Abstract - Organizing sports around the workplace – some experiences from Scandinavian company sport
Abstract1
There are different ways of placing sports in social life, and the workplace is one of them. The Scandinavian countries are internationally known for their particular development of company sport. This is linked to the dynamics of Nordic welfare society and political concern about „public health‟. On the basis of recent Danish research, current practices of company sport are examined. There is social change inside company sport, and new strata demand more and wider offers of sport at the workplace. Side by side with sport in specialized clubs, sport in local-cultural „popular‟ associations and sport in commercial institutes, sport at the workplace, thus, has a future. This challenges the traditional split-up of everyday life under capitalist conditions: collective work here, private leisure there. People's health as a human right under the conditions of developing capitalism changes the agenda, also for sports.
1 This paper was delivered for the international conference Play the game, Copenhagen, November 2005. Revised 13.6.07.