Russian team coach Alexander Alexandrov has expressed some optimism about the Russian women's prospects at the upcoming world championships.
http://www.sportgymrus.ru/press/news/4066/default.aspx
He feels that Mustafina is a good prospect for the all around; and makes special mention of Nabieva's straight Tkachev-Pak combination as 'unique and historic'.
And I have to say, Tanya Nabieva is quite probably the fastest improving gymnast I have ever seen - hope she will do well in Rotterdam.
If, like me, you struggle to read Russian and find Google translations somewhat bizarre, try International Gymnast online for a better translation.
http://www.sportgymrus.ru/press/news/4066/default.aspx
He feels that Mustafina is a good prospect for the all around; and makes special mention of Nabieva's straight Tkachev-Pak combination as 'unique and historic'.
And I have to say, Tanya Nabieva is quite probably the fastest improving gymnast I have ever seen - hope she will do well in Rotterdam.
If, like me, you struggle to read Russian and find Google translations somewhat bizarre, try International Gymnast online for a better translation.
Bourdieu says in 'distinction' that there are as many different capitals as there are fields of struggle. If sport is the subject of a struggle for distinction (econmically, culturally etc) then he would expect their to be a form of symbolic capital associated with it that would be unequally distributed between the haves and the have nots. I read Clive Barnett et al's 'culture, class distinction' recently which updates Bourdieu for the contemporary UK (sadly not russia!), but which places the emphasis not on cultural consumption as bourdieu does, but in participation. I'm guessing Gymnastics is a sport (art?) with quite high barriers to entry and so I'd expect that participation, active and passive, would denote a form of status distinction. To be fair though, I'm just guessing!
ReplyDeleteWell, there's some more reading for me - thank you. I think this does add quite a lot to think about!
ReplyDeleteDoes it necessarily have to be ethnically/nationally bound? I suppose different cultures do have different ways of seeing ...
Full bibliographic references for James' reading suggestions above are now added to the bibliography.
ReplyDeleteSorry - should have used Harvard. If our students found out I'd never live it down! I don't think it has to be bound in those ways. Lots of people criticise bourdieu for being either 1) too french in his frame of reference or 2) too structuralist and not open enough to that kind of diversity. I don't think either of those criticisms really hold, but he made such a point of saying that all theoretical work should be grounded in fieldwork that it was kind of inevitable that he kept his research within his own boundaries....
ReplyDeleteThanks James. I can feel something with a little more depth coming on ......... ooer.
ReplyDeleteI'm using this site as a repository for useful references so that I don't ever lose sight of anything useful again ... that's the plan, anyway. Know how to back up a blog?
hmmmm...not sure! will find out...
ReplyDelete