What is the nature of athletic performance? This book offers an answer to this fascinating question by considering the relationship between sport, technology and the body. Specifically, it examines cultural resistance to the enhancement of athletes and explores the ways in which performance technologies complicate and confound our conception of the sporting body. The book addresses concerns about the technological "invasion" of the "natural" body to investigate expectations that athletic performances reflect nothing more than the actual capacity of the untainted athlete. By examining a series of case studies, including Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, Fastskin swimsuits, hypoxic chambers and an array of illicit substances and methods, the book distinguishes between internal and external technologies to highlight the ways that performance enhancement, and public reaction to it, can be read. Sport, Technology and the Body offers a powerful challenge to conventional views of athletic performance that stand authenticity against artifice, integrity against corruption, and athletic purity against technological intrusion. It is essential reading for all serious students of the sociology, culture or ethics of sport.

Music and sport are both highly significant cultural forms, yet the substantial and longstanding connections between the two have largely been overlooked. Sporting Sounds addresses this oversight in an intriguing and innovative collection of essays.

With contributions from leading international psychologists, sociologists, historians, musicologists and specialists in sports and cultural studies, the book illuminates our understanding of the vital part music has played in the performance, reception and commodification of sport. It explores a fascinating range of topics and case studies, including:

• The use of music to enhance sporting performance

• Professional applications of music in sport

• Sporting anthems as historical commemorations

• Music at the Olympics

• Supporter rock music in Swedish sport

• Caribbean cricket and calypso music

From local fan cultures to international mega-events, music and sport are inextricably entwined. Sporting Sounds is a stimulating and illuminating read for anybody with an interest in either of these cultural forms.

This is the first book to address the gap in the literature linking the physical culture of the ancient world with the beginnings of modern sport, this original book traces the history of the evolution of a variety of sport, games and physical education from 450-1650AD across Western Europe. Drawing on primary sources, this book takes a thematic approach, looking at the changing nature of geopolitical structures, educational systems, religious institutions and the practice of warfare and medicine and goes on to trace the disappearance of ancient physical culture with its gymnasia, gladiators and chariot races, the invention of a new physical culture based on chivalry around 1000AD, the transformation of that culture in the Renaissance, and its disappearance around 1650 under the influences of new science. Offering a new and original perspective on the relationship between sport and society, this unique study will be of great interest to all historians of sport and culture.

Science and Racket Sports IV presents a selection of important contemporary research into the four core racket sport disciplines of tennis, badminton, squash and table tennis. It showcases the best of the peer-reviewed papers and keynote addresses presented at the Fourth World Congress of Science and Racket Sports, Madrid. Including contributions from many of the world's leading racket sport scientists, researchers and practitioners, the book details cutting-edge research in six key areas: Physiology Biomechanics Sports medicine Psychology Performance analysis Pedagogy, sociology and coach education This invaluable collection touches on the most important issues within contemporary sport science, and explores the full range of theoretical, experimental and applied work within the study of racket sports. It is essential reading for all sports scientists, sports physicians, therapists and coaches working in this area.

The scientific and technological advances that influence the protection of cultural heritage are developing at an ever-increasing pace. Systems to explore, research and analyse their materiality, to control the different scopes, or to represent and model them have reached an unprecedented dimension in recent decades. The Network of Science and Technology for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage aims to promote collaboration between the agents of these systems, in order to facilitate the sharing of experiences and to foster technology transfer, with the common goal of contributing to the conservation of Cultural Heritage. In the context of the TechnoHeritage Network, the fourth edition of the International Congress on Science and Technology for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage was held March 26-30, 2019, in Seville, Spain. This Congress was an international meeting of researchers and specialists from multiple areas, whose line of work is the knowledge and conservation of Cultural Heritage. Among all the topics discussed, the role and impact of digital technologies for the knowledge, maintenance, management and dissemination of cultural heritage should be highlighted. Digital media modify the way of understanding this heritage, of perceiving it and transmitting it, and offer a new horizon of strategies to make decision-making more sustainable over time.

