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Sport, Dance and Embodied Identities
by Noel DyckSport and dance command the passions and devotion of countless athletes, dancers and fans worldwide. Although conventionally thought to reside within separate social realms, these two embodied cultural forms are revealed in this benchmark volume to share a vital capacity to constitute and express identities through their practiced movements and scripted forms. Thus, the work of choreographers and coaches along with the performances of dancers and athletes offer not merely entertainment and aesthetic accomplishment but also powerful means for celebrating existing social arrangements and cultural ideals or, alternately, for imagining and advocating new ones.Drawing on a wide selection of sport and dance activities from around the world, this book elucidates the ways in which embodied performances both mirror and reshape social life. It traces, for example, how football, salsa and tango can each be employed to articulate or rewrite national and gender identities. Also examined are children's sport and the dynamics by which immigration and cultural integration, along with the socialization of children and youth, may be directed through the organization of community sport. The volume investigates the marshalling of sport and dance in settings from Africa to Ireland as vehicles for framing moral issues that revolve around the appropriate use, protection and exhibition of the body. This innovative study establishes the paradoxical fashion in which dance and sport can unite certain people and communities while at the same time serving exclusionary and nationalistic purposes.
Sport, Development and Environmental Sustainability (Routledge Studies in Sport Development)
by Rob Millington Simon C. DarnellThis is the first book to consider the intersections of sport, international development and environmental sustainability. It explores the tensions between sport’s potential contribution to the environment and its rather poor record to date. Bringing together a diverse group of scholars who approach the topic from various disciplinary and theoretical perspectives, the book provides both critical and optimistic perspectives on the place of sport in sustainable development. Chapters examine and question how and whether sport contributes to sustainable development on an international scale. Attention is also paid to the place and role of Indigenous knowledge in sustainable Sport for Development, particularly as an alternative to modernization and/or in support of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. Sport, Development and Environmental Sustainability is important reading for academic researchers, students and policy-makers in the fields of kinesiology, sport studies, sport sociology, leisure studies, sport management, sport media, physical cultural studies, environmental studies and sustainability and international development studies.
Sport, Difference and Belonging: Conceptions of Human Variation in British Sport (Routledge Advances in Ethnography)
by James Rosbrook-ThompsonThis book combines historical and ethnographic components in examining the ideas about human variation subscribed to by coaches, commentators and sportspeople themselves. The book begins by interrogating the idea of the ‘impulsive’ black sportsman (and the ‘impulsive’ black male more generally), documenting how it came into being and gathered momentum throughout the course of British history. Drawing on the work of Paul Gilroy and Ian Hacking, the author then investigates whether such raciological ideas figure within the everyday behaviours of a group of young footballers. Presenting an original ethnographic study undertaken at Oldfield United, a semi-professional football club situated in London, he explores how raciological ideas (and other notions of human variation) shape the self-understandings of the club’s players and thereby influence the possibilities for action available to them. In conceptualising the sense of "feeling alien" experienced by club personnel – in relation to mainstream discourses of nationhood, to politics, to the basic functioning of the nation-state and, at bottom, to the qualifications and requirements of British citizenship – ‘Sport, Difference and Belonging’ challenges the ability of the cosmopolitan tradition to make sense of contemporary urban phenomena and seeks to develop the sociological concept of denizenship. This book will be of interest to academics and students in the fields of sociology and social policy, ‘race’ and ethnic studies, urban studies, the ethnographic method, and the sociology of sport. It may also appeal to politicians, policy makers and those working in the field of ‘race relations.’
Sport, Film and National Culture (Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society)
by Seán CrossonSport and film have historically been key components of national cultures and societies. This is the first collection dedicated to examining the intersection of these popular cultural forces within specific national contexts. Covering films of all types, from Hollywood blockbusters to regional documentaries and newsreels, the book considers how filmic depictions of sport have configured and informed distinctive national cultures, societies and identities. Featuring case studies from 11 national contexts across 6 continents – including North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania – it reveals the common and contrasting approaches that have emerged within sport cinema in differing national contexts. This is fascinating and important reading for all students and researchers working in film, media, cultural studies or sport, and for broader enthusiasts of both sport and film.
