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Embedded Expectations, Embodied Knowledge and the Movements That Connect: A System Theoretical Attempt to Explain the Use and Non-Use of Sport Facilities
Jan Ove Tangen International Review for the Sociology of Sport 2004 39: 7 DOI: 10.1177/1012690204040520 The online version of this article can be found at: http://irs.sagepub.com/content/39/1/7

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INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT 39/1(2004) 725 Copyright ISSA and SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA, New Delhi) www.sagepublications.com 10.1177/1012690204040520

EMBEDDED EXPECTATIONS, EMBODIED KNOWLEDGE AND THE MOVEMENTS THAT CONNECT

A System Theoretical Attempt to Explain the Use and Non-Use of Sport Facilities

Jan Ove Tangen Telemark University College, Norway

Abstract In this article I propose another way of studying the use and non-use of sport facilities. I argue that sport facilities embed expectations observable to individuals who are forced to meet these expectations or not. I also claim that our choices concerning the use or non-use of a sport facility are grounded in our embodied knowledge, a knowledge that is not easy to make conscious. My last claim is that movements connect the embedded expectations and embodied knowledge and eventually mediate changes in both these structures. Key words embedded expectations embodied knowledge Luhmann sports facilities

Introduction
Sport for all is a stated goal for both governments and sport organizations. Large grants and huge investments are used for the building, maintenance and rehabilitation of different forms of sport facilities. Studies show however that only a portion of the population participates in sport and uses the available sport facilities. According to some Norwegian studies almost 65 percent of the population are physically active or do sport regularly (Statistisk Sentralbyr, 1997; Vaagb and Breivik, 1998). The most popular facilities for training are hiking trails and footpaths. Almost 50 percent of the active part of the population uses these facilities. Indoor swimming pools are used by 25 percent. Nearly 12 percent of the population uses sport centres for indoor sport (Dlvik, 1990; Langkaas and Dsnes, 1997; Statistisk Sentralbyr, 1997; Vaagb and Breivik, 1998). This state of affairs worries sport organizers, politicians and social scientists. They all see this as a problem and look for answers to this unwanted disparity. Sport organizers see it as a shortage problem and claim that there are too few sport facilities. The politicians see it as a problem of distribution and wonder if the political means are wrong. Social scientists see it as inequality resulting from social stratification and classes. They try to explain the variations in the use and non-use of
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sport facilities as an effect of sociocultural variables such as age, gender, class, income, education, marital status and so forth.1 I do not deny that such factors are responsible for some of the variance observed. But I will claim that other factors also play a significant role in the use and non-use of sport facilities. In this article I will present some arguments that are supplementary to the explanations suggested. I have to stress that even a simple question such as why do people use a sport facility? calls for a very complex answer. Every social action or event has to be observed and explained within a larger framework. In principle, it calls for a comprehensive and universal sociological theory. My sociological approach to understanding sport and its facilities as sociological phenomena is based on the system theoretical sociology of Niklas Luhmann.2 His theory seems very relevant in this context. Since Luhmann has said much about society in general, but little about sport in particular, I will reformulate and apply his perspective and concepts to the question raised above. His theory is, however, extremely complex and ambiguous.3 And this is not the time or place to provide an extensive introduction to this brilliant sociologists enormous and extensive work. Therefore I will only use a few of his concepts, hopefully without sacrificing the overall perspective and relevance. Moreover, many of the arguments that follow should have been related to current debates and comparable arguments in sociology in general and sport sociology in particular. But the format of an article prevents this. I have given priority to making my own theoretical sketch coherent and detailed.

A Thought Experiment
Let me start with a thought experiment. Think of the following situation. You find yourself in a traditional sport stadium with markings for football and track and field. If I ask you What do you feel now? what is your answer? A few of you would probably feel a strong urge to run a race, throw the discus or kick the ball in the goal. But some would feel some sort of distaste, a strong wish to get away from the place: I dont belong here. The latter reaction is the most common. According to the Norwegian studies cited only 10 percent of the population like this category of sport facility so much that they use it regularly for training. Almost 90 percent do not like it at all. Is this dislike a result of sociocultural variables alone or is it possible that there may be some mechanisms in sport and its facilities that also influence the liking and disliking and the use and non-use of sport facilities? I want to use feelings, like those indicated in the thought experiment above, as a starting point to reveal some of the sociological processes behind this state of affairs. In my opinion, the liking or disliking of sport facilities, and therefore the use and non-use of sport facilities, are to a large extent rooted in the fact that we all react more or less intuitively, more or less unconsciously, to the socially produced expectations that are materialized or concealed in the sport facility in forms of shapes, markings and equipments. The basis for our reactions are created through years of first and second hand experiences of sport and its
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facilities, experiences that are imprinted in our bodies and minds. More precisely, I claim that the use or non-use of a sport facility is a function of our observations of the embedded expectations in the facility and the tacit or embodied knowledge that is incorporated in our bodies as results of movements we earlier have performed in sport facilities. I will present some theoretical assumptions to substantiate this sociological claim.

