Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, and Michael Sam: Challenges to Football as Symbol, Practice, and Insitutional Power

• In Event: 082 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session I
  In Refereed Roundtable: A. Table 01. Cultural Sociology

Abstract

Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, and Michael Sam: Challenges to Football As Symbol, Practice, and Institutional Power

The focus of this paper is the game of football as a popular American cultural form, one in which institutionalized violence and the perpetuation of practices associated with war are integral to the game. In addition, those practices are commonly associated with values and beliefs associated with the denigration of women and homophobia. This paper will first examine football as the single most popular American sport, how the game of football mirrors American culture, and then analyze why the aforementioned events involving Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, and Michael Sam, challenge football as symbol, practice, and institutional power. The methodology used is broadly speaking cultural analysis, particularly Geertz’s thick description but it also involves newer cultural analysis using ideas developed by more contemporary cultural sociologists, such as, Ann Swidler, Pierre Bourdieu, Jeffrey Alexander, Philip Smith. Roger Friedland, and John Mohr.

Author

• Joseph G. A. Trumino, St. John's University