Sport, Forced Migration and the 'Refugee Crisis' (Routledge Focus on Sport, Culture and Society)
by Enrico MicheliniDrawing on original research, this book looks at what sport can tell us about the social processes, patterns and outcomes of forced migration and the &‘refugee crisis&’. Adopting a systems theory framework and examining different sport disciplines, performance levels and settings, it represents a significant contribution to our understanding of one of the most urgent social issues facing the modern world. The book explores four key aspects of sport&’s intersection with forced migration. Firstly, it looks at how the media covers sport in relation to the &‘refugee crisis&’, specifically coverage of refugee elite athletes. Secondly, it examines the adaptation of sport organisations to the &‘refugee crisis&’, including the culture, programmes and structures that promote or obstruct sport for refugees. Thirdly, the book looks at sport in refugee sites, and how sport can be used as therapy, an escape or empowerment for refugees but also how it can reinforce the divisions between staff and the refugees themselves. Finally, the book looks at how forced migration influences and is influenced by participation in elite sport, by examining the biographies of elite migrant athletes. A richly descriptive, critical and illuminating piece of work, this book is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in sport, migration, sociology or the relationship between sport and wider society.
Sport, Gender and Power: The Rise of Roller Derby (Gender, Bodies and Transformation)
by Simone Fullagar Adele PavlidisAs a new breed of lifestyle sport enthusiasts ’derby grrrls’ are pushing the boundaries of gender as they negotiate the nexus of pleasure, pain and power relations. Offering a socio-cultural analysis of the rise and reinvention of roller derby as both a new, globalized women’s sport and an everyday creative leisure space, this book explores the manner in which roller derby has emerged as a gendered space for self-transformation, belonging and embodied contest, in which women are invited to experience their emotions differently, embrace pain and overcome limits. Sport, Gender and Power: The Rise of Roller Derby presents detailed interview, ethnographic and autoethnographic material, together with a range of media texts to shed new light on the complex relationships of power experienced by women in derby as a sport culture, whilst also examining the darker relationships that characterise the sport, including those of inclusion and exclusion, difference and identity, and competition and participation. A contemporary feminist study of empowerment, sexual difference, gender and affect, this book will appeal to scholars of gender and sexuality, embodiment, feminist thought and the sociology of sport and leisure.
Sport History in the Digital Era
by Murray G Phillips Gary OsmondFrom statistical databases to story archives, from fan sites to the real-time reactions of Twitter-empowered athletes, the digital communication revolution has changed the way fans relate to LeBron's latest triple double or Tom Brady's last second touchdown pass. In this volume, contributors from Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States analyze the parallel transformation in the field of sport history, showing the ways powerful digital tools raise vital philosophical, epistemological, ontological, methodological, and ethical questions for scholars and students alike. Chapters consider how philosophical and theoretical understandings of the meaning of history influence engagement with digital history, and conceptualize the relationship between history making and the digital era. As the writers show, digital media's mostly untapped potential for studying the recent past via media like blogs, chat rooms, and gambling sites forge a symbiosis between sports and the internet while offering historians new vistas to explore and utilize. In this new era, digital history becomes a dynamic site of enquiry and discussion where scholars enter into a give-and-take with individuals and invite their audience to grapple with, rather than passively absorb, evidence. Timely and provocative, Sport History in the Digital Era affirms how the information revolution has transformed sport and sport history--and shows the road ahead. Contributors include Douglas Booth, Mike Cronin, Martin Johnes, Matthew Klugman, Geoffery Z. Kohe, Tara Magdalinski, Fiona McLachlan, Bob Nicholson, Rebecca Olive, Gary Osmond, Murray G. Phillips, Stephen Robertson, Synthia Sydnor, Holly Thorpe, and Wayne Wilson.
