Is sport a context for fostering emancipation or colonization in the identity formation process?

Abstract

This study analyzed the influence of sport on identity formation of 25 athletes through a semantic pattern and the life story characterization. Three groups characterized by the expression of their identity metamorphoses were identified. The first presented a form of instrumental rationality, linked to the victory, success and other characteristics of the spectacle sport. Two most autonomous groups united sports and non-sports experiences, reaching communicative rationality and multiplicity of roles in character manifestations. It was concluded that sport could enable emancipatory fragments depending on the multiplicity and richness of roles and environmental stimuli, favoring a plurality of experiences that instigate ecological transitions of autonomy.