Leisure, consumption and sport between the upper strata: Contributions to the development of a problematic field

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to deal with various problems concerned with the social productivity of the spaces and practices of leisure, consumption and sport, particularly referring to the upper strata and their sociability. Following this approach, we develop a critical work on the main perspectives on leisure and consumption, emphasizing, in some cases, the underlying normative assumptions and, in others, the conceptual contributions related to the positivity of leisure and consumption as elements for structuring social categories. Finally, the article analyses the contributions of the sociology and anthropology of sport to the study of the relationship between sporting practices and social levels, arguing in favour of giving a higher hierarchy to the study of phenomenon related to sport, leisure and consumption as legitimate fields of research of the transformations in the social structure, especially, connected to the upper strata