Sport, Identity and Inclusion in Europe: The Experiences of LGBTQ People in Sport (Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society)
by Ilse Hartmann-TewsThis book explores and critically assesses the challenges and experiences of LGBTQ people within sport in Europe. It presents cutting-edge research data and insights from across the continent, with a focus on sport policy, sport systems, and issues around anti-discrimination and inclusion. The book introduces the theoretical and methodological foundations of research into LGBTQ people in sport and then presents in-depth comparative surveys of systems and experiences in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the UK, and Spain. A final section considers the effectiveness of policy in this area and motives for participation, and looks ahead at future directions in research, policy, and practice. Tracing the frontiers of our understanding of the experiences of LGBTQ people in contemporary Europe, this is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the sociology of sport, sport policy, LGBTQI studies, gender and sexuality studies, or cultural studies.
Sport in audiovisuellen Medien: Entwicklungen, Strategien, Inszenierungsformen
by Simon RehbachDer Sammelband befasst sich mit der gegenwärtigen Darstellung von Sport in audiovisuellen Medien und erörtert verschiedene Bedingungen und Verfahren in Bezug auf sportliche Wettkämpfe wie auch Akteur_innen in Fernsehen und Internet. Die Beiträge widmen sich aus mehreren medien- und kommunikationswissenschaftlichen Perspektiven unter anderem Live-Übertragungen von Sport, 360-Grad-Videos, dem eSport, der Tätigkeit von TV-Expert_innen, der Darstellung von Fußballtrainer_innen, Instagram-Videos und dem Personal Branding von Sportler_innen.
Sport in Capitalist Society: A Short History
by Tony CollinsWhy are the Olympic Games the driving force behind a clampdown on civil liberties? What makes sport an unwavering ally of nationalism and militarism? Is sport the new opiate of the masses? These and many other questions are answered in this new radical history of sport by leading historian of sport and society, Professor Tony Collins. Tracing the history of modern sport from its origins in the burgeoning capitalist economy of mid-eighteenth century England to the globalised corporate sport of today, the book argues that, far from the purity of sport being ‘corrupted’ by capitalism, modern sport is as much a product of capitalism as the factory, the stock exchange and the unemployment line. Based on original sources, the book explains how sport has been shaped and moulded by the major political and economic events of the past two centuries, such as the French Revolution, the rise of modern nationalism and imperialism, the Russian Revolution, the Cold War and the imposition of the neo-liberal agenda in the last decades of the twentieth century. It highlights the symbiotic relationship between the media and sport, from the simultaneous emergence of print capitalism and modern sport in Georgian England to the rise of Murdoch’s global satellite television empire in the twenty-first century, and for the first time it explores the alternative, revolutionary models of sport in the early twentieth century. Sport in a Capitalist Society is the first sustained attempt to explain the emergence of modern sport around the world as an integral part of the globalisation of capitalism. It is essential reading for anybody with an interest in the history or sociology of sport, or the social and cultural history of the modern world.
Sport in der totalen Institution – eine Gefängnisethnographie (Sport – Gesellschaft – Kultur)
by Johannes MüllerJustizvollzugsanstalten müssen Gefangenen die Möglichkeit anbieten, sich sportlich zu betätigen. Basierend auf mehrjähriger ethnographischer Forschung in einem Gefängnis untersucht das Buch die vielschichtigen Bedeutungen, die der Sport aus Sicht der Gefangenen besitzt. Die Befunde zeigen, dass sich Sport für einen Teil der männlichen Insassen als Bewältigungsstrategie zur Linderung der hafttypischen Belastungen erweist, indem er Freiheitsmomente birgt und Möglichkeiten eröffnet, gefängnistypischen Gefühlen von Angst, Einsamkeit, Langeweile und mentaler Niedergeschlagenheit zu begegnen. Darüber hinaus stellt der Sport ein probates Mittel zur Konstruktion bzw. Verteidigung von Männlichkeit, zur Selbstaufwertung und zur Positionierung in der sozialen Hierarchie unter den Gefangenen dar. Die Befunde zeigen weiterhin, dass speziell die Teilhabe an anstaltsorganisierten Sportangeboten voraussetzungsvoll ist und das besondere Gefängnissetting viele Inhaftierte von einer Sportteilhabe abhält.
