Based on Scandinavian experiences, the book presents studies about festivities of sport, outdoor activities, song and movement, and play and game. The engagement of elderly people challenges sports. Games get political significance in international cooperation, for peace culture and as means against poverty (in Africa). The empirical studies result in philosophical analyses on the recognition of folk practice in education and on relations between identity and recognition.
The study of ‘sport for all’ opens up for new ways of phenomenological knowledge, moving bottom-up from sport to the philosophy of "the individual", of event, of nature, and of human energy. Popular sports give inspiration to a philosophy of practice as well as to a phenomenological understanding of ‘the people’, of civil society and the ‘demos’ of democracy – as folk in movement.
This book was published as a special issue in Sport, Ethics and Philosophy.
Henning Eichberg is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Health Studies, University of Southern Denmark.