E.P. Thompson's Notion of “Context” and the Writing of Physical Education and Sport History

Abstract

To suggest some means of writing “better” history, this paper builds upon E.P. Thompson's notion of history as the “discipline of context.” Rather than just a rendering of past actuality, according to Thompson, history is a body of knowledge which derives from the interrelating, the integrating, the weaving together of strands of evidence that point to change or continuity in human life in the past. The historian does this networking, this interweaving, in every phase of his or her work—as one derives researchable questions, locates and works with the evidence, and shapes conceptualizations and explanatory schemes. The discussion presents examples of both the process and the product of “contexting” in all of these phases