Homogeneity, heterogeneity, and body practices. Sport, Leisure, Human Rights and Diverse Bodies

Abstract

This paper examines the possibilities of interpreting sport and leisure as potential human rights, considering the openness of contemporary times to recognizing bodies as diverse. Against this humanistic and romantic idea of conceiving sports and leisure as human rights, albeit recognizing the importance of defending body practices as central to our cultures and safeguarding the possibilities and desires regarding “free” time, I argue that sports and leisure viewed as human rights end up universalizing the diversity of bodily practices, and thereby homogenizing the diversity of bodies.