The Force of Expectations

In the novel Alice in Wonderland (Carroll, 1990) Alice is frustrated and angry when she discovers that the croquet game lacks fair play and rules; that the croquet balls are hedgehogs; that the croquet loops run away and that the playing field is bumpy and full of holes. The frustration and anger arises because Alice has a definite, but mainly implicit, conception of how croquet should be played and what the necessary qualities of the playing field should be. Both the sport and the facilities are different from what she is used to. In other words, the game and the facility are not as she expects and she feels bad about it. She is tempted to quit the game and leave the playing field immediately. The queen and her court, however, experience this differently. To them this is how croquet should be played. They do not question the rules, the quality of the field or the equipment. All aspects of the game are in accord with their expectations. I think we all agree that expectations are an important mechanism for the regulation of social behaviour. We may metaphorically say that expectations almost force us to comply with them, just as gravity makes the apple fall from the tree or the electromagnetic force of a magnet makes the iron filings line up from the magnets north pole to the south pole. We may term this mechanism the force of expectations. This mechanism operates all the time in every social situation we enter. When I arrive at the pay desk in a supermarket the checkout girl expects me to take out my wallet and pay for the groceries. If I instead start to sing an opera aria, both the checkout girl and the queue behind me will be surprised and frustrated. The manager may be called and he will try to persuade me to pay. When we attend a football game on Saturday afternoons we all expect football to be played on the green playing field and not some political campaign. If football isnt played we will be angry and demand our money back. An expectation is like a force also in the respect that it has direction and strength. In the example from the supermarket, the expectations are directed to my payment. And they may be so strong that, if I dont pay, first the manager may be called, and then the police in order to make me redeem the expectations. Whether or not individuals say yes or no to such expectations, each individual is forced to make a selection. He or she may choose to act in conformity with the expectations or just reject them and select something else, i.e. behave deviantly. But being deviant in relation to some expectations, for example not paying for the groceries, may conform to other expectations, for example living up to the youth gangs expectations dont pay for anything, just take it! The strength of one set of expectations overcomes the strength of another. In either case the actions are oriented and the communications are maintained.
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This implies that, in contrast to natural forces, expectations are not causal; they are functional. They solve the problem of orienting actions and continuing communications. Sociologically this can be formulated in terms of Ego and Alter. Ego has to build up expectations that make the variable and unpredictable behaviour of Alter predictable and expectable. Ego can only expect that Alter also orients himself according to expectations. Only the expectations of expectations of the other make it possible for Ego and Alter to include the others orientation of selectivity in his own orientations. Ego expects that Alter expects Ego to act (Baraldi et al., 1997). If it were not possible to expect the expectations of partners, there would be no possibility of orienting actions and continuing communication; and no social system would be possible. Luhmann (1984) claims that the only possible structures of social systems are reflective expectations: expectations that refer to other expectations. They are condensed references of meaning, indicating how certain situations are constituted and what are to be expected. Expectations have the function of orienting thoughts and communication, despite the complexity and contingency of the world (Baraldi et al., 1997). Expectations of expectations are what social system and sport are made of. They are written down in books of rules. They live and thrive as implicit and unwritten codes of behaviour such as ethos and name of the game. As both the thought experiment and the Queens croquet game indicate, sport facilities also express expectations of expectations, although they are more or less concealed. In a track and field stadium there are expectations of running on the divided tracks, throwing the javelin within the marked sector, and making the long jump in the sandy hollow. On a golf course one is expected to hole out the 18 holes with fewest possible strokes. The construction and layout of the golf course make this task possible but also include some obstacles as bunkers and water hazards to make it difficult. I claim that a sport facility first of all has to be seen as materialized expectations of expectations; expectations that make sport possible. Formulated sociologically: Ego observes a golf course as expectations of Alter: expectations that Ego will play golf on it, following the rules and conduct of golf and using the right equipment. But in contrast to explicit expectations, like the trainer admonishing the players to play the best they can, like banners hanging along the grandstands with the request Fair Play, or the fans shouting to their home team from the grandstands, expectations materialized or embedded in sport facilities such as corner flags, touchlines, penalty spots and so forth are implicit and unexpressed expectations; I call these embedded expectations. They are as important as the explicit expectations in regulating the actions and events in sport. When participating in sport or entering a sport facility we observe and obey such expectations. But we may just as well reject them and stay away from the actual sport and its facility. But why and how do social systems produce and maintain such embedded expectations? Space here only permits me to state a few major points.4

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Sport as Communication
Since expectations of expectations are said to be the only possible structures in social systems, we have to take a closer look at what Luhmann means when he refers to something as a social system. Social systems are generated from a particular type of contingency. Parsons termed it social contingency and Luhmann doppelten Kontingenz (double contingency). Both refer to the fact that both Ego and Alter observe their selections alternately as contingent. Luhmann formulates it this way:
All experience or action that is oriented to others is doubly contingent in that it does not depend solely on me, but also on the Other, who I must regard as an alter ego, i.e., as just as free and unpredictable as I am. The expectations that I address to an Other will be fulfilled only if he and I both do what is necessary for this and this condition is itself reflected upon and forms part of our expectations. (Luhmann, 1990b: 45)

