Review of Jon Dart & Steve Wagg (eds) Sport Protest & Globalisation (original) (raw)
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.
We’re all transnational now: sport in dynamic sociocultural environments
Sport in Society, 2016
Sport has a deep, enduring attachment to nation as spatial anchor, governmental principle and romantic ideal while being simultaneously implicated in processes that strain, challenge and disrupt the sportnation nexus. Sport institutions, practices and tastes move into new territories and, correspondingly, people relocate to national spaces where they must negotiate the terms of an established sportingsocietal order in the context of a global 'media sports cultural complex'. Sport, therefore, is compulsively transnational, unevenly global, and reflexively national in character by means of multidimensional, dynamic interplay. This article focuses on how the lives of ethnically diverse, urban and mobile human subjects in Australia are interwoven with sport in ways that illuminate its capacity symbolically to bind and separate citizens/residents to extant national formations. In addressing sport's role in social inclusion/exclusion and cultural citizenship in demographically diverse societies, the article explores its positioning at the intersection of national symbols and material processes. Introduction: sport within and beyond nations Sport is a social institution and cultural form that derives much of its symbolic power from the idea of nation while, for over two centuries, increasingly exceeding the boundaries of the national in material and symbolic form (Bairner 2001). For this reason, to talk about sport in 'transnational contexts' is, in effect, to embrace all contemporary sport, including those that are highly local and more 'folk'-oriented (such as kabbadi, kho kho, jukshei and pelota) but cannot be isolated from external sporting forces. It may be more or less national, transnational or global in nature, but to be defined as sport-in short, rationalized, regulated, competitive physical play-is inevitably to be implicated in the realm of the supranational. This article is principally concerned with those sports that are most regulated, commercialized and mediated. Sport in the twenty-first century is pulled in different directions, appealing, especially when involving international competition, to nationalist frameworks and impulses, while, especially in the light of its digitally-facilitated mediation (Hutchins and Rowe 2012), creating myriad connections and points of identification. A double movement,
Assessing the sociology of sport: On culture and political economy
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 2015
On the 50th anniversary of the ISSA and IRSS, an influential scholar in the study of sport and nation, Wolfram Manzenreiter, argues in favor of a combination of micro-and macro-sociological approaches to further our understanding of sport as a universal -or anthropogenic -expression and global institution. In his assessment, the hegemonic power of the Western bloc is noted whereby Western cultural sensibilities have been transformed into universal principles about the value and framing of sport. While the emergence of globalization theory has significantly altered the formerly biased view on the spread of sport as a manifestation of societal development, a key challenge to any sociological rendering of sport remains seated in ongoing tendencies to embrace methodological nationalism and a constructionist view on mankind and culture. In considering the future, Manzenreiter notes that any attempt to de-center the study of sport faces untangling the tensions between nationalism and globalization while at the same time coming to grips with universal understandings in the face of particularized historical and cultural sensibilities.
Sport and globalization: power games and a New World order
The authors describe, analyze and evaluate sport related globalization processes with a focus on transnationalism, colonialism, imperialism, and, more generally, geopolitical developments. They provide a variety of theoretical frameworks as they explore the emergence of modern sport and its dissemination around the world. In spite of resistance by the adherents of gymnastics or traditional movement cultures, sport with its focus on competition and records became popular all over the world. Both Great Britain and the United States induced their political and cultural hegemony via the soft power of modern sport which caused reactions, e.g. resistances or adaptations of indigenous, colonized, and other affected populations. Résumé. Sport et mondialisation : jeux de pouvoirs et nouvel ordre mondial. Les auteurs décrivent, analysent etévaluent les processus de mondialisation liés au sport en met-tant l'accent sur le transnationalisme, le colonialisme, l'impérialisme et plus généralement sur lesévolutions géopolitiques. Ils fournissent ici une variété de cadres théoriques permettant d'expliquer l'´ emergence du sport moderne et sa dissémination partout dans le monde. En dépit de la résistance des partisans de la gymnastique et des pratiques corporelles présentes dans certaines cultures tradi-tionnelles, le sport est devenu populairè a l'´ echelle mondiale en mettant l'accent sur la compétition et les records. La Grande Bretagne et lesÉtats-Unis ont ainsi imposé leur hégémonie politique et culturellè a travers la puissance douce du sport moderne même si cela a entraˆıné des reactions et/ou des résistances, des adaptations de la part des sociétés indigènes colonisées, et d'autres populations affectées.
Book Review: Sport: A Critical Sociology by Richard Giulianotti
In the second edition of Sport: A Critical Sociology, Richard Giulianotti brings social theory to bear upon the world of sport, drawing on scholars including Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx, Michel Foucault and Theodor Adorno. As Giulianotti advances a sociology of sport that explores its historical and cultural contexts, underlying social structures, power relations and the identities it engenders, this collection is of interest not only to sport scholars, but also to those working in critical social theory more broadly, writes Avash Bhandari. Sport: A Critical Sociology. Richard Giulianotti. Polity. 2015.