SOCIO-CULTURAL STUDY GROUP IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION (GESEF): A SEMI-BIOGRAPHICAL TRAJECTORY IN DIALOGUE WITH LEISURE STUDIES

Abstract

This work, seeking to dialogue with production related to sport and leisure, describes and analyzes the trajectory of Sociocultural Study Group in Physical Education (GESEF), specially based on its ethnographic investigations. It presents portraits of unplanned investigative paths developed at their interface with anthropology. Such portraits of studies show points of reflections and contributions at different fronts: understanding sport practices as culture shared in groups, beyond absences and favoring appropriation in urban leisure contexts made up of ordinary people; understanding fun practices, including games and sports, as spaces for disputes and negotiations connected to everyday life and therefore as significant educational universes immersed in power relations; understanding the polyphony of interests that pervade sports practices, especially those that coexist “in leisure”, although they might appear antagonistic or ambiguous at first glance, hampering a priori difficult classifications and understandings; and understanding sport and recreational experiences in the lives of social actors in action, as social issues connected to politics, education, violence, work. Finally, the text emphasizes that it is not proposing to close discussions, but to bring elements that can contribute in understanding, especially with a view to intervention in the fields of sport and leisure.