Configuring the Field of Play: How Hosting the Olympic Games Impacts Civic Community

I theorize and empirically illustrate how the mega‐event of the Olympic Games configures relational and symbolic systems within the host city. I focus on a field at the level of the local geographic community and explore how city character and traditions enable both persistence and change in institutional elements even when potentially disruptive events occur. I present two exploratory studies. The first shows how the event of the Olympics is rooted in the local field of the host city but varies by communities; the second explores the dynamics of configuring the field of one Olympic city: Atlanta, host of the 1996 Olympic Games.