Robert Rayner
Print versionResearch
Building Olympic Legacy: a Bourdieusian approach to understanding East London’s new Olympic space
The aim of my research is to examine how ‘legacy’ is shaping and legitimising the social, economic and political orthodoxy of London’s Olympic promise to ‘transform the heart of East London’ (Before, During and After: Making the Most of the London 2012 Games, DCMS, 2008). The research involves a theoretically-informed empirical investigation of the delivery of the Olympic site and the promises made in the successful bid to the IOC. The work draws upon key concepts developed by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu as a framework for conducting primary research with Olympic stakeholders that will track local ‘engagement’ with the Olympic project during the pre-event period, and assesses the relations of power underpinning the notion of ‘Good Legacy’.
One of the main reasons for London's 2005 bid success was its commitment to building a positive ‘sustainable legacy’, including the social and economic regeneration of some of London’s poorest communities. The efficacy of the sporting mega-event as urban regenerative intervention is contested, often attracting support from politicians, business leaders and planners and criticism from academics and community activists, with critics citing dilution of local democratic controls, displacement of existing residents and gentrification.
Legacy has therefore come to prominence because of its capacity to legitimise, manage tensions and bridge potentially divergent narratives. Legacy so understood is not a state achieved – a future ‘outcome’ – but instead describes an unfolding, multiform process of debate, dialogue and community ‘buy-in’ (or not) with Olympic delivery and governance. My research likens this unfolding process with Bourdieu’s ‘structured and structuring structure’ field concept as it affects the symbolically and strategically important Olympic site in the Lower Lea Valley. The field concept is a ‘heuristic tool’ designed to support empirical research sensitised to the operation of power within the context of this Olympic-defined socio-geographic ‘space’, evoking not only the idea of a physical site of symbolic and material struggle (for post-Games resources), but also that of a field of force, a ‘social space’ whose affects shape and condition the values, language and dispositions of those agents operating within it (habitus).
Despite house price rises around the Olympic site and ‘limited’ 2012 job opportunities for local residents to date, there remains ‘popular’ support for the Games across the 5 host boroughs. With an emerging official vision of what ‘Good Legacy’ will mean for local people and the type of cosmopolitan, ‘socially-mixed’ neighbourhoods the Games are meant to catalyse (Legacy Masterplan Framework, LDA, 2008), the study explores the institutional mechanisms and informal processes supporting or inhibiting local participation in the Olympic project, and considers which individuals/groups may ‘benefit’ most from London’s 2012 Games.
The aim of my research is to examine how ‘legacy’ is shaping and legitimising the social, economic and political orthodoxy of London’s Olympic promise to ‘transform the heart of East London’ (Before, During and After: Making the Most of the London 2012 Games, DCMS, 2008). The research involves a theoretically-informed empirical investigation of the delivery of the Olympic site and the promises made in the successful bid to the IOC. The work draws upon key concepts developed by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu as a framework for conducting primary research with Olympic stakeholders that will track local ‘engagement’ with the Olympic project during the pre-event period, and assesses the relations of power underpinning the notion of ‘Good Legacy’.
One of the main reasons for London's 2005 bid success was its commitment to building a positive ‘sustainable legacy’, including the social and economic regeneration of some of London’s poorest communities. The efficacy of the sporting mega-event as urban regenerative intervention is contested, often attracting support from politicians, business leaders and planners and criticism from academics and community activists, with critics citing dilution of local democratic controls, displacement of existing residents and gentrification.
Legacy has therefore come to prominence because of its capacity to legitimise, manage tensions and bridge potentially divergent narratives. Legacy so understood is not a state achieved – a future ‘outcome’ – but instead describes an unfolding, multiform process of debate, dialogue and community ‘buy-in’ (or not) with Olympic delivery and governance. My research likens this unfolding process with Bourdieu’s ‘structured and structuring structure’ field concept as it affects the symbolically and strategically important Olympic site in the Lower Lea Valley. The field concept is a ‘heuristic tool’ designed to support empirical research sensitised to the operation of power within the context of this Olympic-defined socio-geographic ‘space’, evoking not only the idea of a physical site of symbolic and material struggle (for post-Games resources), but also that of a field of force, a ‘social space’ whose affects shape and condition the values, language and dispositions of those agents operating within it (habitus).
Despite house price rises around the Olympic site and ‘limited’ 2012 job opportunities for local residents to date, there remains ‘popular’ support for the Games across the 5 host boroughs. With an emerging official vision of what ‘Good Legacy’ will mean for local people and the type of cosmopolitan, ‘socially-mixed’ neighbourhoods the Games are meant to catalyse (Legacy Masterplan Framework, LDA, 2008), the study explores the institutional mechanisms and informal processes supporting or inhibiting local participation in the Olympic project, and considers which individuals/groups may ‘benefit’ most from London’s 2012 Games.
Supervisors
Geography
Graduated in Geography from Cambridge in 1988, with a final year dissertation looking at the social and economic consequences of gentrification in Islington. Then gained an MA in Marketing from Lancaster University in 1989, where I incorporated the new technique of ‘trade-off’ analysis into a commercial project for a regional fuel oil supplier exploring the service-price sensitivity of different customer groups. After university set up a marketing research consultancy conducting research projects for a wide range of public and private sector clients, including the Met Office, Bristol University, Lloyds TSB, Chambers of Commerce, Gloucester City Council, English Partnerships and the Countryside Commission. Returned to academic study in 2007 at the Central School of Speech and Drama (MA, London Theatre), where my dissertation looked at the broader cultural implications of transnationalism for London.
