In Sport Realism: A Law-Inspired Theory of Sport, Aaron Harper defends a new theory of sport-sport realism-to show how rules, traditions, and officiating decisions define the way sport is played. He argues that sport realism, broadly inspired by elements of legal realism, best explains how players, coaches, officials, and fans participate in sport. It accepts that decisions in sport will derive from a variety of reasons and influences, which are taken into account by participants who aim to predict how officials will make future rulings. Harper extends this theoretical work to normative topics, applying sport realist analysis to numerous philosophical debates and ethical dilemmas in sport. Later chapters include investigations into rules disputes, strategic fouls, replay, and makeup calls, as well as the issue of cheating in sport. The numerous examples and case studies throughout the book provide a wide-ranging and illuminating study of sport, ranging from professional sports to pick-up games.

This book examines aspects of sport which Britain nurtured within its own culture and also transmitted to overseas territories with the expansion of empire.

The Olympic Games is undoubtedly the greatest sporting event in the world, with over 200 countries competing for success. This important new study of the Olympics investigates why some countries are more successful than others. Which factors determine their failure or success? What is the relationship between these factors? And how can these factors be manipulated to influence a country's performance in sport? This book addresses these questions and discusses the theoretical concepts that explain why national sporting success has become a policy priority around the globe. Danyel Reiche reassesses our understanding of success in sport and challenges the conventional explanations that population size and economic strength are the main determinants for a country's Olympic achievements. He presents a theory of countries' success and failure, based on detailed investigations of the relationships between a wide variety of factors that influence a country's position in the Olympic medals table, including geography, ideology, policies such as focusing on medal promising sports, home advantage and the promotion of women. This book fills a long-standing gap in literature on the Olympics and will provide valuable insights for all students, scholars, policy makers and journalists interested in the Olympic Games and the wider relationship between sport, politics, and nationalism.

In recent years the interest in the patterns and policies of South African sport has grown. This book examines the increasingly complex issue of race, class and sport in the context of South African social relations. The author disputes evaluations made purely on the question of race, maintaining that it is important to examine the complex interaction between racial and class dynamics as a background for understanding the South African way of life. The book demonstrates that sport must be understood in the context of the ensemble of social relations characterizing the South African social formation.

In this provocative new book, Tony Blackshaw argues that Leisure Studies is in a quiet but deep state of crisis. The twenty-first century has brought profound change to all aspects of society, including a plurality of new leisure worlds, and traditional concepts of Leisure Studies fail to capture this richness. This book aims to re-invigorate Leisure Studies by revealing and unpacking these leisure worlds, thereby changing the way we think about leisure and the way we do Leisure Studies. Both trivial and serious in its implications, it is precisely this paradox that makes leisure such a fascinating subject of study. Re-Imagining Leisure Studies presents a new and radical set of methodological rules for studying leisure trends and cultures in contemporary society. It discusses the critical issues that underpin recent developments in leisure theory and explores the key themes of social class, community, politics, freedom and globalization. Marking a turning point in the reception and understanding of Leisure Studies, this book is vital reading for all students and scholars with a social scientific interest in leisure.

Games and Sporting Events in History offers a broad global perspective on sports and games in Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia. A diverse set of topics covers education, medicine, therapy, body culture, gender, race, cross cultural flow, and political issues from the late nineteenth century throughout the twentieth century, offering new insights into previously little researched areas of scholarship relating to physical activity and sport. Such works take a new look at old issues with continued relevance to current works. The use of sports as a political tool are prominent in studies persistent to national and international relations; while other investigations cover the sociocultural discourse of the past relative to bodies and physical performances that continue to resonate in modern times. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Global Perspectives of Sport and Physical Culture is a compilation of diverse essays derived from the works of prominent international scholars that address significant international issues relative to sporting practices from a historical perspective. A variety of movement cultures are examined and analysed, such as various aspects of the turner and gymnastic movements, the transnational development of dance, competitive sport, non-competitive performance, and mountaineering. Michael Krugers introductory chapter sets a framework for analysis with a historiographical and philosophical treatment of modern sport as an example of nationalism, internationalism and cultural imperialism. The succeeding chapters discuss the confrontation of commercialization with national interests, the importance of gender in the construction of various movement cultures, as well as the conditions and circumstances that effect societal and cultural change. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

First published in 1980. This book is a study of what different classes of society understood by leisure and how they enjoyed it. It argues that many of the assumptions which have underlain the history of leisure are misleading, and in particular the notions that there was a vacuum in popular leisure in the early Industrial Revolution; that with industrialisation there was sharp discontinuity with the past; that cultural forms diffuse themselves only down the social scale, and that leisure helped ease class distinctions. An alternative interpretation is suggested in which popular culture can be seen as an active agent as well as a victim. This title will be of interest to students of history.

