Feminisms in Leisure Studies acknowledges and advances the contribution of feminist theories to leisure knowledge and research. Building upon the strong history of feminist leisure scholarship, the book reviews key feminist theories and offers an overview of a fourth wave of feminism and its relevance to leisure. Written by a team of leading international feminist scholars, each chapter addresses a particular theoretical perspective, using examples from each author's research to unpack methodological and substantive issues essential to leisure studies. Critically, this book moves beyond women, the emphasis of much gender scholarship to date, to focus on issues of feminism as connected to leisure scholarship more broadly. This book is an important and engaging read for students and scholars of diversity, women's studies, multiculturalism, social justice, gender studies, leisure studies, LGBTQQ studies, and feminist research.

This book explores how recent football fiction has negotiated the decisive political developments in English football after the 1989/90 publication of the 'Taylor Report'. A direct response to the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster and growing concerns of hooliganism, the 'Taylor Report' suggested a number of measures for stricter regulation of fan crowds. In consequence, stadiums in the top divisions were turned into all-seated venues and were put under CCTV surveillance. The implementation of these measures reduced violent incidents drastically, but it also led to an unparalleled increase in ticket prices, which in turn significantly altered the demographics of the crowd. This development, which also enabled football's entry into other mainstream cultural forms, changed the game decisively. Piskurek traces patterns across prose and film to detect how these fictions have responded to the changed circumstances of post-Taylor football. Lending a cultural lens to these political changes, this book is pioneering in its analysis of football fiction as a whole, offering a fresh perspective to a range of scholars and students interested in cultural studies, sociology, leisure and politics.

This book provides a detailed ethnographic account of the lives and experiences of a group of male, university-based academy cricketers transitioning into (and away from) professional sport. Set in one of the six university centres of cricket excellence established by the England and Wales Cricket Board in 2000 as a pathway into professional cricket, the study examines the nature of the university cricket experience in relation to a process of occupational identity-exploration and development. Through a series of empirical insights, the author illustrates the tension between aspiration and reality players encountered in deciding whether cricket, as an occupation and future identity-commitment, was right for them. In so doing, the book reveals the questions of identity generated by players' interactions with their cricketing environment relating to their lives as student-cricketers and as young people. University Cricket and Emerging Adulthood will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, psychology, sport coaching, sport policy and leisure studies.

This book examines historically how cricket was codified out of its variant folk-forms and then marketed with certain lessons sought to reinforce the values of a declining landed interest. It goes on to show how such values were then adapted as part of the imperial experiment and were eventually rejected and replaced with an ethos that better reflected the interests of new dominant elites. The work examines the impact of globalisation and marketization on cricket and analyses the shift from an English dominance, on a sport that is ever-increasingly being shaped by Asian forces. The book's distinctiveness lies in trying to decode the spirit of the game, outlining a set of actual characteristics rather than a vague sense of values. An historical analysis shows how imperialism, nationalism, commercialism and globalisation have shaped and adapted these characteristics. As such it will be of interest to students and scholars of sport sociology, post-colonialism, globalisation as well as those with an interest in the game of cricket and sport more generally.

This book analyses the relationship between the Olympic Games, with its ethos of openness and collectivism, and the security concerns and surveillance technologies that are becoming increasingly prevalent in the organisation of public events.

Winner of the Lord Aberdare Literary Prize for 2018 Even before Tito's Communist Party established control over the war-ravaged territories which became socialist Yugoslavia, his partisan forces were using football as a revolutionary tool. In 1944 a team representing the incipient state was dispatched to play matches around the liberated Mediterranean. This consummated a deep relationship between football and communism that endured until this complex multi-ethnic polity tore itself apart in the 1990s. Starting with an exploration of the game in the short-lived interwar Kingdom, this book traces that liaison for the first time. Based on extensive archival research and interviews, it ventures across the former Yugoslavia to illustrate the myriad ways football was harnessed by an array of political forces. Communists purposefully re-engineered Yugoslavia's most popular sport in the tumult of the 1940s, using it to integrate diverse territories and populations. Subsequently, the game advanced Tito's distinct brand of communism, with its Cold War-era policy of non-alignment and experimentation with self-management. Yet, even under tight control, football was racked by corruption, match-fixing and violence. Alternative political and national visions were expressed in the stadiums of both Yugoslavias, and clubs, players and supporters ultimately became perpetrators and victims in the countries' violent demise. In Richard Mills' hands, the former Yugoslavia's stadiums become vehicles to explore the relationship between sport and the state, society, nationalism, state-building, inter-ethnic tensions and war. The book is the first in-depth study of the Yugoslav game and offers a revealing new way to approach the complex history of Yugoslavia.

