{"product_id":"9780813571973","title":"Parkour and the City: Risk, Masculinity, and Meaning in a Postmodern Sport","description":"In the increasingly popular sport of parkour, athletes run, jump, climb, flip, and vault through city streetscapes, resembling urban gymnasts to passersby and awestruck spectators. In \u003ci\u003eParkour and the City\u003c\/i\u003e, cultural sociologist Jeffrey L. Kidder examines the ways in which this sport involves a creative appropriation of urban spaces as well as a method of everyday risk-taking by a youth culture that valorizes individuals who successfully manage danger.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Parkour’s modern development has been tied closely to the growth of the internet. The sport is inevitably a YouTube phenomenon, making it exemplary of new forms of globalized communication. Parkour’s dangerous stunts resonate, too, Kidder contends, with a neoliberal ideology that is ambivalent about risk. Moreover, as a male-dominated sport, parkour, with its glorification of strength and daring, reflects contemporary Western notions of masculinity. At the same time, Kidder writes, most athletes (known as “traceurs” or “freerunners”) reject a “daredevil” label, preferring a deliberate, reasoned hedging of bets with their own safety—rather than a “pushing the edge” ethos normally associated with extreme sports.  \u003cbr\u003e  ","brand":"Rutgers University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47129465782512,"sku":"9780813571973","price":32.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780813571973_p0.jpg?v=1763738905","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780813571973","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}