by Jim Denison (Contributor), Pirkko Markula (Contributor), William Bridel (Editor)
Running is a fundamental human activity and holds an important place in popular culture. In recent decades it has exploded in popularity as a leisure pursuit, with marathons and endurance challenges exerting a strong fascination. Endurance Running is the first collection of original qualitative research to examine distance running through a socio-cultural lens, with a general objective of understanding the concept and meaning of endurance historically and in contemporary times.
Adopting diverse theoretical and methodological approaches to explore topics such as historical conceptualizations of endurance, lived experiences of endurance running, and the meaning of endurance in individual lives, the book reveals how the biological, historical, psychological, and sociological converge to form contextually specific ideas about endurance running and runners.
Endurance Running is an essential book for anybody researching across the entire spectrum of endurance sports and fascinating reading for anybody working in the sociology of sport or the body, cultural studies or behavioural science.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
Edition: 1
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 28 Apr 2017
ISBN 10: 1138067857
ISBN 13: 9781138067851
[Endurance Running] offers much insight into running as a cultural phenomenon. The book is interesting because it offers a scholarly contribution to a contemporary, socio-cultural practice, which for the most part is dominated by natural scientific perspectives that tend to quantify running into durations, intensities and frequencies. - Oyvind Forland Standal, www.idrottsforum.org
It gives an interesting overview of the field of endurance running and relates it to history, psychology, sociology, and many other academic disciplines. Although it is an academic volume, the authors' use of stories and personal experiences in most chapters makes the volume a fairly easy read. I think it will appeal to a wide audience. - Diane Finley, PsycCRITIQUES, September 2016