Sports have long played an important role in society. By exploring the evolving link between sporting behaviour and the prevailing ethics of the time this comprehensive and wide-ranging study illuminates our understanding of the wider social significance of sport.

The primary aim of Sports, Virtues and Vices is to situate ethics at the heart of sports via 'virtue ethical' considerations that can be traced back to the gymnasia of ancient Greece. The central theme running through the book is that sports are effectively modern morality plays: universal practices of moral education for the masses and - when coached, officiated and played properly - a valuable vehicle for ethical development.

Including a wealth of contemporary sporting examples, the book explores key ethical issues such as:

• How the pursuit of sporting excellence can lead to harm
• Doping, greed and shame
• Biomedical technology as a challenge to the virtue of elite athletes
• Defining a 'virtue ethical account' in sport
• Family vices and virtues in sport

Written by one of the world's foremost sports philosophers, this book powerfully unites the fields of sports ethics and medical ethics. It is essential reading for all students and scholars with an interest in the ethics and philosophy of sport.

Sports have long played an important role in society. By exploring the evolving link between sporting behaviour and the prevailing ethics of the time this comprehensive and wide-ranging study illuminates our understanding of the wider social significance of sport. The primary aim of Sports, Virtues and Vices is to situate ethics at the heart of sports via 'virtue ethical' considerations that can be traced back to the gymnasia of ancient Greece. The central theme running through the book is that sports are effectively modern morality plays: universal practices of moral education for the masses and - when coached, officiated and played properly - a valuable vehicle for ethical development. Including a wealth of contemporary sporting examples, the book explores key ethical issues such as: How the pursuit of sporting excellence can lead to harm Doping, greed and shame Biomedical technology as a challenge to the virtue of elite athletes Defining a 'virtue ethical account' in sport Family vices and virtues in sport Written by one of the world's foremost sports philosophers, this book powerfully unites the fields of sports ethics and medical ethics. It is essential reading for all students and scholars with an interest in the ethics and philosophy of sport.

Anthropocene Ecologies brings political ecology and tourism studies to bear on the Anthropocene. Through a collective examination of political ecologies of the Anthropocene by leading scholars in anthropology, geography and tourism studies, the book addresses critical themes of gender, health, conservation, agriculture, climate change, disaster, coastal marine management and sustainability. Each chapter theoretically and empirically unravels entanglements of tourism, nature and imagination to expose the political-ecological drivers of the Anthropocene as a material and symbolic force and its deepening integration with tourism. Grounded in ethnographic and qualitative research, the volume is interdisciplinary in scope, yet linked in its shared focus on the political threat as well as the social potential of the Anthropocene and its imaginaries. This collection contributes to emerging scholarship on tourism, sustainability and global environmental change in the current geological epoch. Anthropocene Ecologies will be of great interest to political ecology focused scholars of tourism, socio-environmental change and the Anthropocene. The chapters were originally published as a special issue in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

What can the history of a nation's football reveal about that nation's wider political and socio-cultural identity? How can the study of local football culture help us to understand the powerful international forces at play within the modern game? Based on long-term and detailed ethnographic research, this book uses Malta as a critical case study to explore the dynamics of contemporary football. Situated on the fringes of the EU, and with an appalling record in international competition, the Maltese are nevertheless fanatical about the game. This book examines Maltese football in the context of the island's unique politics, culture and national identity, shedding light upon both Maltese society and on broader processes, both local and global, within the international game. The book explores a range of key issues in contemporary football, such as: the dynamics of international player migration; football corruption and ethics; the politics of sponsorship and TV deals; and the global appeal of footballing brands such as Manchester United, Juventus and Bayern Munich. This book is essential reading for students and researchers working in Sports Studies, Sociology of Sport, Football, Globalisation, Politics and Ethnic Studies.