Sport in Prison: Exploring the Role of Physical Activity in Correctional Settings (Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society)
by Rosie MeekAlthough prison can present a critical opportunity to engage with offenders through interventions and programming, reoffending rates among those released from prison remain stubbornly high. Sport can be a means through which to engage with even the most challenging and complex individuals caught up in a cycle of offending and imprisonment, by offering an alternative means of excitement and risk taking to that gained through engaging in offending behaviour, or by providing an alternative social network and access to positive role models. This is the first book to explore the role of sport in prisons and its subsequent impact on rehabilitation and behavioural change. The book draws on research literature on the beneficial role of sport in community settings and on prison cultures and regimes, across disciplines including criminology, psychology, sociology and sport studies, as well as original qualitative and quantitative data gathered from research in prisons. It unpacks the meanings that prisoners and staff attach to sport participation and interventions in order to understand how to promote behavioural change through sport most effectively, while identifying and tackling the key emerging issues and challenges. Sport in Prison is essential reading for any advanced student, researcher, policy-maker or professional working in the criminal justice system with an interest in prisons, offending behaviour, rehabilitation, sport development, or the wider social significance of sport.
Sport In Soviet Society: Development of Sport and Physical Education in Russia and the Ussr (Soviet and East European Studies #22)
by James RiordanThe basic material for this book was gathered in different parts of the Soviet Union from i960 to 1975, eventually materialising as a PhD thesis for the University of Birmingham. My thanks are due particularly to my former colleagues and team mates at Progress Publishers, Moscow, Yuri Sdobnikov and Len Stoklitsky, for firing my enthusiasm yet harnessing my energy; they are, of course, not a whit responsible for any of the views I express.
Sport in the African World
by John Nauright Mahfoud AmaraSport has been a component of African cultural life for several hundred years. In today’s globalized world, Africans and Africa have become a vital part of the international sporting landscape. This is the first book to attempt to survey the historical, contemporary and geographical breadth of that landscape, drawing on multidisciplinary scholarship from around the world. To gain an understanding of sport in Africa and its contributions to the global sports world, one must first consider the ways in which sport itself is a terrain of conflict and represents another symbolic territory to conquer. Addressing key themes such as colonialism, globalization, migration, apartheid, politics and international relations, sports media and broadcasting, ethnobranding, sports tourism and the African diaspora in Europe and the United States, this collection of original scholarship offers a significant contribution to this burgeoning field of research. Sport in the African World is fascinating reading for all students and scholars with an interest in sport studies, sport history, African history or African culture.
Sport Industry Research and Analysis: An Informed Approach to Decision Making
by Jacquelyn Cuneen David A. TobarSport Industry Research and Analysis offers a straightforward, no nonsense approach to research design and statistical analyses in sport organizations. This fully revised and updated new edition describes the research process, from identifying a research question to analyzing data, and uses real world scenarios to help students and industry professionals understand how to conduct research and apply the results in their wider work. The book includes clear, step-by-step instructions for the analysis and interpretation of data. It explains how to use Excel and SPSS for every key statistic and statistical technique, with screenshots illustrating every step and additional scenarios providing further context. "In Practice" contributions from sport industry professionals demonstrate how these practitioners use statistical analyses in their everyday tasks, and this new edition includes expanded sections on conducting a literature review and research ethics, as well as ancillary materials for instructors including slides, test questions, data files, answer sheets, and videos. This is the clearest and most easy-to-use guide to research and analysis techniques in sport, helping the reader to build essential skills and confidence in using statistics, vital to support decision-making in any sport enterprise. It is an essential text for any sport business research methods course, and an invaluable reference for all sport industry professionals.
Sport, Law and Philosophy: The Jurisprudence of Sport (Routledge Research in Legal Philosophy)
by Miroslav ImbriševićSport, Law and Philosophy: The Jurisprudence of Sport discusses the intersection of law and sport and highlights its usefulness to both legal scholars and philosophers of sport. There is a general recognition that law and sports bear strong similarities. Both can be understood as systems of rules, with a judge/referee who has the power to adjudicate and to issue punishments/penalties. Divided into two parts, this volume presents an exploration of central philosophical issues arising from the intersections of law and sport and makes reference to current events and controversies. Experts from across the globe discuss a range of issues such as sports as legal systems, the game as a social contract, the role of the referee, including VAR, rule breaking, equality in women’s sport, justice on the sports field and in the court room, and issues surrounding the application of law to sports. The book will be a valuable resource to Undergraduates, Postgraduates and for those working in the areas of legal philosophy, sports law, and philosophy of sport.
