Body forms matter; or why we’re not heading towards a World Anti-Drugs in Rock ‘n’ Roll Agency

Drawing on Niklas Luhmann's concept of form, this conceptual paper argues that the body functions as a medium whose forms differ markedly in elite sport and rock ‘n’ roll. It examines why there is no global policy-making organization aimed at limiting or regulating drug- and alcohol-consuming bodies in rock ‘n’ roll, while elite sport bodies, in comparison, are subject to extensive transnational regulation through the World Anti-Doping Agency. Sport operates through the distinctions win/lose and progression/regression, and the paper contends that, in addition, the sporting body is constituted through the binary distinction clean/doped and therefore delivers an attractive element to political communication and society’s self-description of modernity. By contrast, the rock ‘n’ roll body constitutes an ephemeral, provocative and playful form in which the unclean body is a recurring aesthetic and transgressive element of modern music, rendering it less politically attractive but compatible with business. These insights are mobilized to conceptualize the recent Enhanced Games as an instance of the ‘rock ‘n’ rollfication’ of elite sport.