Despite the importance of sport as a social, economic and political institution, research into sport and social capital has not been extensive. Sport and Social Capital is the first book to examine this increasingly high profile area in detail. It explores the ways in which sport contributes to the creation, development, maintenance and, in some cases, diminution of social capital. Written by an internationally renowned author team who are leading figures in this area of study, this engaging and far-reaching text brings leading research from around the world into one comprehensively edited volume.Themes covered in the book include: education, gender, policy, community, youth sport, diversity and many more. It is essential reading for sport management, sport development and sport sociology students around the globe and offers fascinating and invaluable insight to interested stakeholders from industry, community and government. This is a progressive text which is the first book to explore sport's increasingly important contribution to social capital. It is written by the top authors in this field and comprehensively edited into a unified volume. It analyses the importance of sport and its relationship to social capital within local, national and international communities.

Sex, gender and sexuality have played an important role in shaping the culture of surfing and are central themes in the study of sport and movement cultures. Rooted in a rich precolonial history, surfing has undergone a modern transformation shaped by visual culture, commodification, sportization, mediatization and globalization, arguably all linked to sex, gender and sexuality. Using the physical culture of surfing as its focus, this international collection discusses the complex relationships between surfing, sex/es, gender/s and sexuality/ies. This book crosses new theoretical, empirical and methodological boundaries by exploring themes and issues such as indigenous histories, exploitation, the marginalized, race, ethnicity, disability, counter cultures, transgressions and queering. Offering original insights into surfing's symbolism, postcolonialism, patriocolonial whiteness and heteronormativity, its chapters are connected by a collective aspiration to document sex/es, gender/s and sexuality/ies as they are shaped by surfing and, importantly, as they re-shape the many, possibly previously unknown, worlds of surfing. Surfing, Sex, Genders and Sexualities is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the sociology of sport or gender and sexuality studies.

Expansion of the Paralympic Games has to some extent mirrored expansion of the mainstream Olympics and the event now constitutes an internationally significant sporting festival. This book examines the development of the Paralympics and asks whether we are justified in describing the Games as a vehicle for the empowerment of the disabled community.

A highly successful paralympian athlete in his own right, David Howe uses ethnographic research methods to investigate the economic, social, cultural and political processes shaping the Paralympic movement on a local and global scale, and develops a new theory of the relationship between sport, the body and the culture of disability.

By critiquing contemporary attitudes to disability within sport and within society more generally, and by challenging the orthodox view of the Paralympics as a vehicle for empowerment, this book raises important questions and debates crucial to the study of sociology and sports studies.

Contemporary society is highly media-saturated, and no sector more so than sport. Drawing on case studies from the Tour de France to fitness apps, this book introduces the concept of 'mediatization' and examines how media - historically and currently - are significant drivers for social and cultural change in sport. Utilizing different analytical approaches, case studies illustrate how so-called legacy media have historically been involved in the establishment of the institution of sport and have persistently been heavily involved in structural changes in the same domain. However, digital media currently add significantly to the development of a more complex picture of globalized interdependencies and still growing media presence in all aspects of the everyday lives of both sporting organizations, athletes and audiences/fans. The book seeks to eschew media centrism, acknowledging that changes are not only 'driven' by media but also related to other macro-social forces of change, such as globalization, commercialization, and individualization. Offering a new analytical framework, Sport and Mediatization enables students and scholars in the transdisciplinary field of media and sports studies to analyze and understand the influence of media in a much more complex environment.

