Re-Writing the city. Alternative sport practices and urban territory.

Since the Sixties new sports have appeared in the urban space: focusing not on discipline and competition but on experimentation, personal expressivity, bodily sensations, and fun, those sports redefine the relationship with space. Drawing on research literature and original research data, the article explores parkour participants’ processes of re-discovery and re-appropriation of urban space and their development of technical, sensorial and cognitive skills through body experimentation. The analysis shows also the potential impact of parkour as a urban sport practice on city planning and on the promotion of active citizenship. 

Keywords: Urban Space, Body, Lifestyle Sports, Parkour, Social Construction of Space.