Sport Management Cultures
by Vassil GirginovThis is the first book to address the link between culture and sport management. The aim is to demonstrate that culture profoundly affects how we research, teach and practice sport management. The book engages with the concept of culture both as an abstract analytical category and specific beliefs and practices. It recognizes that a single best way of managing does not exist; that the applicability of management theories may stop at national boundaries; and that fundamental cultural values act as a strong determinant to managerial ideology and practice. Culture makes the study of sport management interesting because it challenges many taken-for-granted assumptions about management, yet it reinforces our belief in the existence of common management problems. The book offers a comprehensive review of the conceptualisations of culture and its relation with sport management by examining a range of issues: the emergence of multiculturalism as a policy issue; the impact of commonly shared cultural values within the fitness industry on managers and organisations behaviour; building cultural bridges in community sport organisations; cultural meanings attached to the consumption of Olympic merchandise, and culturally-informed interpretation through a reflective analysis of sport management texts. This book was published as a special issue of European Sport Management Quarterly.
Sport Management in the Middle East: A Case Study Analysis
by Sean O'Connor David Hassan Mohammed Ben SulayemThe Middle East is one of the fastest growing and significant markets in world sport, as well as a powerful source of investment in sport. Bids for the Olympics in 2020 and the soccer World Cup in 2022, as well as remarkable investments in Formula One motor racing, horse racing and English Premier League soccer clubs, demonstrate the strength of interest, the depth of resource and the technical expertise maintained by sport business interests in the region. Sport Management in the Middle East is the first book to offer a serious and in-depth analysis of the business and management of sport in the region. Written by a team of world leading researchers in Middle Eastern sport, and illustrated in full colour throughout, the book examines the importance of sport in the Middle East and introduces its particular management processes, structures and cultures. As well as providing an overview of the region’s sporting strategy and key stakeholders, the book also offers a number of detailed case-studies of sport in individual Middle Eastern countries. A unique guide to sport management in a region of fundamental importance in world sport, this book is essential reading for any serious student or scholar of sport management, sport business, Middle East studies, or sport and society.
The Sport Marriage: Women Who Make It Work (Sport and Society)
by Steven M. OrtizIn The Sport Marriage, Steven M. Ortiz draws on studies he conducted over nearly three decades that focus on the marital realities confronted by women married to male professional athletes. These women, who are usually portrayed in unflattering and/or unrealistic terms, face enormous challenges in their attempts to establish and maintain functional marital and family lives while the husband routinely puts his career first. Ortiz defines the traditional sport marriage as a career-dominated marriage, illustrating how it encourages women to contribute to their own subordination through adherence to an unwritten rulebook and a repertoire of self-management strategies. He explains how they make invaluable contributions to their husbands’ careers while adjusting to public life and trying to maintain family privacy, managing power and control issues, and coping with pervasive groupies, overinvolved mothers, a culture of infidelity, and husbands who prioritize team loyalty. He gives these historically silent women a voice, offering readers perceptive and sensitive insight into what it means to be a woman in the male-dominated world of professional sports.
Sport, Masculinities and the Body (Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society)
by Ian WellardThis groundbreaking work explores masculinity and the body within sports. Sports continue to retain expectations for presentations of specific forms of masculinity. The body is central to these presentations. These everyday bodily performances are rehearsed and performed either successfully or unsuccessfully - and the consequences of these actions play a significant part in the ability of the individual to continue to take part. Through participant observations, sporting life-history interviews (with over forty men) and research with children, this book examines the ways in which 'appropriate' sporting masculinities are learned and enacted to varying degrees of success. Wellard highlights the social processes which impact upon individual constructions and formulations of masculine identity and reviews these in relation to broader debates on gender, embodiment and sporting participation. This book contributes not only to the academic fields of sport and gender, but also to the efforts to confront continued forms of 'accepted' gender discrimination.
