Nuytens W. The Strange Place of the Work of Norbert Elias in the Sociology of French Sport. International Journal of Sports Science and Physical Education. 2022. 7(4): 116-121.

Résumé : This article examines the place of Norbert Elias’ work in the French sociology of sport. It is a question of a place qualified as strange because of an insufficiently democratized use whereas the contribution of Norbert Elias accumulates the assets (taking into account of the long time of the social facts, inscription in a broad process of civilization of the conducts, integrations of identified variations and clearly expressed conditions, theorization of the concept of controlled releases of the emotions facilitating the comprehension of the violences in the sport). After having specified in what way Norbert Elias is undoubtedly under-exploited in the scientific literature, a synthesis of his contribution is proposed. We then objectively determine the scientific influence of Norbert Elias’ research by analyzing its relegation over the last 20 years. For this purpose, several national conference programs were observed, several selected publications and important university textbooks were discussed. A scientometric research was also used in order to compare the place of Norbert Elias’ research in the French sociology of sport. If the results of this approach show that Norbert Elias is used by researchers, they confirm a limited use and especially very inferior to the use of Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts (although not specialized to sports facts). Finally, the article presents explanations for a problematic under-use, which is possibly being improved.