Double contingency is by definition uncertainty and demands to be reduced. It is no less than a fundamental condition for social actions and is the generator of social systems and structure (Luhmann, 1984). Without going into detail, I assert that the double contingency that lies behind the emergence of the sport system is expressed in the unspoken and concealed view I am able or may be more able than you.5 Whether this question stems from evolutionary induced or historically produced behaviour is not to be determined here. But both Ego and Alter are able to observe the other run, jump, throw, lift, wrestle, shoot and so forth. From these observations they both experience the contingency of how able the other might be and may sometimes feel the urge to compare each others abilities. In this situation the presence of the circularity I will display my ability and compare it with yours if you will is generated and perceptible.6 Through coordination of their contingent selections they end up displaying and comparing bodily movements in order to select the most able, i.e. the winner.7 The sport system has become an emergent reality. The determination of every element depends on another element. When Alter starts to run and Ego follows, they use all their strength and speed to be the first to cross the finishing line. From the double contingency the social system realizes itself zwanglufig als autopoietisches System (Luhmann, 1984: 167). All social systems are autopoietic systems. They produce and organize all the elements and components they consist of, including the sport facility, by continuous selections from among possibilities. There is a constitution from within. Social systems, including sport, are according to Luhmann nothing but communication. Social systems operate and maintain themselves as communication. When something is communicated, a distinction is constituted. One form of communication is selected as opposed to other possible communications. Through communication, distinctions are drawn, and the elements of the system are produced. A social system produces and organizes all the components it consists of. The determination of every element and component depends on another element or component. The sport facilities are produced by the sport system in order to produce more sport. Sport facilities as expectations of expectations are produced in order to maintain and regulate this particular kind of communication. In order
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to repeat and maintain this kind of communication, reflective expectations are produced and sometimes materialized. They are observable to Ego and Alter and help them to make the necessary selections so that the system is reproduced. In all kinds of social systems, structures of reflective expectations confine the range of operations that the system can use. The reflective expectations uphold the systems solutions to four problems or categories of contingencies: what shall be communicated; who shall participate in the communication; when shall the communication be carried out, and where shall the communication take place? I will now show how and why the sport system does this, and how it makes it observable to Ego and Alter.8 The question of what is about the genesis of the social system. When Ego approves Alters suggestion Let us play football, a distinction, a difference, between football and anything else is drawn. Social systems come into being when a difference is drawn between the system and the environment. The system draws an operative boundary. Producing its own boundary is a characteristic of social systems. It makes a distinction between itself (self-referentiality) and environment (hetero-referentiality).9 This difference is, however, a distinction of meaning. According to Luhmann meaning always involves focusing attention on one possibility among many (Luhmann, 1984). One could have played the piano, but soccer was chosen for the time being. Meaning is the link between the actual and the possible; it is not one or the other (Luhmann, 1990b: 83). Meaning is reached through selection among possibilities. In other words, drawing a distinction solves the problem of determining what shall be communicated. The boundary of sport, or soccer for that matter, is a boundary of meaning. This boundary is by definition not a boundary of physical space as is the case for living systems. Organs of the living system, membranes of cells, the skin of organisms are examples of boundaries of physical space. Social systems have a wholly different kind of boundary, namely an entirely internal boundary, a boundary of meaning (Luhmann, 1997). The boundaries of the system of sport are produced and reproduced in every communication of the system. The boundary of the system is nothing more than the type and concretization of its operation: the operations that individualize the system. The boundary is the form of the system, which leaves the other side as environment (Luhmann, 1997). But what about the concrete stadiums, the lines around the football ground, the out of bounds sticks on the golf course, are not these physical boundaries one may ask? No, not in the same way as membranes of cells and skins of organisms, I will claim. What we observe and so far have termed physical boundaries are boundaries of meaning. A football stadium is demarcated with visible lines, corner flags, goal posts, all distinguishing the meaning of soccer from the environment. At the same time they are structures of expectations, securing and maintaining this particular form of communication. But the markings do not need to be that visible in order to indicate what is to be carried out and to regulate the play. Children playing football on a playground are aware of the significance of when a goal is scored or the ball is out even if the lines are not visible. They play according to implicit and elusory borders and markings. Nevertheless, whether the markings are more or less explicit, they indicate a very basic operation of social systems.
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Reflective Expectations as Markings

When football is selected, two operations are involved. As just mentioned, a distinction between football and anything else is drawn. But to denote something as football implies the operation of indication according to SpencerBrown (1969). Luhmann reformulates this insight and claims that something in our case sport is marked within the frame of a difference. To indicate something, i.e. give something an identity, is to mark one side of a difference. A difference or a distinction has both an inside and an outside, where the inside is the marked space and the outside remains the unmarked space. When the first distinction is drawn this is football or this is sport, further markings (indications) of the internal space are taking place. When the first distinction of what the communication is about is done, further markings are necessary for the continuation of the communication, i.e. expressing concise expectations concerning who is allowed to communicate and when and where the communication shall take place. Looking at different sport facilities we may observe very different markings of the kind just mentioned. For example, a football stadium for premier league play will have lots of markings regulating who are allowed to enter different parts of the stadium. Only 22 players and 3 referees/officials are allowed on to the grass pitch during the match. The manager, coach and substitutes are relegated to the area between the pitch and the grandstands where the spectators find their places. But spectators are also differentiated. The supporters of the playing teams are often placed in the grandstands behind the goals. The VIPs have their own lounges and so do media personnel. All these separations are regulated according to expectations and observable to all through different markings: Home team entrance, Away supporters only, VIP lounge and so forth. Compared to this, a small football field on the housing estate will have very few markings. It may only have two goal posts, some ball nets behind the goals, and a rusty fence around the field preventing the children from running out onto the street. To those who observe the facility, this means that everybody can play there as they wish. Young and old, male and female, good or bad players, all can participate in a game whenever they want. This is about who is included and who is excluded from the communication we call sport. Despite the fact that someone might want to play football on a field all the time, this is not always possible. The facility will have markings indicating when the use of the facility is possible. We can all observe the opening hours of different training centres, indoor swimming pools, ski slopes, golf courses. But the question of when is also marked in a more subtle way. In some instances the amount of daylight, weather conditions, time of the year and so forth will restrict the use of the facility. Late in the afternoon when it is dark, or when the snow covers the pitch, the little football field in a residential area cannot be used. On the other hand, some facilities have neutralized the effect of such variables and allow for a use day and night, winter as well as summer, as in some great stadiums. Floodlights, moveable roofs, and heating facilities are installed there. This indicates that the facility can, in principle, be used whenever someone wishes. But even if restricting variables of weather and climate are neutralized,
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such facilities are not necessarily accessible whenever someone wants to use them. Quite the contrary is often the case. Such facilities are very seldom used, only a few times a year. In addition, they are open to only a very exclusive group of users.10 For example, national stadiums for football will only be used for matches against other nations. Even the national team is not allowed to train and make their preparations in this facility on a regular basis. These few examples show that the question of when is managed by reflective expectations manifested through specific markings observable to every observer. Almost immediately after the question of what to be communicated is determined, the question of where the communication shall take place springs up.11 The participants have to decide whether it should be here or there or both. They have to determine where the boxing match shall take place, where the post flag in orienteering shall be hung up, how wide and long the football ground shall be, how long and in what direction the cross country track for ski is appropriate and so forth. They have to select and mark their decisions. We can observe these decisions when a boxing ring is encircled by ropes, the post flag is hung behind a tree or a rock and marked on the map, the borders of the football ground are marked with white chalk, and blue or yellow banner-strips are tied to boughs along the track. But we can also observe them in an improvement of the ground or area chosen. The football ground is levelled; the ski track is prepared with snow scooters. The question of where has been answered by making more or less permanent changes to the original place and space.

