Review of Jon Dart & Steve Wagg (eds) Sport Protest & Globalisation (original) (raw)
Related papers
Alter-globalization refers to a large spectrum of global social movements that support new forms of globalization and that urge that values of democracy, justice, environmental protection, and human rights be put ahead of purely economic concerns. This paper attempts to develop a framework for the study of the influence of alter-globalization on sport in three ways: by outlining a periodization of social movements and sport; by proposing a typology of responses to the politics of globalization; and by proposing a typology of recent social movements associated with sport. The paper does not report on an empirical research project, but provides a stock take of what has happened since the 1990s regarding the politics of globalization and the politics of sport, with specific reference to global social movements. The questions raised in this paper include: What form do the movements challenging the world sports order today take? How are they connected to alterglobalism? What alternative models of sport do they propose? Where some may argue for “one world, one sport,” this paper explores whether “another sport is possible”. In doing so, it aims to ask how these questions about the possibility of political transformation through sport could be answered through a series of empirical research projects.
Imagine a world without sport; the euphoric triumphs, the heart-breaking losses and the everyday sporting controversies which captivate a global audience would no longer exist. For millions of people around the world the excitement that sport entails ‘are like lightning bolts that interrupt an otherwise continuous skyline’ (Cashmore, 2000:6). Without sport, the world would never have witnessed Andy Murray make history by being the first Briton in 77 years to win the Wimbledon men's title, Victoria Pendleton would never have powered her way to winning gold in the women’s Keirin during the 2012 London Olympics, and Alex Ferguson would not have retired as the ‘greatest’ football manager of all time (?). Needless to say, there is more to sport than the sports themselves. Sport has become so deeply entrenched as a pillar of modern society, that to envisage a world without it seems inconceivable; neither the globalisation of commercial sports (Coakley, 2003) nor the intimate relationship between sport and politics (Houlihan, 2002) would ever have been formed. Additionally, the idea of using mega-sporting events, such as the Olympics, as global platforms for protest (Cottrell and Nelson, 2010), or as backdrops for terrorism (Giulianotti and Klauser, 2012), would be non-existent.
Sport and globalization: transnational dimensions
2007
The aims of this special issue are to both raise the social scientific status of sport and to advance understanding of transnational processes through the role of sport in global change. The Introduction argues that sport, like globalization, can be understood in transdisciplinary terms, and the papers included contributions informed by sociology, anthropology, political sciences and history. As well as placing the issue in the context of recent studies of sport and globalization, the Introduction outlines the seven papers. Placed together they move from analyses of broader globalizing and multi-sport issues towards consideration of how transnational processes impact upon individual sports – with examples from cricket, baseball and association football – ending with regional and national dimensions.
Sport in Society, 2023
Since 2020, the politics of sport have been transformed: traditional assumptions about the role of sport in exercising its power and exerting its influence in areas once regarded as taboo have changed. This commentary paper is based on qualitative responses drawn from an online sample of 1067 participants, who were invited to share their perspectives on a variety of issues regarding the politics of sport. It documents the end of the separation of sport and politics and explores how fans respond to sport’s new involvement in social and moral affairs, such as racism and other forms of inequality. The majority of fans understand that sport offers an effective platform and think it should use its capacity to influence change. However, a minority maintain that sport’s independence from political and social spheres should remain.
Defiant ACT: challenging the hegemony of a sport’s national governing body
Playing with/as the political: Sport as a field for politics, power, difference and resistance, Wits Centre for Diversity Studies 8th International Conference, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, 2022
Ardagh Community Trust (ACT) is a small charity in Bristol, UK, that manages an ex-local authority sports and leisure facility - the Ardagh - located within a council-owned green space. The Ardagh site is 14,000m² and includes a partially refurbished pavilion with Community Café and public toilets, volunteer-maintained public gardens and 11 multi-sports courts that are free to use. When the Ardagh sports pavilion was built in the 1920s, it sat at the very edge of the city and provided facilities for lawn bowling and lawn tennis. Greater Bristol’s population has nearly doubled over the past century and the Ardagh’s original facilities became increasingly ill-equipped to serve the urban communities that grew up around it. The site had been in managed decline for 20 years when ACT took over management of the site through a community asset transfer lease in 2019 - following a 10-year campaign to persuade the local authority of its value for the local community. This paper will outline how ACT was formed by local people in response to Bristol City Council’s attempts sell the Ardagh for development; how ACT endeavoured to collaborate with, among others, a UK sport’s governing body to both save the site from sale and regenerate it to better serve the needs of local communities; and how this collaboration was ultimately undermined by that body’s actions. Through analysis of these actions, it will be argued that the ‘dominatory formations and practices of power’* that the governing body in question endeavoured to exercise evidenced a desire to maintain its historically rooted classed, raced and material privilege. Further, it will be argued that unless such practices are recognised and critiqued, they will continue to perpetuate unwarranted distinctions and hierarchies that have no place in contemporary sports or communities. *Erika Cudworth (2005) Developing Ecofeminist Theory: The Complexity of Difference (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan) p.7