Sport History is a growing field of study in Brazil. In the past decades, scholars from different areas have taken an increasing interest in studying how sports help us in understanding broader social, cultural, political and economic aspects of society. Barriers of language have often distanced Brazilian historiography from the international community which makes this volume in English especially important as a contribution to the field. In the last decade, Brazil has been on the spotlight of international sporting events and with the staging of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, in Rio de Janeiro, the world is focused on Brazilian sports, and this book provides a route into understanding it. Brazilian Sports History offers a glimpse into the work of ten Brazilian leading sport historians, exploring topics as diverse as sports in 19th-century Brazil, the political aspects of sport in Brazilian authoritarian regimes, sport and environment, the image of Brazilian women and sport, sport as a Brazilian intangible cultural heritage and the importance of staging mega sporting events in Brazilian politics. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Providing a unique analysis of current multidisciplinary research on the complex relationships between tourism and the imaginaries of tourist destinations, this book traces the links between tourism imaginaries and their religious (heaven) and political (utopia) antecedents. The substantive chapters are organised into three main thematic sections, the first explores the touristic production and consumption of place imaginaries, the second analyses the way places are practiced through imaginaries and the role imaginaries play in the tourist experience and the final section explores the way images and the media participate in the creation of tourism imaginaries.

This multidisciplinary book draws on sociology, cultural studies, anthropology and history, to explore the diversity, challenges and achievements of Latin American women in sport. It offers an in-depth analysis of women's sport in ten countries across Latin America, insights into the sport activities of indigenous peoples, and the contributions of Latin American women to sport living outside of the region. The book also provides a comprehensive overview of international developments in gender and sport research, policy development and theory, and addresses sport participation at many levels including in school-based physical education, community and high performance contexts.

AAA videogames often offer expansive experiences to the millions who engage with the medium, but they are vulnerable to disruption from neoliberal structures. The Corruption of Play explores how neoliberal ideology corrupts play in AAA videogames by creating conditions in which play becomes unbound from leisure, allowing play to be understood, undertaken, and assessed in economic terms, and fundamentally undermining the nature of play. Providing a cutting-edge and innovative approach to this problem, McMahon uses cognitive mapping to make neoliberalism visible in play-space, showcasing a new way of seeing and understanding how play is enabled and how the player forms an understanding of themselves by it. How does the player form their sense of self in the videogame? What level of agency does the player have? How are AAA videogames consumed and what is the extent of the corruption of play? Offering a timely level-up to the existing critical work on videogames, McMahon's revelations that play in AAA videogames does not often occur under ideal conditions due to the influence of neoliberal ideology are a captivating read for communication and media scholars interested in videogames. Understanding that play should be a core activity, and a natural barrier to market and economic logics, McMahon sets the scene for equipping us to understand how the process of neo liberalisation can be resisted.

Social theorists have claimed that modern life, being increasingly risky and uncertain, is profoundly affecting experiences of everyday life and our sense of self. Drawing upon empirical and theoretical work on young people's risk taking and leisure, this book examines such claims in detail. Various authors apply and respond to notions of "risk society" by grounding such ideas in specific perceptions of risk and practices of risk management, revealing the complexity of risk and its social and gender specific nature.

This book is the first to focus on why and how foreign Western women engage in cross-border sexual and intimate relations as tourists travelling, or temporarily dwelling, in a Central American country. As an in-depth ethnographic account, the book traces the experiences of heterosexual North American and European women's transnational encounters, and examines new sexual and social practices arising from contemporary global tourism, shifting sexual cultures both at home and abroad, consumer culture, and women's increasing mobility. The book combines descriptions of women's travels and sexual relations across racial and class boundaries with feminism, postcolonial theory, and poststructuralist theories of gender and sexuality, to show how tourism as a wide range and set of desires serves as a central shaping force in the formation of women's sexual subjectivities in contemporary life in postindustrial capitalism. In doing so it offers new insights into how tourist women express heterosexuality shaped by gender, race, class, and identities. This fascinating book, focusing on the structure of tourism and role of local culture and social organization in the shoring-up of desire, develops a unique contribution to the understanding of sex tourism. It will be of interest not only to tourism scholars, but also to those interested in sexuality, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, women studies, gender studies, and geography.