Space, Place and Landscape

The reader has probably already understood that such markings result both from the systems observation of itself and its observation of the environment and belonging operations. The difference between the system and its environment is copied into the system and used as information for further operations, often as markings. It may be as little marking as just drawing a line in the sand on the beach for running races or as complex as the form of buildings like the Toronto Sky Dome. As the reader will understand, the markings, equipment and shelters, and the mastering of the social and ecological complexities and contingencies, are all structures of expectations making up an important part of the inside of the sport system. In other words, such structures are the materialization of the distinction and indication of a sport system. This materialization is observed and termed as sport facility. Making a facility is the sport systems way of marking its internal space.12 This materialization is often described in terms of substance/accidents, things/quality. To Luhmann such differences have to be replaced by the difference of medium/form (Luhmann, 1998). Medium and form are always constructions of systems and only relevant to the system in question just as money and prices are to the economic system. In Luhmanns terminology medium is the loose coupling of elements and form the strict coupling of elements. The function of a medium is the continuous possible rendering of connection and disconnection of the elements of the system, i.e. the constant production of forms
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(Baraldi et al., 1997). Forms that are created through the strict couplings made possible by the medium are differentiated (as inside) from the other possibilities that the medium is offering (as outside). In this context, this means that the primary and secondary media of sport, such as bodily movements and win/lose (see Tangen, 1997, 2000), may take the form of soccer, athletics, swimming, cricket, tennis and so forth. These forms may, however, in accordance with the reflective expectations, couple material elements such as bricks, concrete, water, strictly together to form an appropriate place and space for the communication. In other words, a sport stadium or sports ground is only a form of a form: the sport facility in question is only a form of a specific form of sport. Football has its form; golf has another form. Such forms may change through time, as the structure of expectations change. This is well documented in other studies,13 but has not been analysed in this way before. In order to grasp these operations and processes scholars have so far used concepts like space, place and landscape. I have elsewhere argued that sport is making its own space and place and thereby more or less transforming the landscape into a sportscape observable to individuals and other social systems (Tangen, in press). What do I mean by that? As I have shown, in marking its internal space by differentiating itself from the environment, the sport system makes a particular sport facility. The system of football produces football grounds. The system of golf produces golf courses. When sport is generated as a social system, the facility is created. The facility is not only a sufficient structure of sport. It is a necessary structure; a structure of embedded expectations. Without a facility there will be no sport. The sport and the facility are two sides of the same coin. The facility, however, also materializes how the system has observed and managed contingencies in its environment. The concept of place refers to the sport systems observation and mastering of complexities in its social and ecological environment and how this is processed within the system. Since the environment of various forms and levels of sport differ, the complexity of the facility will also differ. An informal and spontaneous baseball contest on the beach produces a less complex facility than baseball matches in the World Series. The informal game transforms the beach into a diamond with temporary bases and home plate. The World Series has produced ballparks like the Yankee Stadium and Toronto Sky Dome (Neilson, 1995). Both kinds are manifestations of the form and complexity of the sports in question and the environment these sports find themselves in. By making its own space and place the sport system also influences the landscape in which the sport system is unfolding, transforming the landscape into a sportscape.14 The ground is levelled, lines are drawn and grandstands are erected, easily observable as a football stadium. But in contrast to space and place, which are the observations of the sport system, the observation of landscape or sportscape are the observations of an individual or another social system. They refer to observations located outside the sport system; observations that make a whole of the expectations materialized in the sport facility: a whole that is observable as sportscape.15 There are some important theoretical points to this latter argument that cannot be discussed here for lack of space. I confine myself to concluding that all the expectations of expectations that are materialized in the sport facility as
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embedded expectations are observable to individuals and other social systems in the form of sportscapes. In this article the individuals observation is of particular interest. It is the individual who makes sense of these expectations. When observing such expectations, the individual is forced to make a selection: either to meet the expectations and use the facility or turn the offer down and not use it. In other words, the discussion has led us to a point when we can say that the use or non-use of sport facilities is determined from two sets of conditions: one set of conditions determined by the sport systems autopoiese and one set of conditions determined by the individual. The former set makes up the sport systems criteria for inclusion and exclusion. This is described above. The latter set of conditions lie behind the individuals selections. This is now to be discussed.

