Raffaella Ferrero Camoletto

In high-modern society, the shift from production to consumption and from selling goods to selling services has given a greater importance to the experiencial dimension of commodities: what matters is not only the material nature of commodities, but also the way they are consumed. In the loisir sector, there is an increasing market of ‘experiential commodities’: extreme sports are an example of this kind of products. At the beginning, they were an ‘elitist’ practice because of the risk factor and of the specialised skills needed to cope with it. Then they have become a commodified activity in which the hard side (challenging nature, loneliness, direct bodily involvement, etc.) stays together with a soft and ‘domesticated’ one (managed risk, manifactured emotions, etc.). In the middle between their original and commodified versions, extreme sports keep something typical of ‘experiencial commodities’: the search for a high intensity bodily experience that allows people to feel a better self on their skin, even if just for a short time.