Jessica Romano

An article published in the Sociology of Sport Journal, written by Roslyn Kerr, focused
on how gymnastics training can be characterized as a Socio-Technical Network. Dating back to
the 1976 Olympic games, the young childlike appearance seen from famous and former gymnast
Nadia Comaneci, stimulated people to question and create concerns pertaining to the difficult
training gymnast exhibit at a young age. From these concerns, gymnastics holds the perception
of a sport that influences child abuse. The sociology of sport provided attention to gymnastics
from a Foucauldian perspective, because of how Foucault explains how a gymnast is perceived
to be a docile body. Foucaults theory relates to the sport of gymnastics because of his belief that
the body is a site of study and power (Kerr, 88). Sociological studies of gymnastics have been
focused on the relationship between the coaches, gymnasts, and judges involved in the sport.
Being that, the purpose of this article centers on extending those studies that were focused
around the Foucauldian Theory and instead examine gymnastics using an Actor Network Theory
(ANT). Bruno Latour, an Actor Network theorist who argued Foucaults theory did not pay close
enough attention to nonhuman actors that can affect the performance in gymnastics. Latour
believes that nonhumans are always central to the creation of action yet their importance has
traditionally been neglected in sociology (Kerr, 89). While they shared the same interest of
understanding how power is exercised, the significant dissimilarity was the attention Latour
brought to the nonhuman. In New Zealand, a five-year ethnographic study of gymnastics was
conducted involving humans, which were the gymnasts, coaches, judges and sport scientists and
the nonhumans being the gymnastics equipment and video camera systems. There were 10
nonprofit private training clubs that were used in this study. The study required a minimum of
observing two training days at each gymnastics club along with the researcher volunteering at

competitions allowing her to sit at the judges table and hear the conversations that occur on the
gymnastics floor. Along with these observations, 47 participants were selected according to how
informed they were and what their role was in the sport of gymnastics. Gymnasts and coaches
were generally asked questions that pertained to their history and experiences with the sport
along with characteristics of the training methods used. Judges were required to explain the
judging system and to describe their experiences with judging. In majority of the cases, video
cameras seemed to be a technology widely used in the sport of gymnastics, while observing
training practices for this study, coaches were seen to be frequently video taping their gymnasts
and immediately watching the video playback to point out the errors they made when they
attempted to complete a routine or skill. From this study, visual learning is seen to be more
effective when trying to correct a skill in gymnastics. The video camera system is a clear
example of what Latour would refer to as a mediator, which demonstrates how nonhumans can
act to disrupt the desired action. This demonstrates how nonhumans are equal creators of action
and must be acknowledged as facilitators in the exercising of power. In other words, how they
complicate the authoritarian relationship between the coach and the gymnast. There are two ways
this study complicates that relationship, the first one being that the gymnast who used the video
camera system obtained the power to self-coach, temporarily freeing them from the authority of
their coaches. The second approach involved the role of mediators that was developed by Latour,
hand guards and equipment from different gymnastics clubs supports the idea that nonhumans
can affect gymnastics performance (Kerr, 97). In my opinion, the strengths of this study exhibits
the parts of gymnastics that makes this sport so difficult but this study shows weakness because
this article in my eyes fails to focus the extreme injuries and fears that comes along with the
sport of gymnastics.

Kerr, R. (2014). From Foucault to Latour: Gymnastics Training as a Socio-Technical

Network. SSJ Sociology of Sport Journal, 85-101.