The Individuals Acceptance or Refusal

How individuals make their choices has been an important issue in both psychology and sociology as well as in philosophy.16 From a system theoretical point of view, this has to be considered as a result of the structural couplings between different autopoietic systems.17 I claim that an individual, usually understood as a unity, consists of different autopoietic systems: cell, organism, brain, the neurological system, the immune system and the psychic system. Each of them are operationally closed but structurally coupled.18 Each must be studied as an autonomous entity that operates from an observation of itself and the environment. Here I will focus on what loosely may be termed consciousness and the body.19 The consciousness, or the psychic system, will continuously have to observe itself and the environment in order to produce and reproduce itself. Being aware of it is observed by the social environment, often in the form of a demand, and an observation of itself, a difference is created. The consciousness has to reflect upon the difference between What should I do? and What can I do? This difference is worked on as an expectation that can be met or rejected. In other words, the consciousness may conform and meet the expectation or act as a deviant in rejecting it. Our consciousness and body are disposed to observe and respond to such demands in form of movements and physical activity. When fulfilling demands, both the mind and body will learn through modifying their operations and structures. In an intricate and not fully understood way, the consciousness and the body manage to observe expectations and carry out the necessary actions. Irrespective of whether the expectation is met or not the selection will have consequences for the question Who am I? that the consciousness poses to itself. Through repeated observations and reflections on the outcome of the actions the identity of the individual develops. As an important part of this process the consciousness observes and reflects upon how the body performs and succeeds. When I run uphill my legs will soon start hurting, demanding that I slow down. When I drive my golf ball off the tee, I feel immediately if it is a good stroke or not. If I constantly reflect upon and work on the differences between what I should do and what I could do my identity is developed. I am not a runner or I am a golf player may be the outcome.
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The part of this process that concerns demands from the society and its subsystems and its consequences for the consciousness is usually termed socialization. The demands that involve and have consequences for the body are termed training. Let me comment on the socialization aspect first. In the terms of Luhmann, socialization is self-socialization. Consciousness observes socially produced expectations. Such expectations most important property is that they may lead to disappointments that the psychic system can use to generate an I-strength. Socially produced expectations allow a double test. When they are fulfilled they indicate that the expectations are real. For example, when the parents smile and laugh when the child on her/his own has managed to ski down a little but, to the child, a very frightening slope, the childs belief that the parents expected that the child would manage this downhill skiing is confirmed. But if the expectation is not fulfilled, if the child falls, the childs disappointment will result in an I-strength when the child holds on to the expectation. It will get up on the skis again, stumble to the top and once again try to ski down the slope. The difference between its own abilities and the demands from the environment will be observed and used for further operations. Based on such expectations, whether they are fulfilled or not, the psychic system tests the world, which is no more than testing itself. In a more familiar language, in a conforming or deviant way the child socializes itself to the societys values and expectations. The socialization process is more individualized today than in the past. The functional differentiation of modern society led to a disengagement of the individual (Luhmann, 1990a). The individual maintains instead a loose coupling to social systems. The individual person cannot completely enter into a single functional system. Persons are no longer localized socially. The modern society, i.e. a society that operates mainly according to functional differentiation, presupposes that individuals exclusively select and motivate themselves according to participation in professional system, in family life, in political activity, in the economic system, or in sport. Participating in sport will, from the bodys point of view, have some important consequences. One part of this concerns how the body is able to meet the socially produced demands as they are processed through the psychic system and made relevant to the body. The other part is how the body influences the psychic systems decision about being physically active or not. Both concern how social expectations are incorporated in the body.

