This edited book aims to capture the functioning of human rights and civil activism at the level of the relationships between the individual and the social, and in relation to abuses, contestations, and transformations. Chapters cover the ways human rights are denied, articulated, and not realised. Mega-events, either sporting or otherwise (e.g. Gay Pride), tend to be the focus of this inquiry, although there are important contributions on grassroots non-governmental organisations. Overall, a range of research methodologies are deployed; the chapters vary between using primary research, using commissioned research, and presenting theoretically grounded arguments. The tendency is towards approaches that capture the empirical, everyday experiences, e.g. ethnography, autoethnography, interviews, focus groups, and observation. This book was originally published as a special issue of Leisure Studies.

This edited book aims to capture the functioning of human rights and civil activism at the level of the relationships between the individual and the social, and in relation to abuses, contestations, and transformations. Chapters cover the ways human rights are denied, articulated, and not realised. Mega-events, either sporting or otherwise (e.g. Gay Pride), tend to be the focus of this inquiry, although there are important contributions on grassroots non-governmental organisations. Overall, a range of research methodologies are deployed; the chapters vary between using primary research, using commissioned research, and presenting theoretically grounded arguments. The tendency is towards approaches that capture the empirical, everyday experiences, e.g. ethnography, autoethnography, interviews, focus groups, and observation. This book was originally published as a special issue of Leisure Studies.

This volume contains an Open Access chapter. Recent decades have seen an unprecedented expansion and diversification of sports gambling markets. Enabled by widespread access to the internet, advances in smartphone technology and the liberalisation of gambling advertising, gambling companies have strategically invested in the alignment of this practise with culturally embedded sporting activities, leading some to characterise these developments as the ‘gamblification’ of sports. Bringing together leading scholars from across the world, Gambling and Sports in a Global Age provides a landmark sociological collection on sports gambling from global perspectives. Anchored in a historical sociological context, chapters trace the global transformation of sports gambling amid wider processes of techno-capitalist expansion and the commercialisation of sport before exploring the differential factors that shape the relationship between sport and gambling in unique societal contexts. Contributors examine emerging issues in sports gambling, including the ethics of gambling sponsorship in sport, athlete rights, the risk of harms to youth and the future of sports fandom. Gambling and Sports in a Global Age demonstrates the importance of sociology in understanding sports gambling in a global age, establishing a much-needed scholarly platform with which to generate theoretically informed interventions in research and policymaking. Through an integrated global approach, the contributors shed critical light on centrally relevant sociological themes, providing convenient access to a diverse array of contextual insights and generating new questions for an emerging generation of sociologists.