Professional wrestling is one of the most popular performance practices in the United States and around the world, drawing millions of spectators to live events and televised broadcasts. The displays of violence, simulated and actual, may be the obvious appeal, but that is just the beginning. Fans debate performance choices with as much energy as they argue about their favorite wrestlers. The ongoing scenarios and presentations of manly and not-so-manly characters-from the flamboyantly feminine to the hypermasculine-simultaneously celebrate and critique, parody and affirm the American dream and the masculine ideal. Sharon Mazer looks at the world of professional wrestling from a fan's-eye-view high in the stands and from ringside in the wrestlers' gym. She investigates how performances are constructed and sold to spectators, both on a local level and in the "big leagues" of the WWF/E. She shares a close-up view of a group of wrestlers as they work out, get their faces pushed to the mat as part of their initiation into the fraternity of the ring, and dream of stardom. In later chapters, Mazer explores professional wrestling's carnivalesque presentation of masculinities ranging from the cute to the brute, as well as the way in which the performances of women wrestlers often enter into the realm of pornographic. Finally, she explores the question of the "real" and the "fake" as the fans themselves confront it. First published in 1998, this new edition of Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle both preserves the original's snapshot of the wrestling scene of the 1980s and 1990s and features an up-to-date perspective on the current state of play.

"If this isn't the best analysis of the professional sports business ever written, I'd like to see the book that beats it. . . . Should be read by every sports fan or -- for that matter -- social critic." --From a five-star review, West Coast Review of Books. "Explores its subject so thoroughly and demolishes so many commonly held assumptions that after reading it even the most knowledgeable fans (and some journalists) should feel like drunks who have suddenly been forced to sober up." -- Chicago Tribune "Required reading for anyone who calls himself a fan." -- Chicago Sun-Times "An invaluable contribution to sports literature." -- Howard Cosell

Female Olympian and Paralympian Events is a groundbreaking book that examines women's sports in the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which have long been underappreciated and under-analyzed. The book begins with a brief background on women's participation in the Olympic Games and their role relative to the International Olympic Committee, then introduces the underlying Gendered Critical Discourse Analysis theory used throughout the book's analysis before delving into a literature review of female Olympians and Paralympians' events. It includes a listing of noteworthy "firsts" in the field, followed by individual discussions of twenty-eight Summer and seven Winter events, analyzed according to their historical, rhetorical, and popular cultural representations. Women's unique role(s) in the various events are discussed, particular athletes and Paralympic events are highlighted, and original tables are also included. At the end of each section, affiliated organizations and resources are included in this invaluable referential volume.

This book explores the significance of the international book town movement and its impact on contemporary society. It examines how book towns have emerged and how their culture and unique characteristics help to explain a steadily growing phenomenon that has enabled peripheral communities around the world to reclaim their economic futures and impact on the cultural sphere as increasingly powerful sites and sources of creativity. Regenerating Regional Culture assesses why, at a time when the book industry is experiencing a profound transformation, book towns are proliferating in Europe and across the globe. It acknowledges the role of the book as a catalyst for this significant cultural activity and development. The book is shown to be a unique and pivotal item of cultural consumption, a remarkable artefact and, more than ever before, a springboard for contemporary cultural debate. This work investigates how the reanimation of these 'down-on-their-luck' towns is attracting, through a combination of nostalgia, history and cultural heritage, a growing middle class cohort who seek both intellectual stimulation and opportunities for serious leisure and wellbeing. This book will prove to be a useful resource for understanding the impacts of book towns on art, culture and society while also offering insightful research for those involved in existing or future development of book towns and other community cultural projects.

This book explores the organisation and structure of sport in and beyond Europe. Drawing upon up-to-date data, the collection's main focus lies on the relationship between public sport policy structures and sport (con)federations. The authors present thirteen country-specific contexts wherein sport policy systems are embedded. This evidence provides in-depth descriptions and analyses within a solid academic and theoretical framework. This volume will be of interest to students and scholars of Sociology of Sport, Sport Management and Sport Policy.

This book explores the meaning of leisure in the context of key social formations of our time. Chris Rojek brings together the insights of Marxism, feminism, Weber, Elias, Simmel, Nietzsche and Baudrillard to produce a survey - and rethinking - of leisure theory. At the same time he presents a radical critique of the traditional centring' of leisure, on escape', freedom' and choice'.