Incorporating the Expectations

The main point in the last example is that the body sometimes will be brought to sport situations and sport places where it will be exposed to different kinds of demands. As I have shown, such situations and places will be saturated with both explicit and embedded expectations. In other words, from the time we learn to crawl and walk, there is a continuous and lifelong modification of mentally and bodily structures and abilities, influenced by our place in social figurations and our experience with material objects and architecture. All bodily dispositions,
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modifications and experiences are observable in what we in everyday language call practical sense. This practical sense, determined through what physical educators and instructors call training, is in a wider context termed by some sociologists, incorporation or embodiment (e.g. Bourdieu, 1999; Elias, 1969) or traces of interactions (Nagbl, 2002).20 Philosophers have termed this phenomenon knowing how (Ryle, 1949) or tacit knowledge (Polanyi, 2000). They all try to conceptualize the kind of knowledge that seems to be embedded in our body and is hidden to our consciousness, but that we nevertheless use extensively and fluently without hesitations or afterthoughts. Bourdieu, for example, argues that if you have a sufficient number of times exposed yourself to the downhill slopes bumps, turns, inclination, the practical performance will look like an almost bodily anticipation of the courses shapes and demands. He says, the social actors are equipped with a habitus that is inscribed in the body through earlier experiences (Bourdieu, 1999: 144). He also warns not to underestimate the continuous and often imperceptible force from the ordinary order of objects. In this context it is enough to point to how the appearance and posture of the athletes bodies reflect what these bodies have been exposed to from sport facilities and equipment. A downhill skier looks different from a body builder. A cross-country skier moves differently from a gymnast. In all these cases, the body has managed the complexity of the facility by building up its own complexity, both as form and as skills. A body will get a form and a skill that is in accord with the embedded expectations in the facility. After years of attendance and training in a gymnasium the gymnasts grip on a pommel horse will trigger off those bodily processes and movements that are necessary to produce A-, B- and C-movements. He will, however, be unable to articulate what is really going on from instant to instant. This knowledge is mostly hidden or silent to him. If he tries to say what he is doing, the whole complex of movements, coordination and timing will break down and result in a bad performance. I think we all have experienced this. This form of knowledge secures a practical understanding of the world, i.e. the environment. In performing different movements which the environment demands, the body both experiences and learns the movements in a silent way, storing all three aspects as embodied knowledge. When I climb the pommel horse to make a first attempt at rotation, I feel the muscles being pushed to their limits and almost protesting at the demands. But repeating the movement over time my body learns to do the movements most efficiently and gracefully. This form of knowledge makes us manage the physical demands from the environment, but it is not easily accessible to our consciousness. I prefer to use the term embodied knowledge for this kind of knowledge, because it draws our attention to how knowledge also has bodily aspects. It is established and changed through bodily experiences and stored in the body, mostly unconscious, but still cognitive. This is not to say that social processes do not shape both conscious and embodied knowledge. It really is as Bourdieu and other sociologists have shown, but I want to stress the fact that some of this knowledge is used by the body in order to carry out diverse tasks, without being either immediately accessible to or easily expressible by the consciousness. I also will argue that this argument has to be grounded empirically and will turn to that later.
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This embodied knowledge also allows us to solve other tasks. As Polanyi says we can more than we can tell. We are able to recognize a familiar face among millions, but we are unable to account for which criteria or characteristic we use in doing so. I suggest that similar processes lie behind our observation and eventually use of sport facilities. We are able to distinguish between a sport stadium and a concert hall. We are also able to identify a picture of a golf course among pictures of other sport facilities if asked to. But we are less able to say how we manage to distinguish between them. If you look closer at the answers given in questionnaires, you will discover that very often motives for being physically active or not rest on feelings. It is fun!, It feels good!, It is for my well-being and so forth. To me these answers are connected to embodied knowledge. Such vague answers imply that the real reasons for being physically active or not or using one sport facility or another are rather unclear to ourselves (i.e. our consciousness). Most sociologists and philosophers, however, did not ground their concepts on relevant findings from other sciences. Results from the natural sciences are seldom discussed and used in social sciences and vice versa. Maybe the time is ripe to suggest such a move. On an issue like this it should be obvious to think about, or at least be inspired by, findings in other branches of science. This kind of embodied knowledge, and maybe knowledge in general, seems to have a physical grounding. They, as well as consciousness, are natural phenomena, falling under the sway of natural laws, borrowing a phrase from Chalmers (1996: xiii). According to Lakoff and Johnson (1999) only 5 percent of cognitive operations are observable to the consciousness. The rest is cognitive unconscious, as is embodied knowledge in my terms. In addition, note the surprising findings of Benjamin Libet,21 that neural activity occurs about .05 seconds before we consciously decide to do something. My main point is that our so-called choice to do sport of some kind, or our use of different kinds of sport facilities, is founded on these and other complex conditions. Most of the cognitive processes involved in the observation and operation in accord with challenges and demands in the environment will never be observed by the consciousness. But that does not mean that the body cannot observe and operate on such demands. Only the result or outcome of operations will be observable to the consciousness. Visual or sensory information will inform the consciousness about how successful the drive from the golf tee was or how painful the congestion of lactate in the muscle is during running. I claim that such experiences are categorized by the consciousness as feelings.22 We feel how well we hit the golf ball. We feel how fatigued we are. We feel how we fail to jump over the pommel horse. Our experience in the form of feelings will, in my opinion, determine how we react to the embedded expectations in sport facilities. If you have failed a number of times at the golf course, you will probably answer I dont like golf if your friend suggest playing golf tomorrow. After weeks or months of success or failure, a feeling of liking or disliking is incorporated in the body and mind. These incorporated feelings are aroused when individuals are observing sport facilities. We may speculate how feelings influence our decisions. Oatley (1992) suggests that emotion has a consciousness-raising function by changing goal priorities and loading into readiness a small suite of plans for action. Damasio (1994) offers evidence that
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emotional experiences affect decisions via a non-conscious route by loading alternatives with evaluative biases. Other studies may also be useful to ground the concept of embedded knowledge and how this influences the use of sport facilities. Recent research in neurophysiology and studies of infants and caretakers indicate some inborn capacities for observation and communication, emotions and movements.23 These studies are still tentative and somewhat controversial. But one may use them for some speculations about the hidden and embedded operations behind our decision process and our emotions as an important part of that. It has been determined that mirror neurons in monkeys discharge both when another is observed grasping a piece of food and when the monkey is preparing to grasp the piece by itself, i.e. charging both when observing and moving. Other studies speak of allocentric maps in the brain of monkeys, distinguishing between space cells and place cells. And some studies imply an inborn capacity of altercentric (not egocentric) participation and simulation of processes in infants, for example when 11-month-olds reciprocate the spoon-feeding of their caretaker, indicating an ability to place themselves in the others place (Brten, 1998). These studies indicate that there is an inborn mirror system of neurological networks that fire both when observing and when doing. The relevance for these studies for studies like ours is first of all the intricate and complex connections that are established in the individual organism as more or less a stable network of neural firings, which may function as a movement-memory in the organism, not intellectually or imaginative, but emotional and motional. Brten (1998) has termed this e-motional in order to grasp the connection between emotion and motion in the body, a term that should be welcomed by sport scientists and sport sociologists. A lot of questions could be raised in response to these findings. Are some neurons firing when we observe sport facilities? Are these the same neurons that fire when we move in the same facilities? Is it these neurons that set our feelings in motion and make us like or dislike a facility? We can for the time being only speculate in accordance with the findings that early experiences with certain sport facilities may establish an e-motional network of memory that fires and elicits positive or negative feelings when observing them later on. Until studies have verified or falsified this last hypothesis, I will claim that the observation and evaluation of the embedded expectations in the sport facilities take place rather unconsciously, mostly based on the embodied knowledge of our bodies. To a small extent are we, i.e. our consciousness, able to articulate in more precise ways how we experience a facility and how this forms our choice to use it or not. We do use the facility, or we do not. But the reason why is mostly hidden to the consciousness.

