Communicating consent in sport: A typological model of athletes’ consent practices within combat sports

Alex Channon,Christopher R Matthews

doi:10.1177/10126902211043992

Alex Channon, Christopher R Matthews

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/10126902211043992

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Abstract

This paper provides a systematic attempt to empirically describe the ways in which athletes’ consent to take part in sport is socially constructed, communicated and understood by others. Due to a notable lack of prior research on this topic, we draw on insights from sex research to theorise consent as a communicative social practice, specifically applying this notion to interpreting the world of competitive combat sports. To do so, we combine data from across numerous studies using the method of concatenated exploration, producing a post hoc, longitudinal, cross-contextual qualitative analysis of the ways in which consent is practiced in such settings. We then outline a four-point typology of how consent is performed, including the following categories: overt communication; subtle communication; assumed consent and deferred consent. We conclude by arguing that the apparent predominance of subtle, assumed and deferred consent presents some worrying implications for athletes’ freedom, potentially undermining the morally transformative potential of consent within these ostensibly ‘violent’, often injurious sports contexts.

Highlights

A sociology of consentConsent is a vital moral principle underpinning much of the everyday regulation and negotiation of social life
In line with the points raised at the outset, when asked about consent, participants across our data sets typically asserted that this principle served as a key point of differentiation between legitimate sport, and illegitimate violence
We have attempted to sketch out an account of how consent is performed by combat sports athletes, as an initial foray into constructing a sociology of consent within sport

Summary

Introduction

Consent is a vital moral principle underpinning much of the everyday regulation and negotiation of social life It forms the basis upon which individual people interact with each other in mutually agreeable ways, helping to constitute productive social relationships in myriad contexts. While certain sub-disciplinary fields of sociology have long-established traditions of theoretical and empirical scholarship on such processes – e.g. medical sociology; gender studies; sex research – the practical, everyday working-out of consent has received scant attention from sociologists of sport. This is surprising given the centrality of consent to the legal status of (in particular) contact sports in many countries, including the UK (The Law Commission, 1995). Consent plays a vital role in the legal status of sports competition (Young, 1993), effectively insulating competitors from being arrested for assaulting their opponents on the field of play, sociologists of sport have all but ignored the practical ways in which sport participants develop and communicate consent to each other (or, fail to do so)

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