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Jumping for recognition: Women's ski jumping viewed as a struggle for rights
Author(s) -
Andersen W.,
Loland S.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of medicine and science in sports
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.575
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1600-0838
pISSN - 0905-7188
DOI - 10.1111/sms.12662
Subject(s) - argument (complex analysis) , human rights , embodied cognition , jumping , sociology , political science , law and economics , identification (biology) , mutual recognition , law , social psychology , psychology , business , computer science , artificial intelligence , medicine , physiology , botany , biology , international trade
With the campaign for women's participation in international and Olympic ski jumping as a practical case, sport's potential for recognition of individual rights is explored. In line with Honneth's influential ethical theory, recognition of rights refers to a mutual recognition between persons of each other as rational and responsible agents with an equal right to take part in the public formation and development of their community or practice. The argument is that women ski jumpers were entitled to compete as they had actual and/or potential capabilities and skills to contribute in the public formation and development of their sport. Their exclusion was a violation of individual rights. At a more general level, sport is discussed as a sphere for recognition of rights. It is argued that the basic principles of equal opportunity to take part and to perform make sport a particularly clear and potent sphere for such recognition, and also for the identification of rights violations. In sport, rights, or the violation of rights, are demonstrated in concrete and embodied ways. It is concluded that struggles for recognition and individual rights are a continuous process in sport as in most other human institutions and practices.