The Movements that Connect

But what is it that connects embedded expectations and embodied knowledge, and makes these structures operative and eventually changeable? My answer to this is movements.24 It is movements that connect the embedded expectations with the embodied knowledge. It is movements that make the structural coupling
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between the individual and the sport system possible. It is movements that trigger sensory activity that the consciousness in turn experiences as feelings. And it is the movements that irritate or stimulate our mind and our body to respond, so that we may develop an identity as a gymnast and get a body according to that socially produced expectation. But movements are not directly observable. Like daylight we cannot see movements as such. We can only see daylight when it falls on something, like a house, a tree or a human being. Light is only visible when it hits objects. Light is a medium. Movements are a medium just like daylight. Movements cannot be observed unless they have a form.25 They cannot be observed if they are not in the form of walking, running, jumping, throwing, kicking, lifting and so forth. And movements cannot be carried out unless they are in the form of walking, running and so forth. The actual form of a movement is conditioned by two structurally coupled systems: the actual sport system and the actual individual.26 The sport system expects certain performances from the individual such as kicking the ball behind the defending team or scoring a goal in football. Expectations, and especially embedded expectations in the form of a sport facility, determine which selections the individual can choose among. In soccer, he or she cannot throw the ball in the goal with their hands. They have to kick it with their feet, or propel it with any part of the body other than the hand or the lower arm. And the size of the goal determines how precise this kicking has to be. If the goal posts stand 1 metre apart it makes it more difficult to pass the ball between them than when they are 6 metres apart. If a jumping hill has a 10-metre landing slope quite a few persons will be able to jump there. If the landing slope is 200 meters, only a few daredevils will use it. This implies that individuals have quite different abilities to kick balls, throw a discus, run a marathon. Their abilities, training and experiences will condition how the actual movements are carried out and what performances they will result in. On the other hand, developments in one or another of these systems increase the complexity that the other system has to manage. The specialization of movements that we can observe in sport has grave consequences for both individuals and for sport facilities. When the athletes are running faster, jumping higher and getting stronger the facilities are changing accordingly. Faster tracks, better grass quality, more reliable skating ice are produced. This also works the other way round. When sport facilities are getting more monumental, accommodating more spectators, complying with the mass medias increasing demands of better production facilities etc. in order to stage more spectacular sport events and competition, the athletes have to train more and be even better. This may be a problem. In golf there is a current debate about whether the new equipment and the new types of athletes like Tiger Woods will destroy the old golf courses so that they will have to be rebuilt and extended so that the top level players have to use all the clubs in the bag and not only the driver and the wedge. These arguments imply that there has to be some sort of correspondence between the sport systems expectations and the individuals performances. If not, some serious consequences will face both the sport system and the individual. For example, if the jumping hills grow bigger, they become scarier to the
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population at large. Very few will use them. I think that there is an increasing gap between the embedded expectations materialized in many sport facilities and the ordinary mans silent sporting abilities. Only a smaller fraction of the population has the necessary abilities to meet the expectations of some large sport facilities. I think that the population is unconsciously aware of this. And I think that this is one important factor that prevents the realization of the political goal of Sport for all. This is an important issue to be verified or falsified in forthcoming research.

Conclusion
This way of studying the use and non-use of sport facilities supplements earlier studies. It emphasizes that structures and processes within the sport system itself as well as structures and processes in the individual are connected through the medium of movement, and influence in a strong way whether an individual chooses to use a sporting facility or not. This relationship may count for at least as much as sociocultural factors like age, gender, income, education etc. in the decision process. I have claimed that sport facilities are embedded expectations produced by the sport system in order to secure the particular communication this system consists of. In doing so, the sport system creates its own space and place. The embedded expectations as forms are observable to individuals as different kinds of sportscapes. The individuals are forced to meet these expectations or refuse them. In this article I have discussed some processes that may hide behind the individual decision process. I have claimed that our choices concerning the use or non-use of a sport facility are grounded in our embodied knowledge, a knowledge that is not easy to make conscious, but nevertheless is very operative. My last claim is that it is movements that connect the embedded expectations and embodied knowledge and eventually mediate changes in both these structures.

