Conservatives in Sports

I would like to share my thoughts and local observations about the relationship between the use of space and the body, around the concept of habitus.

Sports as a concept refers to a broader scope than the sporting activity during an exercise. First of all, the work of an average person who is not professionally interested in sports determines whether she/he will do sports or what kind of sport she/he will prefer to do. The acquired knowledge about how the local residents will welcome the occurrence of such a bodily activity is the stage zero, which affects whether the activity itself appears or not. This zeroth stage may have never existed to cause a negative motivation, or it may be fade enough out to be stretched by individual efforts, or It may also be too rigid to not consider the issue itself as a possibility. After this zeroth stage, the meaningfulness of the activity itself is problematized in the first stage. For someone who works in a job that requires intense physical labor, exercising can be perceived as an unpaid effort[1]. This requires the acceptance that doing sports itself is related to the criteria for evaluating the living reality. In the second stage, the question arises whether someone who wants to exercise can spare time for this purpose in daily routine. The fact that there is no free time at all, as well as the preference not to use leisure time for sports are equally valid grounds for this phenomenon. The third stage is about whether someone who wants to do sports and can devote time to this sport has the personal tools and equipment she/he will need to do this sport, and whether she/he can allocate resources for it. Even getting a suitable shoe can be difficult enough in some situations (Doing certain sports with unsuitable shoes can cause injury). In the fourth stage, when all other conditions are met, it is important to have suitable places for sports. As well as the existence of facilities for defined and rule sports, it is also important to have smooth streets or green areas suitable for moving on for sports that can be performed independently from more defined spaces such as running. Nowadays, since sports is defined and commonly accepted as an extension of a positively marked lifestyle, how to live after doing sports may be considered within the scope of sport concept. The personal care phase, which includes showers, clothes cleaning and cosmetic products such as deodorants for regularly use after sports, can be described as the fifth stage. Because it is understandable that people who do sports have other social aspirations besides being healthier after this physical effort. This takes us to the sixth and final stage, which is nutrition. Nutrition alone requires a higher budget than all other stages, and it is commonly believed issue that a sport not supported by good nutrition will not benefit.

In the public spaces of the districts where conservatives predominantly live, who establish their identity through religion and nationalism, there are not many people doing sports. I was born and raised in a place like this and that is why I speak that confidently. I have never left more than a week long Kayseri, the city where I was born, until I got the Nuclear Engineering department at Hacettepe University in 2010 and moved to Ankara. And only from then on I had to think about the contradictions appeared with another reality in relation to space and the body. The space shaped by the relationships that have emerged in the closed world of conservative cities is not organized in a way that allows to do activities that affirm the body and connect with life, such as sports. Thus, the form of the space embodied in this way does not allow an action that would enable the differentiation of these relations to emerge. I think at this point, the relation of the concept of “conservative” with “conservation” becomes more visible.

I think I have identified two reasons why sports are not in demand in settlements where conservatives are concentrated. First, it has to do with how the ethos (we can call it a specific consciousness) positions the body as an entity. The body in the religious consciousness, is a temporary dungeon that souls trapped inside until it passes into the spiritual world. This causes the body to position itself as an inviolable element. Despite this pre-acceptance, the way of existence of the body is considered unexpectedly important. On the other hand, a body that was born flawed in some way or deformed later or not considered beautiful according to uncertain aesthetic tastes is humiliated to the utmost. However, intervention in this body area, which seems to be so decisive, is realized as a prohibited area on the grounds that it is a sin not to like the body given by Allah. We can think the reflection of sport in religious consciousness in this context. The second reason is related to the concrete additions that the said ethos puts on the body. Socially constructed forms such as the size of the body (weight, height, posture, spine inclination, what is done with the hands, gestures, facial expressions, gait, accent, etc.), and the preferences/impositions of clothing and accessories (for men: mustache and beard, rosary, smear, uniform trousers-shirt-shoes; for women: sometimes only a black chador, sometimes a headscarf, a wide skirt extending to the ankle, a combed cotton blouse that completely covers the sleeves, an Orlon vest or jacket according to the season, “mother shoes” etc.) are the most common of these additions.

Let’s recall the images attached to the runner prototype: for females, sleeveless t-shirt with straps, tights that cover the legs and are open at the knee, an elastic band-clasp that holds the hair together and behind the forehead; for males, a standard regular t-shirt and shorts over the kneecap; and common to both genders: breathable polyurethane-soled lightweight sneakers designed for running, towel-wristband to wipe the sweat from the face, headphones that convey motivating music, and so on. I am aware that these are very rough standardizations, but the image that appear in any “runner” search on the internet points to such a prototype.

Of course, a proposition that can define a pattern about the clothes that women or men living in conservative cities in Anatolia can buy in local haberdashery stores, should be tested but it can be assumed that there is no specific sports clothing to sell and consumer demand for.

It can be said that common body forms also took shape in a way that those who have it would not considered it as a problem, and this common form became commonplace. The sports equipment designed to form a body does not manifest itself as an expression of the goal of touching the core of the problem. The interest in shaping these bodies comes from outside. But it is seen that this idea does not emerge from the dynamics of the community and this action is not performed collectively. It can be observed by the gaze directed at exercisers who use a few sports equipment (dubious to work) that the municipalities have placed in the pocket parks, is quite disturbing.

[1] I remember when I was working for a shipyard at Tuzla, one of my colleagues, whom I offered to run on the Pendik coastline after work, laughed at me loudly. 

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