Academic Contributions of Eric Dunning, a Founding Father of Sociology of Sport

The figurational/process approach of Norbert Elias has been widely used in sociological studies of sport. Often considered one of the founding figures both in the sociology of sport and in Eliasian sociology per se, Eric Dunning has made important contributions to the formation and development of figurational perspectives. Through an analysis of Dunning's various published works, the process of his academic perspectives and contributions is reviewed. Among other things, it demonstrates that Dunning was instrumental in positioning sport as a serious topic of scholarly-and especially sociological attention-and that he played a leading role in the development of football hooliganism research at what became famously known as the Leicester School. In its formative stages, Dunning participated in helping build an active international community for sociologists of sport. Throughout his life, Dunning authored/co-authored or edited/co-edited many books and papers proposing sociological ways of understanding sport, especially aspects of violence, gender in sport, which helped accelerate the development of a fledgling subdiscipline. Figurational themes represented a prominent thread in all of this work. His interest in pursuing the sociology of sport as a subdisciplinary area also spurred Elias in the same direction. Their collaborations thus expanded the figurational approach more deeply and widely. Additionally, Dunning also tackled questions of race and development out sport. He not only pursued and furthered Elias' formative theoretical ideas, but also translated a number of Elias' works from German into English, thus contributing to the global sociology community more generally.