Sport, Media and Mega-Events
by Lawrence A. Wenner and Andrew C. BillingsBringing together many of the most influential scholars in sport and media studies, this book examines the diverse ways that media influences our understanding of the world’s most important sport events, dubbed sports mega-events. It sheds new light on how these events have been changed by the media, and have, in turn, adapted to media to further their brand’s cultural influence. Focusing on the central concept of "mediatization" – the permeation of media into all spheres of contemporary life – the book presents original case studies of major events including the Olympics, FIFA, rugby and cricket World Cups, Tour de France, Super Bowl, World Series, Monaco Grand Prix, Wimbledon, and many more. Written from a truly international perspective, this is a seminal work in sport and media studies that reveals the growing political, economic, and cultural influences of sport mega-events in contemporary society. Sport, Media and Mega-Events is an essential text for any course on the sociology of sport, event management, sport marketing, or featuring a cultural, communication or media studies approach to sport.
Sport Migrants, Precarity and Identity: Brazilian Footballers in Central and Eastern Europe (Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society)
by José Hildo de Oliveira FilhoThis book takes a close look at the experiences of migrant athletes, their precarious careers, and at what this can tell us about wider themes of globalisation, identity, race, gender, and the body.Based on in-depth ethnographic research on male Brazilian footballers and futsal players working in Central and Eastern Europe, this book helps to fill gaps in previous research on sports migration and global sports labor markets. This book uses life-history interviews to reveal how race, gender, and class are articulated in the everyday experiences of migrant athletes; how they express their religious affiliations; and how they navigate the relationships with injuries and pain that are characteristic of precarious athletic careers. This book considers the transnational networks that are essential in sustaining international athletic labor flows and the role that borders and emotions play in the lives of sports migrants and also the agency that migrant athletes can have in issues such as player development and retention.Presenting a more nuanced, ground-level perspective on sports migration and the sociological dialogue between identity, culture, and the body, this book is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the socio-cultural study of sport, migration, globalization, or global inequalities.
Sport, Migration, and Gender in the Neoliberal Age
by Niko BesnierThis ethnographic collection explores how neoliberalism has permeated the bodies, subjectivities, and gender of youth around the world as global sport industries have expanded their reach into marginal areas, luring young athletes with the dream of pursuing athletic careers in professional leagues of the Global North. Neoliberalism has reconfigured sport since the 1980s, as sport clubs and federations have become for-profit businesses, in conjunction with television and corporate sponsors. Neoliberal sport has had other important effects, which are rarely the object of attention: as the national economies of the Global South and local economies of marginal areas of the Global North have collapsed under pressure from global capital, many young people dream of pursuing a sport career as an escape from poverty. But this elusive future is often located elsewhere, initially in regional centres, though ultimately in the wealthy centres of the Global North that can support a sport infrastructure. The pursuit of this future has transformed kinship relations, gender relations, and the subjectivities of people. This collection of rich ethnographies from diverse regions of the world, from Ghana to Finland and from China to Fiji, pulls the reader into the lives of men and women in the global sport industries, including aspiring athletes, their families, and the agents, coaches, and academy directors shaping athletes’ dreams. It demonstrates that the ideals of neoliberalism spread in surprising ways, intermingling with categories like gender, religion, indigeneity, and kinship. Athletes’ migrations provide a novel angle on the global workings of neoliberalism. This book will be of key interest to scholars in Gender Studies, Anthropology, Sport Studies, and Migration Studies.