Notes
This is a revised and extended version of a paper delivered at the conference How Societies Create Movement Culture and Sport, Copenhagen 214 June 2001 (Tangen, 2001; see Dietrich, 2001). 1. In this article I want first of all to discuss the use of sport facilities in terms of individuals as active participants doing sport of some kind as players or performers. I do not want to discuss the use in terms of attending games or competitions as spectators. Nor will I say much about how stadiums and other sport places may elicit a sense of place or love of a place in fans and supporters as Bale (1989) and others have discussed. See Tangen (in press) for a review of such studies. The perspective argued for in this article will be relevant for the two last mentioned issues, but space does not permit a lengthy discussion of these. 2. See for example Luhmann (1984, 1997). 3. Unfortunately Luhmanns extensive works are not widely known in the English-speaking world due to lack of translation. The situation is, however, changing. More and more of his works are being translated. Moreover his theory is rather abstract and complex and not easily accessible. See Thyssen (1992) and Gtke (1997) for an elaboration of this. Nevertheless he is said to be one of the most cited sociologists of our time. 4. A more extensive discussion of sport as a social system is to be found in Tangen (2000).
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5. Those who care for detailed arguments for this claim, may look at Tangen (1985, 1997, 2000). 6. Such a self-referential circle is established in every double contingent situation, Ich tue, was Du willst, wenn Du tust, was Ich will (Luhmann, 1984: 154). This circularity is broken through a new order that stems from the mutual observations of systems and the information that is procured. The new order is about a social system, that through the coordination of Ego and Alters contingent selections produce and reproduce itself. This new form cannot be reduced to the participating individual systems; it is on an independent, emergent level. The form is, however, present in the participating individual systems as the content of consciousness or a theme for communication (Luhmann, 1984). 7. See Tangen (2000: 9). This is a slightly different formulation from my definition from 1985 that sport is mans tendency of bodily to display and compare ability in contests (Tangen, 1985: 22). 8. The first 3 categories resemble Luhmanns dimensions of meaning: Sachdimension, Sozialdimension and Zeitdimension. But as has been argued elsewhere, a dimension of Space has to be included. See Tangen (in press). 9. Luhmanns own terms are Selbstreferenz and Fremdreferenz; terms that are difficult to translate into English. 10. This is one more argument about who is allowed to communicate. 11. This is the main question behind the emergence of sport facilities. See Tangen (in press). 12. This is also how the art system, the punishment system, the religious system, etc. make theatres, prisons and churches as their facilities. In all these systems, producing facilities are their ways of marking their internal space. It is therefore misleading to use concepts like the theatre of sport, the sanctuary of sport, sports gardens etc. in order to characterize the sport space or sport place. One has to capture the genuine processes that determine and define the unique space and place that the individual system produces and maintains. This is what I try to do in this article. This is not to say that the sport system does not use ideas from other systems to dramatize the sport performances, to keep spectators and supporters under surveillance. They certainly do, but only if such elements are in accordance with the sport systems code and medium. In other words, surveillance is only established if winning is threatened. This is different kind of surveillance to that in prisons or in supermarkets. 13. See studies like Bale (1989), Bale and Nagbl (1994) and Eichberg (1985, 1993) for this documentation. 14. Sportscape is a term introduced by Bale (1989). He uses it to describe and explain the end result of the gradual artificialization of the sports environment (p. 142). 15. Everything said is said by an observing claims Maturana (1981). In this paragraph I identify space and place as observations the sport system are making of itself and of the environment respectively. I further claim that landscape, including sportscape, is an observation of systems in the sport systems environment made when observing the materialized expectations in the sport facility. 16. This is not the time or place to make an extensive presentation of this subject. I assume that the readers are well informed on this topic. 17. Luhmann (1990b) distinguishes between three levels of self-referential autopoietic systems, namely living systems (cells, brains, organisms), psychic systems and social systems (interactions, organizations, societies). 18. There are some differences between the conceptualization of the autopoietic nature of living, psychic and social systems and structural coupling among natural scientists as Maturana and Varela (1980) compared to the conceptualization by social scientists like Luhmann (1990a). A more comprehensive discussion of this is found in Brten (2000). 19. The latter term are incorrect in terms of the claim above about separate living autopoietic systems, but for the sake of simplicity I use the term body here as a common denominator for the living systems we all consist of. 20. Nagbl (2002) also suggests a particular methodology, opplevelsesanalyse (experienceanalysis) for this kind of study. 21. See an extensive discussion of Libets findings in Nrretranders (1992: 231ff). 22. One simple example: reading golf instructions in books and magazines reveals that the main guiding principle from the pros is how you feel the stroke and putting movements. One parDownloaded from irs.sagepub.com at Univ of Education, Winneba on August 11, 2013

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23. 24.

25. 26.

ticular author, T. Gallwey, has made a whole series of instruction books based on feelings, or an inner game instruction as he terms it. Brten (1998) gives a more extensive presentation of these studies. This part of my article is strongly influenced by a discussion Prof. Dietrich, Prof. Nagbl and I had on a conference in B in January. They insisted that movements should be the key concept in social sciences of sport. I was stimulated to think this matter through resulting in these thoughts. See the above discussion of medium and form. Again: seeing the individual as a system is not strictly correct, but in order to give an account of this relationship without a very lengthy argumentation, I choose the imprecise term. As said above, the individual consists of different autopoietic systems.

References
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Polanyi, M. (2000) Den tause dimensjonen. Oslo: Spartacus. [English edn (1967) The Tacit Dimension. New York: Doubleday.] Ryle, Gilbert (1949) The Concept of Mind. New York: Barnes. Spencer-Brown, G. (1969) Laws of Form. London: Allen & Unwin. Statistisk Sentralbyr (1997) Levekrsunderskelsen. Oslo: Statistisk Sentralbyr. Tangen, J.O. (1985) Defining Sport: A Pragmatic-Contextual Approach, International Journal of Physical Education 2: 1726. Tangen, J.O. (1997) Samfunnets Idrett: En Sosiologisk Analyse av Idrett Som Sosialt System, dets Evolusjon og Funksjon fra Arkaisk til Moderne Tid (The Sport of the Society: A Sociological Analysis of Sport as a Social System, its Evolution and Function from Archaic to Modern Times). Oslo: University of Oslo. Tangen, J.O. (2000) Sport: A Social System, SysteMexico (Dec.). Tangen, J.O. (2001) Embedded Expectations: Embodied Knowledge, and the Movements that Connect, in K. Dietrich (ed.) How Societies Create Movement Culture and Sport. Copenhagen: Institut for Idrt. Tangen, J.O. (in press) Making Space: A Sociological Perspective on Sport and its Facilities, Culture, Sport and Society. Thyssen, O. (1992) Forhold Som Forholder Seg til Seg Selv. Niklas Luhmanns Teori om Selvrefererende Systemer, in J.C. Jacobsen (ed.) Autopoiesis: En introduksjon til Niklas Luhmanns verden av systemer. Copenhagen: Forlaget Politisk Revy. Vaagb, O. and Breivik, G. (1998) Utviklingen i Fysisk Aktivitetet i den Norske Befolkning 1985 1997. Oslo: Norges Idrettsforbund og Norges Olympiske Komit.

Jan Ove Tangen is professor in sport sociology at Telemark University College. He is head of the National Research Group in the field of Sport and Politics and Sport and Space located at the university. Address: Telemark University College, Department of Arts and Sciences, N3800 B i Telemark, Norway. Email: Jan.O.Tangen@hit.no

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