Communication is key to success in every aspect of life and ever so in a competitive business environment. This book examines managerial communication from seminal theoretical and demonstrative vantage points through interdisciplinary amalgamation of sciences and the liberal arts. It presents new paradigms of managerial communication in the form of manoeuvres that can act as game changers in tug-of-war business situations, including difficult negotiations, conflicts and interpersonal dissonance that characterise the day-to-day corporate workplace tenor. This volume: Develops persuasion strategies based on argumentation tactics derived, for example, from legal cross-examination. Introduces 'problematisation' and 'deconstruction' as effective communication tools into mainstream managerial discourse. Employs Harvard Business School cases to demonstrate problem-solving skills, which will further serve as guide to writing business reports, plans and proposals. Positions business writing methods as taxonomical tenets that can help tackle complex business scenarios. Draws business diagnostic procedures from diverse fields such as Sherlock Holmes from popular culture, and Jared M. Diamond from ecology. This book will be a significant resource for business communication practitioners, especially corporate managers and leaders, sales and marketing professionals, and policymakers. It will be of interest to teachers and students alike, in business communication, organization behaviour, human resource management and marketing communications. It will act as a useful aid for classroom efficacy for teachers and academics.

What is the relationship between sport and human rights? Can sport protect and enhance the human rights of competitors and sport workers? Can it also undermine those rights?

These topical issues are among the many that are explored in this groundbreaking volume which analyzes how sports both contribute to, and undermine the human rights of participants, spectators and workers. The papers are written by esteemed academics whose work is at the cutting-edge of this burgeoning area of study. Experts from around the world have contributed to this important work, and examine controversial issues such as:

* sexual harassment
* racism
* freedom of movement
* sport as popular protest.

This book was previously published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

The ideal of the amateur competitor, playing the game for love and, unlike the professional, totally untainted by commerce, has become embedded in many accounts of the development of modern sport. It has proved influential not least because it has underpinned a pervasive impression of professionalism - and all that came with it - as a betrayal of innocence, a fall from sporting grace. In the essays collected here, amateurism, both as ideology and practice, is subject to critical and unsentimental scrutiny, effectively challenging the dominant narrative of more conventional histories of British sport. Most modern sports, even those where professionalism developed rapidly, originated in an era when the gentlemanly amateur predominated, both in politics and society, as well as in the realm of sport. Enforcement of rules and conventions that embodied the amateur-elite ethos effectively limited opportunities for working-class competitors to 'turn the world upside down'. This book was previously published as a special issue of Sport in History.

Sport 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 heritage is increasingly being recognised as a potent instigator of tourism; be it touring a historic stadium, visiting a sports hall of fame, or participating in a sport fantasy camp, tourists now have a vast array of locations and options to experience the sporting past. This book provides the first comprehensive resource on sport heritage as a tourist attraction. Using theoretical and applied studies from researchers in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, this book finds that the sporting past is a key component in tourism's future. The convergence of heritage, sport and tourism involves many different and diverse fields, including sport tourism, heritage tourism, sport management, and sports geography. This book will serve the needs of students, researchers, industry practitioners in these fields, as well as those interested in sport heritage as a tourist attraction. This book was first published as a special issue of the Journal of Sport Tourism.

Sport is perceived to have the potential to alleviate a variety of social problems and generally to 'improve' both individuals and the communities in which they live. Sport is promoted as a relatively cost effective antidote to a range of social problems - often those stemming from social exclusion - including poor health, high crime levels, drug abuse and persistent youth offending, educational under-achievement, lack of social cohesion and community identity and economic decline. To this end, there is increasing governmental interest in what has become known as 'sport for good'. A Wider Social Role for Sport presents the political and historical context for this increased government interest in sport's potential contribution to a range of social problems. The book explores the particular social problems that governments seek to address through sport, and examines the nature and extent of the evidence for sport's positive role. It illustrates that, in an era of evidence-based policy-making, the cumulative evidence base for many of these claims is relatively weak, in part because such research is faced with substantial methodological problems in isolating the precise contribution of sport in many contexts. Drawing on worldwide research, A Wider Social Role for Sport explores the current state of knowledge and understanding of the presumed impacts of sport and suggests that we need to adopt a different approach to research and evaluation if sports researchers are to develop their understanding and make a substantial contribution to sports policy..