He describes the relations between capitalism and leisure, the meaning of free time for workers in a capitalist system, and the gendered nature of leisure. He then discusses the social construction of leisure under modernity and the main competing arguments. Finally he examines postmodernity. Revealing how leisure practices have responded t

Coverage – offers unrivalled coverage, where no other book offers such breath of topics covered placing events within the wider business/management discourse. It therefore offers an excellent, complete and full general introductory Events Management textbook that can be used throughout the degree, known to students as ‘the events management bible’. Thoroughly revised and updated with one new chapter on events and social sciences and new content on: technology (esports, virtual events, Ai, VR, AR, social media marketing and management and advances in box office and ticketing); crowd management, business ethics, stakeholder management and sustainability. New case studies throughout that show real life applications and highlight issues with planning events of all types and scales in a range of geographical regions. New additional online resources including: PPT’s, additional case studies, links to video land websites and further discussion questions

This book examines the urban legacy of the 2014 football World Cup in Brazil across the seven cities that hosted matches. The authors, all experts and natives of South America, analyse the context and impacts of hosting the World Cup for each of the host cities. The chapters use a range of background data and local knowledge and understanding to critically assess what benefits or disadvantages came along with bidding for and hosting World Cup final games, and importantly considers who the beneficiaries where and are. It further provides detailed empirical evidence that highlights a growing trend in sporting mega events: the overestimation of benefits and an underestimation of costs involved in hosting. The book adds to the critical literature that provides a counterweight to governments' aspirations to use mega events for the purposes of development and/or globalization, irrespective of the views of their citizens.

This book is about sexual abuse in sport, and specifically about one girl's experience of long-term chronic abuse in sport. A 'non-conventional' approach is employed to explore the experiences of a female athlete named Bella who was groomed, sexually abused by her male coach, and then subjected to years of athlete domestic violence. Through a collaborative auto-ethnography process, these experiences are reported through vignettes and selected poems seeking to involve the reader in the grooming process of a young female athlete, so that they might react from the different social positions they currently occupy. Bella's story acts as a pedagogical resource in ways that stimulate ethical discussions and enhance knowledge of sexual abuse in sport, by assisting those involved to better understand their own 'field' and the dynamics of abuse within it, in order to develop effective abuse prevention strategies.

This book is open access under a CC BY license. This interdisciplinary book contains 22 essays and interventions on rest and restlessness, silence and noise, relaxation and work. It draws together approaches from artists, literary scholars, psychologists, activists, historians, geographers and sociologists who challenge assumptions about how rest operates across mind, bodies, and practices. Rest's presence or absence affects everyone. Nevertheless, defining rest is problematic: both its meaning and what it feels like are affected by many socio-political, economic and cultural factors. The authors open up unexplored corners and experimental pathways into this complex topic, with contributions ranging from investigations of daydreaming and mindwandering, through histories of therapeutic relaxation and laziness, and creative-critical pieces on lullabies and the Sabbath, to experimental methods to measure aircraft noise and track somatic vigilance in urban space. The essays are grouped by scale of enquiry, into mind, body and practice, allowing readers to draw new connections across apparently distinct phenomena. The book will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines in the social sciences, life sciences, arts and humanities.

This book studies how transnationalisation, Europeanisation and migration processes intersect with football fandom, through an analysis of the transnational narratives and practices of Fenerbahce and Galatasaray football fans in Vienna, Austria. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Austria, Turkey and Germany, the author analyses the ways in which narratives about football fandom are often linked to migrant experiences, including practices of (self-)culturalization in the diasporic context in Austria. The book shows how constructed ethnicities and also masculinities and femininities meet in football fan performances and in the construction of what makes a "proper" football fan. Turkish football fandom is a field where powerful prejudices and stereotypes amalgamate and interact. This study enables the reader to look into migration processes and discussions about related topics from a different angle: the love of a football club. Football Fandom and Migration will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, European studies, political sciences, gender studies, leisure studies, sport sociology and history.

The essays in this volume use football to create a dialogue between history and other disciplines, including art criticism, philosophy, and political science. The study of football provides fertile ground for interdisciplinary initiatives and this volume explores the disciplinary boundaries that are shifting "beneath our feet." Traditional disciplines in the humanities and social sciences have come to embrace diverse research methodologies and the increased scholarly attention to football over the past decade reflects both the startling popularity of the sport and the trends in historical scholarship that have been termed the "cultural," "interpretive," or "linguistic" turns. This volume includes work on gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, which have challenged disciplinary fault-lines.

This book provides a comprehensive overview and economic analysis of US consumer demand for televised football (soccer). Accounting for transnational demand, research is focused on the US consumers demand for the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, German Bundesliga, French Ligue 1 and the UEFA Champions League, which represent the most popular and marketable football competitions worldwide, and have recently sealed lucrative media rights contracts in many large markets, including the US. The study also takes account of North American Major League Soccer (MLS) in order to provide a more comprehensive overview of the country's football market and to allow for direct comparisons with the aforementioned European competitions. These findings offer valuable insights for US broadcasters, European league organizers and managers to adjust existing strategies and/or develop new strategies in conquering the US football market.

