Abstract
This paper is on ethnographic study of street basketball practicies in Minatonomori Park, Chuoku,
Kobe.
Previous studies on street spaces have examined them as places where diverse individuals meet and negotiate their use. Innovative political practices beyond conventional frameworks emerge there, highlighting their public and non-verbal nature. However, existing research has been criticized for superficial descriptions, with calls for detailed micro-level studies. This issue extends to basketball research, which must move beyond cultural essentialism to focus on physical movements and their social dimensions.
In response, this paper explores the relationship between the body and space in street basketball. It emphasizes the contrast between street basketball in parks and organized basketball in gymnasiums, revealing the former’s unique publicness and non-verbal dynamics.
Without rules, referees, or coaches, street courts are accessible to the collectivity and function as public spheres. Here, the body is not a tool for outcome-related desires, like victory or profit, but is central to more process-related factors like enjoyment and togetherness. In pick-up games, where players strive to create a ‘flow,’ a complementary interaction between body and space—a spatial body—is realized.
This paper argues that street basketball exemplifies non-verbal politics, reconnecting fragmented bodies and abstract spaces in modern society while reconstructing the subjectivity of body and space.
