional rugby players constitute a subgroup of my ideal type of an elite sporting habitus. Thus:
- Single minded: showing a sharp, overriding commitment to the core role of athlete, with a companion focus on preparing for and optimising the next performance.
- Self–belief: displaying a total inner belief in personal prowess and capacity to triumph in sporting competition.
- ‘Will to win’: possessing a determination to win which subdues and pushes other rival motivations into the background.
- Embodied identity: revealing an intimate connection with the athletic body, extending beyond a readiness to compete to show a sensitivity to bodily changes that prevails across multiple social roles and intrudes upon everyday activity.
- Body trauma: tolerating physical and mental hardship, pain, injury and setback prior to and during competitive performances.
- Subcultural ethos: attaining a sense of belonging via the relevant sporting field or subculture, in individual as well as team sports although typically stronger in the latter.
- ‘In the moment’: a capacity to take advantage of what has been called ‘expertise-induced amnesia’, namely, to forget any historical or immediate errors and focus anew on the moment.
If this ideal type is consonant with the empirical evidence, as I believe it is, then the questions I close with in this blog are: (a) is much of professional sport, extending well beyond professional rugby union (and league), intrinsically harmful to its participants health; and (b) are those health workers appointed to work with individuals and teams often being paid to sidestep the longstanding injunction ‘to do no harm’?