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Skateboarding, Religion, and Lifestyle Sports

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Skateboarding and Religion

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Abstract

O’Connor provides a working definition of religion as a theoretical foundation for the rest of the text. Surveying theology, anthropology, sociology, and popular culture, he adopts a polythetic perspective built from Geertz’s (The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books, 1973) definition of religion. This concept is divided into three focuses—observation, performance, and organisation—which work as a framework for the themes addressed in the remainder of the text. The topic is contrasted with existing work on religion and sport and also research in the domain of lifestyle sports. The chapter concludes with a discussion of skateboarding as a lifestyle religion, congruent with new forms of spiritual expression concerned with subjective experience, identity, and work on the self as a life project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong

    Paul O’Connor

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  1. Paul O’Connor
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Correspondence to Paul O’Connor .

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O’Connor, P. (2020). Skateboarding, Religion, and Lifestyle Sports. In: Skateboarding and Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24857-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24857-4_2

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-24856-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-24857-4

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