the ‘new ’ corporate habitus in adventure racing（u201c新u201d的企业体质冒险赛跑）.pdfVIP

INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT 37/1(2002) 17–36 17 © Copyright ISSA and SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA, New Delhi) [1012–6902 (200203) 37:1;17–36; 021852] THE ‘NEW’ CORPORATE HABITUS IN ADVENTURE RACING Joanne Kay and Suzanne Laberge University of Montreal, Canada Abstract This article explores the overrepresentation of management-level corporate participants in Discovery Channel Eco-Challenge (DCEC) as a suggestion of the emergence of a new class — or social group — habitus common to both ‘new’ corporate culture and the adventure racing (AR) field. The current analysis, which examines the parallels between conceptualizations, perceptions and judgements of practice embedded in AR and ‘new’ corporate discourses, has two aims: first, to un- cover the practice-generating principle(s) (habitus) in the AR field; second, to explore the relationship between the AR and ‘new’ corporate habitus through AR’s purported benefit of ‘transferability’. Our qualitative analysis is based on participant observation and on 37 semi-structured interviews with AR participants. Key words • adventure racing • Bourdieu • corporate • extreme sport • habitus The sport of adventure racing (henceforth AR, as it is commonly referred to) by its very character resists strict definition, but can nonetheless be loosely described — in its most undisputed formulation — as a non-stop, self-sufficient, multi-day, multidiscipline, mixed-gender team endurance competition that takes place in the wilderness over a designated but unmarked course. ‘Expedition Racing’, as multi-day (usually five to ten day) AR epics are often called, requires athletes to master multiple outdoor skills, to risk illness and injury, and to endure sleep deprivation, weight loss, extreme weather and harsh terrain. Athletes are required to manage and transpor