Sport and Christianity examines sport and Christianity from a variety of historical perspectives, with the main focus on the period from the nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries. The book is not limited to a narrow definition of Christianity, but rather encompasses a wide range of denominations, related philosophies and viewpoints. The contributors are international, and the geographical range of their chapters is equally wide, extending, for example, from China to Argentina, and from Australia to Poland. Some chapters focus on a single sport such as gymnastics, soccer or Australian Rules football, while others look at modern sports more generally. Different methodological and theoretical approaches have been adopted, as contributors enter the debates on, for example, cultural imperialism, gender, changing Christian attitudes to leisure, or the intersection between religion, politics and sport. Demonstrating the many-sided significance of the relationship between Christianity and Sport, this book is ideal for scholars of Sport History and Christianity. This book was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.

Much writing on gender and sport is focused upon the negative impact of girls' exclusion from the arena, suggesting by inference that current practice in sport and physical education offers an uncomplicatedly positive sport experience for boys, and that gender, in and of itself, offers a simple starting point for research into young people's experience of sport.

Rethinking Gender and Youth Sport seeks to articulate certain themes which, it is suggested, might contribute to broadening and furthering discussion in the area of gender, youth sport and physical activity. This collection considers a number of themes relating to gender in sport, including:

• the body
• competence, ability and school physical education
• cultural change and diversity
• gendered spaces
• human rights and well-being.

Authoritative writers have contributed thought provoking chapters which will prompt the readerto re-think the ways in which gender is understood within the context of youth sport.

This is the first text to offer a comprehensive socio-cultural and historical analysis of the current fitness culture.

Fitness today is not simply about health clubs and exercise classes, or measures of body mass index and cardiovascular endurance. Fit for Consumption conceptualizes fitness as a field within which individuals and institutions may negotiate - if not altogether reconcile - the competing and often conflicting social demands made on the individual body that characterize our current era.

Intended for researchers and senior undergraduate and postgraduate students of sport, leisure, cultural studies and the body, this book utilizes the US fitness field as a case study through which to explore the place of the body in contemporary consumer culture. Combining observations in health clubs, interviews with fitness producers and consumers, and a discourse analysis of a wide variety of fitness texts, this book provides an empirically grounded examination of one of the pressing theoretical questions of our time: how individuals learn to fit into consumer culture and the service economy; how our bodies and selves become 'fit for consumption.'

The wider adoption of a post-modern understanding of truth and knowledge, an acceptance of the prevalence of Orientalism inherent in much Western research, and the diminished significance of the 'local' within the rhetoric of globalization have all combined to constrain comparative and transnational research under the weight of theoretical and methodological concerns.

Transnational and Comparative Research in Sport addresses these difficulties in the context of sport studies, with the aim of developing typology which can be adopted to help re-establish meaningful transnational and comparative research. The book covers theoretical and substantive contexts and introduces a four-fold typology of approaches to comparative research, each supported by case studies and full discussion.

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Both a symbol of the Mubarak government's power and a component in its construction of national identity, football served as fertile ground for Egyptians to confront the regime's overthrow during the 2011 revolution. With the help of the state, appreciation for football in Egypt peaked in the late 2000s. Yet after Mubarak fell, fans questioned their previous support, calling for a reformed football for a new, postrevolutionary nation. In Egypt's Football Revolution, Carl Rommel examines the politics of football as a space for ordinary Egyptians and state forces to negotiate a masculine Egyptian chauvinism. Basing his discussion on several years of fieldwork with fans, players, journalists, and coaches, he investigates the increasing attention paid to football during the Mubarak era; its demise with the 2011 uprisings and 2012 Port Said massacre, which left seventy-two fans dead; and its recent rehabilitation. Cairo's highly organized and dedicated Ultras fans became a key revolutionary force through their antiregime activism, challenging earlier styles of fandom and making visible entrenched ties between sport and politics. As the appeal of football burst, alternative conceptions of masculinity, emotion, and politics came to the fore to demand or prevent revolution and reform.