Maybe the word ¨Ethnography of the sport¨ sounds a little complicated, but it really is not. Ethnography is a method used by the social sciences (although its origins are in anthropology) to know the life forms or routines of a group or social community. How is the research process used by ethnography to achieve its objective? As the researcher immerses himself in the social life of the group that wants to study, he imitates the forms of life with the group and begins to have routines as if he were another member of the community (the researcher lives with the community for a certain time to understand itand investigate that community). It is necessary to know well the people that make up the community to have a broader vision of what they perceive as reality. Ethnographic research is not easy, they tend to have many complications with both the researcher and the community. Some of these complications may be the entrance of the researcher to the group that wants to do the ethnography, since they are generally done in social groups outside of the groups frequented by the researcher (there is also the case that the research is done in a group very familiar with the researcher) other problem may be the adaptation of the researcher to the new routines, these are just some of the thousands of problems that can be generated in an ethnographic research.
Now, how is done a sport ethnography and what are its objectives? Based on the aforementioned, the researcher has to immerse himself in a sports group to learn about his daily sports practices (football players, baseball players, karate players, etc.). Now, there are many objectives in an ethnography and it can have many purposes so this will depend on the researcher or the institution interested in financing that ethnography. Things like athletic improvement can be achieved through sport ethnography.
How is an athletic improvement achieved through ethnography? To explain this I will go to a scenario that becomes very common in students including myself. When I saw classes in a university subject, the teacher explained how we should do the guidelines and how to develop the final work. Despite her explanations, there were times when she contradicted or enunciated something in a wrong way and generated confusion and frustration for the group of students. This group of students never made known the inconvenience caused by the confusions of the teacher due to a negative response from the teacher. The students finished their final work with enough inconveniences due to the confusions and the teacher, not being aware of her mistakes, kept repeating them to the other generations of students.
What does this story have to do with sports? In sports, a similar thing happen, as well as in the academic field, there is discontent among the athletes with their coaches for the training routines in which, if the point of view of the athletes is well analyzed, the routines can be configured or changed of training being more appropriate to the faculties of athletes and have a better level of sports efficiency (these discontents are only revealed to the coach when the situation becomes extreme or radical). There are points of disagreement that can be managed by an anthropologist who has earned the confidence of athletes through ethnography and to change routines for better coexistence and sports efficiency.