This reference volume reflects the changing world of work. It includes research on the various dimensions of work, such as the structure of the labour force, labour market segmentation, technology, employment/unemployment, trade unions, and industrial democracy. This book provides an integrated view of the various dimensions of work, its distinguishing characteristics and issues both peculiar, as well as common to industrialized countries. By adopting an interdisciplinary and interactional perspective, this volume provides the scholar and the lay reader with a range of approaches and debates that have made a significant contribution toward understanding the changing nature of work and its social impact.

There is a clear sense in which sport has played, and continues to play an important role in the normalization and legitimization of routine, excessive and problem drinking; sport and alcohol have become inextricably linked. Alcohol companies provide funding in the form of sponsorship, fans consume alcohol when watching, and players celebrate, bond and relax with alcohol. Sport and Alcohol: an ethical perspective aims to critically examine the various ways in which sport and alcohol interact. In doing so, the book casts an ethical eye over the following topics: Society's relationship with alcohol Sponsorship and marketing of alcohol through sport and its effect on children Sport's alcohol-tolerant ethos, problematic drinking practices and rituals Punishment and discipline in relation to athletes' drink-related bad behavior Alcoholism in the context of sport and the need for a greater understanding of the condition, how it develops and what can be done The status of athletes as role models Offering a much-needed critical assessment of an important issue in contemporary sport and society, Sport and Alcohol is essential reading for those interested in the social, cultural or philosophical study of sport in general and sport and alcohol in particular.

This comprehensive collection provides an overview of social scientific perspectives on Olympic legacy, using specialist analyses and selected cases to illuminate the recurring anthropological, political, and sociological dimensions of the legacy debate. Drawing upon research conducted on the Beijing, Vancouver, Athens, London and Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, it identifies the recurrent rhetoric that has characterised the legacy debate, alongside the harsh realities that contradict many legacies and aspirations. Fifteen researchers from six countries contribute a range of critical analytical studies which explore macro-perspectives on the shifting political economy symbolized at Beijing or in an over-reaching Greece, the soft power benefits perceived by the Rio 2016 organizers, the anthropological study of neighbourhood spaces threatened by corporate branding, and the apparatus of surveillance surrounding an Olympic Games. The symbolic importance of the Games is also captured in studies of volunteer motivations, labour and work initiatives, and the introduction of women's boxing at London 2012. In a comprehensive overview, Alan Tomlinson illuminates the rhetoric of successive Olympic cycles and the rise to prominence of the legacy question in that debate. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Social Science.

Pointing the way to the future of research and development in relation to cycling as a mode of transport, this book investigates some of the significant recent developments in the technology, provision for, and take up of cycling in various parts of the world. Tensions at the heart of the nature of cycling remain: on the one hand cycling is frequently viewed as being a risky activity, while on the other hand it is seen as being a way of allowing populations to live healthier lives. Reviewing this dichotomy, the authors in this book consider the ways that cycling is planned and promoted. This is done partly in relation to these issues of risk and health, but also from the broader perspective of behavioural response to the changing nature of cycling. A section on methodologies is also included which outlines the current state-of-the art and points a way to future research.

Football has become one of the most mediated cultural practices in modern Western societies, providing players, officials and spectators with implicit and often hidden discourses about race/ethnicity, national identity and gender. This book provides new and critical insights into how mediated football as a contested cultural practice influences, and is influenced by, discourses and stereotypes about race/ethnicity, nation and gender that operate at the local, national and global level. It analyzes both contemporary media representations and the ways these representations are negotiated, interpreted and used by football media audiences. These issues are explored across all media genres (print media, television, online, social media, film, and so forth) in a multidisciplinary and cross-cultural manner, with contributions from diverse disciplines and countries. This book was originally published as a special issue of Soccer and Society.

Second homes (variously summer houses, shacks, baches, cottages, dacha) are a popular cultural phenomenon in many countries and an emerging trend in others. They are inextricably linked to tourism, recreation and leisure, and yet the fundamental relationship between second homes and leisure often appears to have been overlooked by researchers in the area. This book seeks to address this absence, bringing together an exciting collection of research from around the world. Drawing on examples from Canada, Japan, Morocco, Costa Rica, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, this book highlights the interdisciplinary nature of second home research in the leisure field. The book describes the nexus of second homes and leisure from a variety of perspectives: planning and policy, historical, social and cultural. It is an essential work for those interested in new cultural viewpoints on second homes and leisure practices. This book was originally published as a special issue of Annals of Leisure Research.

