Outdoor activities and sportivzation process

International audienceThe development of sports often follows similar routes ending up with their codification and institutionalization. The chronology of the various steps on this path may differ according to the activity and/or the nation concerned, but the sportivization process eventually affects most physical activities. Outdoor sports also undergo several changes, but bring in their own original responses in the process, differing from other sports activities and yet similar to other outdoor sports.Outdoor sportsmen develop a special relationship with the natural environment which is essential to their activities and this regularly creates a resistance to the sportivization process, in particular when competitions have to be organized, as is normally the case with sports activities. As the standardisation demanded is not consistent with the unpredictability of nature, the sportivization process tends to alter the natural aspect of outdoor activities. The latter then present perfect examples of rejection of the sports phenomenon or, at times, create a doubling up the activity: one form being sporty, competitive and rather artificial, while the other one remains close to the original activity and thus free from codified championships.The point of this paper is to highlight the common processes in the history of outdoor sports, rising from their special relationship to nature, which gives them a very strong propensity to resist the sportivization movement. The arguing is based on the history of French mountaineering (Holbian, 2001), speleology (Schut, 2007), kayak (Hajek, 2007 ; Levet-Labry, 2012) and scuba-diving (Mascret, 2010) from the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century. Instead of confirming the specificity of these activities which historians have often branded “different” and set apart, we shall first identify the patterns through which they have developed and then sketch a history of outdoor sports which appears as substantially differing from the history of sports