Running to Run: Embodiment, Structure and Agency amongst Veteran Elite Runners

Abstract

This ar ticle is concerned with ageing embodiment and social change. It operates a synthesis of Bourdieu's theor y of the logic of practice and understandings of agency as an embodied process. Is age a source of habitus? Within what structural circumstances can ageing embodiment lead to social transformation? What are the limitations to this? An analysis of the minutiae of ever yday embodiment of older social actors active in the social field of Veteran athletics suppor ts the contention that over time we become caught up in an age habitus. A challenge to this can be effected through modalities of embodiment within social fields in transition. The permeability of the field, and its own internal logic, the achievement of bodily competence, combined with the active control of the organization of the field, offer some oppor tunities to reconstruct the discourse of ageing.