European body cultures and the making of the modern world: Zones of prestige and established–outsider relations

This paper seeks to outline aspects of the relations, interactions and contradictions of European body cultures. On this basis, I focus on the global diffusion of one of these European body cultures, modern sport. This diffusion is viewed as a critical case study that provides clues to the making of the modern world. A process sociological perspective informs this analysis and, in so doing, I hope to show how such an approach can help make sense of broader questions concerning globalisation and inter-civilisational relations. That is, the study of sport can cast light on the character of and transformations wrought by global processes more generally