Involved-Detachment: A Balance of Passion and Reason in Feminisms and Gender-related Research in Sport, Tourism and Sports Tourism

This paper discusses the contribution of Norbert Elias's theory of involvement-detachment for feminist research and gender-related studies in the fields of sport, tourism and sports tourism. A brief overview of scholarly work on gender in studies of sport, tourism and sports tourism is presented. The paper outlines the key features of feminist criticisms about conventional methods of acquiring and establishing knowledge in the sciences and considers the ways that feminists approach issues of epistemology. The significance of passionate scholarship in feminist theorizing is discussed. The theory of involvement-detachment is introduced as part of Elias's perspective on the advancement of knowledge about social life. Problems and issues of involvement-detachment are explored in terms of some of the gender-related literature about sport, tourism and sports tourism. What I refer to as involved-detachment1 1 I use the term involved-detachment to embrace a feminist emphasis on the importance of being and becoming involved with women in order to see and think about their experiences, but at the same time recognizing the need for critical reflections about personal knowledge and values so that involvement is tempered with appropriate degrees of detachment through precision and rigor in the research process. is presented as a way of explaining, understanding and working with ever-changing balances of passion and reason in scholarship about the gendered character of activities in the sporting sphere. This discussion represents a contribution to debates about the nature and assumptions of the knowledge produced by social scientists theorizing about gender and sporting activities. In doing so, it brings perspectives traditionally associated with the sociology of sport to sociological inquires about tourism and sports tourism.