Kategoria BISAC: Sports & Recreation >> Cultural & Social Aspects

This book explores the activism of football fans and its impact on contemporary football culture in England, Italy, and the Czech Republic. It focuses on three main themes: the reaction of fans to security measures, the critical engagement of fans with socio-cultural aspects of football games and activism related to football governance. The book will have theoretical implications, not only for studies of football or sport but also for understanding the impact of social movements and activism more broadly in other social spheres. In this regard, it will provide a theoretical perspective on...

Sport is a geographic phenomenon. The physical and organizational infrastructure of sport occupies a prominent place in our society. This important book takes an explicitly spatial approach to sport, bringing together research in geography, sport studies and related disciplines to articulate a critical approach to sports geography . Critical Geographies of Sport illustrates this approach by engaging directly with a variety of theoretical traditions as well as the latest research methods.

Each chapter showcases the merits of a geographic approach to the study of sport ranging...

Olympic Games are sold to host city populations on the basis of legacy commitments that incorporate aid for the young and the poor. Yet little is known about the realities of marginalized young people living in host cities. Do they benefit from social housing and employment opportunities? Or do they fall victim to increased policing and evaporating social assistance? This book answers these questions through an original ethnographic study of young people living in the shadow of Vancouver 2010 and London 2012.

Setting qualitative research alongside critical analysis of policy documents,...

What is play? Why do we play? What can play teach us about our life as social beings? In this critical investigation into the significance of play, Henning Eichberg argues that through play we can ask questions about the world, others and ourselves. Playing a game and asking a question are two forms of human practice that are fundamentally connected. This book presents a practice-based philosophical approach to understanding play that begins with empirical study, drawing on historical, sociological and anthropological investigations of play in the real world, from contemporary Danish...

This important study brings together world-leading researchers to reflect upon the state of the social scientific study of sport. Addressing three core themes in sport studies equality, education and policy the book looks back over the development of sport research in recent decades and offers new insights into future lines of enquiry.

Presenting a unique collection of authoritative perspectives from some of the best-known scholars in the social scientific study of sport, the book engages with key contemporary issues such as gender stereotypes in physical education, ethnicity,...

Given sport s centrality in English society, what role does it play in symbolising contemporary English national identity? This comprehensive study explores the complex set of relationships between sport and what it means to be English in the twenty-first century. The bond between sport and nationalism has long been recognised, but with increasingly vociferous separatist nationalisms threatening the dismantling of the United Kingdom, a closer analysis is timely.

Part one addresses key debates regarding English national identity within the specific sporting contexts of association...

Drawing on rich empirical material from elite French sport, this book offers a detailed history of how sports doctors across the twentieth century constructed the concept -doping- and used it to insert themselves into elite, international sport. Including the voices of elite athletes, it explains how the use of pharmacology became a normal part of training in elite French sport, and shows that the concept of doping that is framed in simple moral terms by doctors and journalists is far from simple. Instead it results from a decades-long social and political process that is filled with...

In spite of a great passion in the game and significant involvement at amateur level, British Asians are under-represented in professional football. This book asks how and why this situation has developed, using extensive interviews with British Asian football players to offer an insider's assessment of the difficulties and conflicting demands faced every day. In addition, the book also critically examines the work of the anti-racist football movement, questioning the strategies and policies designed to eradicate racism and asking whether other approaches might be more effective or...

Examining the global experiences, challenges and achievements of Muslim women participating in physical activities and sport, this important new study makes a profound contribution to our understanding of both contemporary Islam and the complexity and diversity of women's lives in the modern world.

The book presents an overview of current research into constructs of gender, the role of religion and the importance of situation, and looks closely at what Islam has to say about women's participation in sport and what Muslim women themselves have to say about their...

The everyday makeup of contemporary sport is increasingly characterised by a perceived explosion of 'deviance' - violence, drug taking, racism, homophobia, misogyny, corruption and excess. Whereas once these behaviours may have been subject to the moral judgments of authority, in the face of dramatic socio-cultural change they become more a matter of populist consumer gaze.

In addressing these developments this book provides a new and insightful approach toward the study of 'deviance' in the realm of sport.

New Perspectives in Sport and 'Deviance' awakens the...

Bringing 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,...

As the Olympic spectacle grows, broadcast coverage becomes bigger, more complex and more sophisticated. Part sporting event, part reality show, and part global festival, the Olympics can be seen as both intensely nationalistic and a celebration of a shared sense of international community. This book sheds new light on how the Olympic experience has been shaped by television and expanded across multiple platforms and formats.

Combining a multitude of approaches ranging from interviews to content analyses to audience surveys, the book explores the production, influence and...

When we accept that advertisers and sponsors dictate athletic schedules, that success in sport is measured by revenue, that athletes' loyalties lie with their commercial agents instead of teams and that game rules exist to be tested and broken in the pursuit of a win, what does our regard for sport say about the moral and political well-being of our society?

Why Sports Morally Matter is a deeply critical examination of pressing ethical issues in sports - and in society as a whole. Exploring the broad historical context of modern America, William J. Morgan argues that the...