Sport, Physical Activity and Criminal Justice: Politics, Policy and Practice (Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society)
by Haydn Morgan Andrew ParkerThis book explores the various ways in which participation in sport and physical activity might contribute to effective solutions within criminal justice systems. Focusing on a range of different sporting and physical activities across an array of social contexts involving both adult and youth populations, the book offers insight into the way in which sport and physical activity is interpreted by participants and practitioners, and how these interpretations relate to broader policy objectives within and across justice systems. It focuses on a series of key issues, including how sport policy (national and international) has developed in recent years in this area; how and to what extent such policy developments have impacted organisations and interventions (both custodial and non-custodial) across sport and criminal justice systems and sectors; and how participant cohorts (such as disadvantaged and/or ‘at-risk’ young people) have experienced these changes. With shifting debates around criminal justice and the need for policy and practical solutions to extend beyond tougher and longer sentencing, this book is important reading for students, researchers, and practitioners working in sport pedagogy, sport-for-development, sport and leisure management, sport coaching, physical education, criminology, youth work, youth studies, social work, and health studies.
Sport, Physical Culture, and the Moving Body: Materialisms, Technologies, Ecologies (Critical Issues in Sport and Society)
by Mary Louise Adams Kiri Baxter Douglas Booth Kyle S Bunds Michael D. Giardina Mariana Clark Simon C Darnell Samantha Frost Simone Fullagar Pirkko Markula Mary G. McDonald Jennifer Sterling Christopher McLeod Matthew G. Hawzen Richard Pringle Oliver Rick Jacob J. Bustad Samantha King Shannon Leigh Jette Katelyn Esmonde David Andrews Carolyn Pluim Gavin WeedonThe moving body—pervasively occupied by fitness activities, intense training and dieting regimes, recreational practices, and high-profile sporting mega-events—holds a vital function in contemporary society. As the body moves—as it performs, sweats, runs, and jumps—it sets in motion an intricate web of scientific rationalities, spatial arrangements, corporate imperatives, and identity politics (i.e. politics of gender, race, social class, etc.). It represents vitality in its productive and physiological capacities, it drives a complex economy of experiences and products, and it is a meaningful site of cultural identities and politics. Contributors to Sport, Physical Culture, and the Moving Body work from a simple premise: as it moves, the material body matters. Adding to the burgeoning fields of sport studies and body studies, the works featured here draw upon the traditions of feminist theory, posthumanism, actor network theory, and new materialism to reposition the physical, moving body as crucial to the cultural, political, environmental, and economic systems that it constitutes and within which is constituted. Once assembled, the book presents a study of bodies in motion—made to move in contexts where technique, performance, speed, strength, and vitality not only define the conduct therein, but provide the very reason for the body’s being within those economies and environments. In so doing, the contributors look to how the body moving for and about rational systems of science, medicine, markets, and geopolity shapes the social and material world in important and unexpected ways. In Sport, Physical Culture, and the Moving Body, contributors explore the extent to which the body, when moving about both ostensibly active body spaces (i.e., the gymnasium, the ball field, exercise laboratory, the track or running trail, the beach, or the sport stadium) and those places less often connected to physical activity (i.e. the home, the street, the classroom, the automobile), is bounded to technologies of life and living; and to the political arrangements that seek to capitalize upon such frames of biological vitality. To do so, the authors problematize the rise of active body science (i.e. kinesiology, sport and exercise sciences, performance biotechnology) and the effects these scientific interventions have on embodied, lived experience. Contributors to Sport, Physical Culture, and the Moving Body will be engaging a range of new and emerging theoretical perspectives, including new materialist, political ecology, developmental systems theory, and new material feminist approaches, to examine the actors and assemblages of movement-based material, political, and economic production. In so doing, contributors will vividly and powerfully illustrate the extent to which a focus on the fleshed body and its material conditions can bring forth new insights or ontological and epistemological innovation to the sociology of sport and physical activity. They will also explore the agency of the body as and amongst things. Such a performative materialist approach explicates how complex assemblages of sport and physical activity—bringing into association everything from muscle fibers and dietary proteins to stadium concrete or regional aquifers—are not only meaningful, but ecological. By focusing on the confluence of agentive materialities, disciplinary technologies, vibrant assemblages, speculative realities, and vital performativities, Sport, Physical Culture, and the Moving Body promises to offer a groundbreaking departure from representationalist tendencies and orthodoxies brought about by the cultural turn in sport and physical cultural studies. It brings the moving body and its physics back into focus: recentering moving flesh and bones as locus of social order, environmental change, and the global political economy.