Sport and Neoliberalism: An Affective‐Ideological Articulation

H OW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT MONBIOT WRITES SO CONVINCINGLY about the seeming imperceptibility of a phenomenon that Pierre Bourdieu and Lo€ıc Wacquant have described as a “planetary vulgate?” The answer to this question speaks to the very nature of neoliberalism itself. In the broadest terms, neoliberalism is an amorphous, complex, variegated, and oftentimes contradictory formation encompassing new economic rationalities, associated political logics, and corroborating cultural sensibilities (Williams; Davies, “Limits”). In concert, these constitutive elements of the neoliberal condition have redefined, among other things, the contract between the contemporary state and its citizens and, crucially, the understanding of the nature and role of individual citizens living within the neoliberal state (Hall, “Neoliberal”). As Catherine Rottenburg summarizes, “Neoliberalism, in other words, is a dominant political