The eight chapters in this book explore more than 150 years of the development of several modern sports – baseball, basketball, cricket, football, handball, ice hockey and lacrosse – across the two Americas, Asia, Australia and Europe, some analysing a century of events since the mid-nineteenth century and some only a few years in the very present. Drawing on the methods of history, international relations, political science, and sociology, the contributing authors examine various theories of sporting globalization. The chapters take a balanced look at the concepts of the nation state and the connected world, which are the substantive core around which modern human society is ordered. They construct stories of entanglements and convergences, from within and without the nation state, in which the national and the non-national are not mutually exclusive. The key features of this collection are how cultural elements are introduced to sport, how changes are perceived, how sporting practices and institutions can be defined at geopolitical and other levels, how we might conceptualize the perimeter of judging the national–transnational or the local–translocal paradigms, and how we could complicate the understanding of sport/knowledge transfer by ascribing different degrees of importance to origin, process, purpose, outcome, personnel and network. This book is a multidisciplinary exploration into the development of modern sporting culture from global and transnational history perspectives. The chapters originally published as a special issue in Sport in Society.
This book tackles issues of globalization in the English Premier League and unpicks what this means to fan groups around the world, drawing upon a range of sociological theories to tell the story of the local and global repertoires of action emanating from the popular protests at Liverpool and Manchester United football clubs.
This book contributes to recent debates in transnationalism, mobilities and migration studies by offering the first in-depth sociological examination of the global phenomenon of action sports and the transnational networks and connections being established within and across local contexts around the world.
In this impressive book, Barbara Keys offers the first major study of the political and cultural ramifications of international sports competitions in the decades before World War II. Focusing on the United States, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union, she examines the transformation of events like the Olympic Games and the World Cup from relatively small-scale events to the expensive, political, globally popular extravaganzas familiar to us today.
Debates around the ‘sport for development and peace’ (SDP) movement have entered a new phase, moving on from simple questions surrounding the utility of sport as a tool of international development. Beyond Sport for Development and Peace argues that critical research and new perspectives and methodologies are necessary to balance the local aspects and global influences of sport and to better understand the power relations embedded in SDP on a transnational scale. As the era of the Millennium Development Goals gives way to a new agenda for sustainable development, this book considers the position of SDP. The book brings together contributors from 15 different countries across the developed and developing worlds, including academic researchers and ‘on the ground’ experts, practitioners and policy-makers, to provide one of the most diverse set of perspectives assembled in SDP scholarship. Looking to the renewed development agenda, its authors explore theoretical, policy and practical dimensions that address the broadening geographical and cultural spread of SDP, the emergence of issues such as child protection within it, its increased capacity for critical reflection on practice, and its potential for new collaborative approaches to knowledge production. Through its combination of academically-led chapters paired with practice-oriented ‘responses’ it offers an important reconceptualization of SDP as a contributor to development policy, and opens up important new avenues for studying and ‘practising’ SDP. Beyond Sport for Development and Peace is therefore essential reading for all researchers, advanced students, policy-makers and practitioners working in sport development or international development.
In Foreign Fields examines the lives, decisions and challenges faced by transnational sport migrants -- those professionals working in the sports industry who cross borders as part of their professional lives. Despite a great deal of romance surrounding international celebrity athletes, the vast majority of transnational sport migrants -- players, journalists, coaches, administrators and medical personnel -- toil far away from the limelight. Based on twelve years of ethnographic research conducted on three continents, Thomas F. Carter traces their lives, routes and experiences, documenting their travels and travails. He argues that far from the ease of mobility that celebrity sports stars enjoy, the vast majority of transnational sports migrants make huge sacrifices and labor under political restrictions, often enforced by sport's governing bodies. This unique and clearly written study will make fascinating reading for anthropologists, sociologists and anyone interested in the lives of those who follow their sporting dreams.
"Transnational Social Movements and Global Social Politics examines a cast of global actors left out of the traditional studies of international politics. It generates a theoretically informed view of the relationships between an emerging global civil society - partly manifested in transnational social movements - and international political institutions. This book consists of fifteen essays, all written by experts in the field. The first three parts analyze the rise of transnational social movements in the context of broad twentieth-century trends. A fourth part builds a theoretical framework from which organizations influencing global governance can be viewed."--
This timely book provides an engaging, clear view of the interrelationships within key globalization processes and the international sport of football. Intelligently combining the conceptual and methodological aspects of global studies with the specific cultural conditions of the ′beautiful game′ Giulianotti and Robertson illuminate its social history and diffusion, as well as wider cultural, economic, political and social dimensions. Using football to chart an increasing global connectivity, or globality, the authors explore how the game may be understood as a metric, mirror, motor and metaphor of globalization Issues discussed include: - Transnational Identities and the Global Civil Society, - Cosmopolitanism & Americanization, - Neo-Liberalism, Inequalities and Transnational Clubs, - Politics, Nations, and International Governance, Ideal for students and lecturers concerned with the sociology of sport, globalization and international cultural studies - the book will be of interest to anyone keen to map the intricate ways in which transnational processes may impact upon particular domains of social life.
Sport presents one of the most advanced cases of 'globalisation,' arguably because there are fewer cultural and political obstacles to the development of trade and international power in sport than there are in other fields. Thus there has been a change in the nature of the politics of sport since the end of the Cold War; the subject must be rewritten to acknowledge a twenty-first century world in which international sporting organisations and transnational corporations have become far more important than states. The Global Politics of Sport presents a range of essays examining the emerging global political issues in twenty-first century sport including: · The role, and power of organisations such as FIFA and the IOC · The influence of US exceptionalism · The construction of global sports heroes · Tensions developing within traditionally 'alternative' sports in a global commercial culture The Global Politics of Sport presents new and fresh exploration of different conceptions of sport as a purely commercial activity and as an activity as embodying 'higher' social and ethical values.