@article{ref1,
title="Over-riding concerns: developing safe relations in the high-risk interspecies sport of eventing",
journal="International review for the sociology of sport",
year="2016",
author="Thompson, Kirrilly and Nesci, Chanel",
volume="51",
number="1",
pages="97-113",
abstract="Equestrian sports are unavoidably interspecies and undeniably dangerous. Whilst there has been qualitative research into the human-horse relationship, and quantitative research into horse riding, injury and risk, there remains a need to understand how risk perception and experience is subjectively implicated in, through and by the human-horse relationship, and vice versa. Doing so requires reconciling animal studies with risk theory. As a high-risk interspecies sport, eventing provides an exemplar case study for critiquing, extending and reconciling posthumanism and risk theorisation. This paper draws from interviews with 21 participants of the high-risk equestrian sport of eventing to explore the mutual benefits of using 'risk' as a point d'entrée for analysing human-horse relations. <br><br>FINDINGS were largely consistent with three popular theories of voluntary risk-taking: edgework, flow and sensation-seeking. However, the involvement of an animal - the horse - stimulates a critical reconsideration of internal/external 'control'; identifies a role for flow as risk mitigation/safety; and suggests that edge workers in high-risk interspecies sports do not just confront edges - they cross them. This paper thus distinguishes interspecies sports as a distinct and productive field of interdisciplinary research. It proposes further mixed-methods research that is required to more fully evaluate the usefulness of existing risk theory for understanding participant experiences of high-risk interspecies sports.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1012-6902",
doi="10.1177/1012690213513266",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1012690213513266"
}