Despite the high vulnerability of alpine environments to climate change, adaptation and mitigation within the winter sport industry have only recently received consideration. However, the focus has been mainly on the adaptation measures of the ski resort operators (supply side), not taking into consideration other actors (demand side) or attempts aiming for a sustainable form of winter tourism. Through a case study of Protect Our Winters (POW), an environmental group started by a professional snowboarder, this research aims at investigating the role of a new social movement, ski activism, in combating climate change. Interviews with active members of POW Austria and participant observations at events and meetings of this same organisationwere conducted and analysed to gain an overview on the matter. Results show that empirical knowledge of climate change consequences and the concern about the future of lifestyle sports such as skiing and snowboarding can motivate activist behaviour. Furthermore, the variety of outreach tools of an organisation like POW can help raise awareness and inspire to join the ski activist movement. Because the study deals with a new type of movement, further research is needed to explore the effects of this alternative climate mitigation attempt and to analyse more initiatives and organisations started by the demand side of the winter sport industry.

Skateboarding and parkour are categorized as urban sports, which are a type of lifestyle sports that are primarily practiced within urban environments. Compared to regular sports, these sports have a focuson personal enjoyment and freedom to set your own goals. Sport and physical activity are an important factor in both physical health and the development of mental and social skills, but not all sports have the same needs, nor are they treated equally. To gain a better understanding for how the practitioners of urban sports view themselves and what their needs are in relation to sport, a series of semi-structured interviews were conducted, where 6 participants were asked about factors relating to aspects of the sport, relationship to the spaces they occupy and how other practitioners and non-practitioners interacted with them to better understand the relationship between these practitioners and the spaces they occupy. The results of this study were then presented in relation to the theory of loose spaces to explain why these spaces are important to the practitioners, and how their needs for both space and sport can be met from a municipal perspective. The findings show that the participants have common themes between them, and that space becomes an important factor to the participants because it gives them a sense of reality in their practice. The participants describe that without this sense of reality the practice of urban sports becomes artificial and loses meaning to them.To encourage participation in these sports from a municipal perspective there are two key points, availability of space where practitioners aren’t exposed to bystanders and working with public acceptance of sport as a lifestyle activity that doesn’t have to be delegated to specific sporting arenas.

This dissertation uses social movement theory to analyze the emergence, activities and development of subcultures and small groups. The manuscript is comprised of an Introduction followed by three journal articles and one book chapter.  The introduction discusses: 1) the concept of theoretical extension whereby a theory developed for one purpose is adapted to another; 2) it identifies the social movement theories used to analyze subcultures and small groups; 3) it describes the data used in the analyses included here. The data for this work derives from two distinct research projects conducted by the author between 2002 and 2012 and relies on multiple sources of qualitative data. Data collection techniques used include fieldwork, archival research, and secondary data. Paper I uses resource mobilization (RM) theory to analyze the origin, development, and function of White Power music in relation to the broader White Power Movement (WPM). The research identifies three roles played by White Power music: (1) recruit new adherents, (2) frame issues and ideology for the construction of collective identity, (3) obtain financial resources. Paper II gives an overview of the subculture of Freestyle BMX, discussing its origins and developments—both internationally as a wider subcultural phenomenon, and locally, through a three-year ethnographic case study of a subcultural BMX scene known as “Pro Town USA.” Paper III conceptualizes BMX as a social movement using RM theory to identify and explain three different forms of commercialization within this lifestyle sport in “Pro Town.” The work sheds light on the complex process of commercialization within lifestyle sports by identifying three distinct forms of commercialization: paraphernalia, movement, and mass market, and analyses different impacts that each had on the on the development of the local scene.  Findings reveal that lifestyle-sport insiders actively collaborate in each form of commercialization, especially movement commercialization which has the potential to build alternative lifestyle-sport institutions and resist adverse commercial influences. Paper IV refines the small group theory of collaborative circles by: (1) further clarifying its concepts and relationships, (2) integrating the concepts of flow and idioculture, and (3) introducing a more nuanced concept of resources from RM. The paper concludes by demonstrating that circle development was aided by specific locational, human, moral, and material resources as well as by complementary social-psychological characteristics of its members.