The mention of sport mega-events conjures up images and memories of London 2012 or anticipation of FIFA 2014, the 2016 Rio Olympics and beyond. Indeed, the expanding annual calendar of sport mega-events, both in terms of the bidding process and the actual hosting of the event means that there is rarely time for considered reflection. This is particularly true within the context of neo-liberalism and an obsession with creating world class 'sporting' cities that are propelled by state-private promotional discourses that often silence oppositional voices. This edited collection focuses on Rugby World Cup 2011 in order to examine the contested terrain of one particular sport mega-event with respect to its economic, political and cultural impact both locally and globally. As an event, the 2011 Rugby World Cup was unique in many ways but perhaps the most notable are the nation's remote geographic location and at just over four million people - its small population. This anthology addresses how the Rugby World Cup has changed since its inception in 1987 including a major shift in the globalisation of the game, professionalization, player migration and television and sponsorship rights. The core of the anthology explores how the event impacted on various segments of New Zealand society: from the state to regions and individual citizens. Collectively the implications are relevant for all who are interested in sport mega-events whether it is from a political, economic, scholarly or policy perspective. This book was published a sa special issue of Sport and Society.

This book examines Australia's sporting relationships with the Asian region during the interwar period. Until now, Australia's sporting relationships with the Asian region have been neglected by scholars of Australian and Asian sports history, and the broader field of Australia's Asian context. Concentrating on the period of the 1920s and 1930s - when sporting relationships between Australia and a number of Asian nations emerged in a variety of sports - this book demonstrates the depth of these previously under-examined connections. The book challenges, and complicates, the broader historiography of Australia's Asian context - a historiography that has been strongly influenced by the White Australia Policy and the Pacific War. Why, for example, did white Australia so warmly welcome visiting Japanese sportsmen at a time when the Pacific region appeared to be inexorably sliding into a war that was informed by racial antagonisms? This book examines sporting relations between Australia and seven Asian countries (China, Japan, India, Netherlands East Indies, Philippines, Malaya and Singapore) and a range of sports including rugby, football, swimming, hockey, boxing, cricket and tennis. This book was published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

This is the first handbook devoted entirely to leisure theory, charting the history and philosophy of leisure, theories in religion and culture, and rational theories of leisure in the Western philosophical tradition, as well as a range of socio-cultural theories from thinkers such as Adorno, Bauman, Weber and Marx. Drawing on contributions from experts in leisure studies from around the world, the four sections cover: traditional theories of leisure; rational theories of leisure; structural theories of leisure; and post-structural theories of leisure. The Palgrave Handbook of Leisure Theory is essential reading for students and scholars working in leisure studies, social theory as well as those working on the problem of leisure in the wider humanities and social sciences.

The London Olympics of 2012 acted as a focal point for an examination of UK sport policy. Individual chapters from leading specialists in their fields focus upon the central components of the UK's 'model' of sport - for example elite, school and community sport and talent ID policies - and discuss what kind of 'legacy' 2012 is likely to leave on the sports landscape in years to come. The concept 'legacy' is a common theme running through all contributions which themselves stem from a wide variety of academic disciplines and sub-disciplines, including sport psychology, political science, sports studies, cultural studies and sociology. A wide range of topics and organisations are covered throughout the volume, including coaching, talent ID, school sports partnerships, PE and youth sport, participation in sport, the IOC and the Olympic Charter, the Olympic Movement and Islamic Culture and, finally, issues of regeneration through sports mega-events. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of Sport Policy.

Filling a gap in the literature on the history of sport in Europe, the book brings together complementary studies on diverse aspects of the interrelation between sport and urban space. Going from geography to political science, from sports history to urban and transport history, it suggests a three-fold approach. A first thematic group of researches ranges around "Sport Development and Urban Spaces", exploring the impact of the city on the rise of sport. A second focal point is related to "Sport Policies and Local Identities" with a special attention given to the making of sport venues and competitions in the making of urban identity. A third thematic group includes studies on "Sport Facilities, Engineers and Workers". The articulation of the three parts builds a unique contribution to the process of identity making at a European level. This book was published a sa special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.