This book explores health and leisure as a holistic phenomenon with individual and social dimensions. Contributors to this edited volume explore the physical, mental, emotional, sexual and social aspects of health and leisure as well as the influence of moral and religious principles. The connections between the individual and the social structure, social integration, the social division of labor, and the natural environment are also analysed. The volume studies this relationship from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, including sociology, psychology, psychiatry, medical sciences, sport sciences, education, policy making, and from both national and international perspectives. As such, the collection will be of interest to scholars and students across a range of disciplines, including Leisure Studies, Health Studies, Health Promotion, Psychology and Mental Health, Sociology and Sport Studies.

Gambling is everywhere, on our TVs and phones, on billboards on our streets, and emblazoned across the chests of idolised sports stars. Why has gambling suddenly expanded? How was it transformed from a criminal activity to a respectable business run by multinational corporations listed on international stock markets? And who are the winners and losers created by this transformation? Vicious Games is based on field research with the people who produce, shape and consume gambling. Rebecca Cassidy explores the gambling industry's affinity with capitalism and the free market and how the UK has led the way in exporting 'light touch' regulation and 'responsible gambling' around the world. She reveals how the industry extracts wealth from some of our poorest communities, and examines the adverse health effects on those battling gambling addiction. The gambling industry has become increasingly profitable and influential, emboldened by thirty years of supportive government policies and boosted by unnatural profits. Through an anthropological excavation, Vicious Games opens up this process, with the intention of creating alternative, more equitable futures.

Bringing together boxing writers from different cultural and disciplinary perspectives, this book offers a vital and original contribution to the understanding of this enduringly fascinating and controversial sport. This collected volume investigates what is at stake in boxing in the modern world by exploring different aspects of boxing culture and problematic concepts attached to the sport such as masculinity and violence. This approach implies input from different academic and creative disciplines including aesthetics, cultural studies, creative writing, anthropology, history, literature and sociology. The points of view of participants in boxing as a sport, amateur and professional, will also be incorporated. In this way, themes as different as what it feels like to receive a punch on the nose or the role of fist-fighting in traditional Russian folk customs will be explored.

For almost a century, big-time college athletics has been a wildly popular but consistently problematic part of American higher education. The challenges it poses to traditional academic values have been recognized from the start, but they have grown more ominous in recent decades, as cable television has become ubiquitous, commercial opportunities have proliferated, and athletic budgets have ballooned. In the second edition of his influential book Big-Time Sports in American Universities, Clotfelter continues to examine the role of athletics in American universities, building on his argument that commercial sports have become a core function of the universities that engage in them. Drawing on recent scandals on large-scale college campuses and updates on several high-profile court cases, Clotfelter brings clear economic analysis to the variety of problems that sports raise for university and public policy, providing the basis for the continuation of constructive conversations about the value of big-time sports in higher education.

Sports in African History, Politics, and Identity Formation explores how sports can render a key to unlocking complex social, political, economic, and gendered relations across Africa and the Diaspora. Sports hold significant value and have an intricate relationship with many components of African societies throughout history. For many Africans, sports are a way of life, a site of cultural heroes, a way out of poverty and social mobility, and a site for leisurely play. This book focuses on the many ways in which sports uniquely reflect changing cultural trends at diverse levels of African societies. The contributors detail various sports, such as football, cricket, ping pong, and rugby, across the continent to show how sports lay at the heart of the discourse of nationalism, self-fashioning, gender and masculinity, leisure and play, challenges of underdevelopment, and ideas of progress. Bringing together the newest and most innovative scholarship on African sports, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of contemporary Africa, African history, culture and society, and sports history and politics.

The breadth of our moral experience is more extensive than has been believed over the past several millennia. There is more to morality than being honest and good, or aspiring to universal principles. In fact, in many ways the morality of our distant ancestors bears a remarkable resemblance to the moral experiences of modern athletes. In A Moral Theory of Sports, ethicist Richard J. Severson brings together stories from today's sports world and the moral practices of hunter-gatherers to shed new light on both sports and morality. Guided by anthropologists, biologists, neuroscientists, and others, Severson discuss what the moral life actually looked like for hunter-gatherer bands in the late Pleistocene epoch and argues that the championing of group success that was the epitome of their morality is the epitome of modern sports, as well. With fascinating analogies and anecdotes from football, basketball, tennis, cycling, and more, A Moral Theory of Sports offers a unique interpretation of human nature and our love affair with sports.