Between Idealism and Fatalism: the sociological
imagination and the role of sport in processes of conflict resolution
and peace.
Using sport as a vehicle for engagement with a wide range of
community-based international development issues, such as HIV
awareness; youth crime; drug cultures; child soldiering; and,
the subject of this presentation, conflict resolution and peace,
is a growth industry. It is also an area that is both under-researched
and under-theorised. Drawing upon more than two decades of thinking
about, critically analysing, and working with sport in divided
and conflict ridden societies, in this talk I will show how a
course can be plotted that navigates between the romanticism
of sport evangelist, the avariciousness of the peace entrepreneur,
the scepticism of the armchair academic, and the hopelessness
of the cynic, providing a framework for designing and implementing
positively directed social intervention through sport. Central
to this is a consideration of the value of using C. Wright Mills'
theoretical gaze: firstly, in understanding the processes through
which violence ended and forms of reconciliation ensued in Northern
Ireland and South Africa; and, secondly, how this understanding
can help to inform strategies and practices for using sport to
promote conflict resolution and peace in and between Israel and
Palestine. The paper concludes by presenting a model - developed
through a dialectical interface between epistemological/ontological/theoretical
dimensions of Wright Mills' critical pragmatism and ongoing praxis
in the field -illustrating how networks of grass-root, community-based
initiatives can have positive impacts locally, regionally, nationally
and internationally.
Professor John Sugden
studied politics and sociology at the University of Essex and
physical education at the University of Liverpool before taking
up a postgraduate scholarship in the USA at the University of
Connecticut where he earned a Doctorate in the Sociology of Sport.
He has researched and written widely around topics concerned
with the politics and sociology of sport and his books on international
boxing and on sport in Northern Ireland have won national and
international awards. Professor Sugden is well known for his
work on sport in divided societies, his studies - with Alan Tomlinson
- of the world governing body for football, Fifa, and for his
investigative research into football's underground economy. Currently,
Professor Sugden is Academic Leader of the Sport and Leisure
Cultures subject group, Chair of the Faculty Research strategy
Committee and Director of the University of Brighton's flagship
international community relations project in Israel, Football
for Peace. |
Globalisation and Hybridity
The ubiquitous presence of technologically-based leisure forms
in today's world poses multiple challenges to traditional and
nationalistic forms of leisure (e.g., sports, culturally-based
activities, and outdoor pursuits). Technologically-based leisures
provide alternative practices for concepts of self, group interactions,
personal relationships and political activism, and they may alter
and/or hinder Euro-North American concepts of psychological and
physiological development. Online computer games and social networks
create both diverse and homogeneous networks that challenge national
boundaries. International hip hop connected and sustained a resistive
movement among marginalized youth of the world. Emerging neuro-scientific
research suggests playing computer games may reduce specific
effects of trauma, improve fine motor control, and develop cognitive
skills. Through examples of technologically-based leisures, this
presentation raises questions about traditional leisure theories
and research strategies as well as elucidating an alternative
approach toward theories about leisures.
Karen Fox is a full
professor with the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation
at the University of Alberta. Her research explores specific
leisure pursuits (e.g., urban Aboriginal hip hop, Native Hawaiian
leisure, self-supported bicycle touring, ethical outdoor leadership,
meal practices or symposion in the ancient Graeco-Roman world,
and yogic praxis) and their implications for theories about leisures. |
Listening to Alternative Voices
National datasets relating to participation in sport and active
recreation have consistently revealed disparities between various
groups in society. Groups with lower participation tend to include:
women, people with disabilities, minority ethnic groups, and
people from lower socio-economic groups. Whilst these disparities
were noted, policy makers were faced with two key data deficiencies:
first, small sub samples sizes with which it is not possible
to conduct meaningful secondary analysis; and second, a focus
on the prevalence of participation has tended to exclude questions
about latent demand and attitudes. Consequently, it was easy
to assume (mistakenly) that people from groups with low participation
had a natural desire to participate more, but were somehow being
constrained from doing so. New datasets such as the Active People
Survey and Taking Part provide us with large sample sizes (n=363,000
in 2005/6) in the case of the former and attitudinal questions
in the case of the latter. Furthermore, both surveys contain
data concerned with measuring latent demand. The net effect of
this new data is that we have a much better insight into understanding
expressed and latent demand. Using a combination of descriptive
secondary analysis as well as the results of multiple regression
calculations, my presentation will illustrate some of the subtleties
we have discovered in the participation patterns of people whose
voices often go unheard. From a policy perspective, the data
offers the opportunity for much greater understanding of the
tastes and preferences of the silent minorities, which it would
be remiss to ignore.
Simon Shibli is Professor
of Sport Management and a Director of the Sport Industry Research
Centre (SIRC) at Sheffield Hallam University. He is a graduate
from Loughborough University in Physical Education, Sports Science
and Recreation Management and is also a qualified management
accountant (ACMA). Since the establishment of SIRC in 1996 Simon's
work has focused primarily on the applied use of economic and
management accounting techniques in sport and leisure. The availability
of large scale data sets such as Active People and Taking Part
has created the opportunity for Simon and his team to look at
sub samples of the population who were previously 'invisible'
in data sets such as the General Household Survey. Over the last
four years the SIRC team have used the new data available to
improve their understanding of marginalised groups to help inform
policy designed to help them. |
Visible Cities (and what lies beneath): the flâneur's
tale
We are all familiar with the physical features of the post-modern,
global city. How well though do we appreciate its nuances and
how best can we begin to understand its people? Drawing inspiration
from Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, and reflecting also on
other fictional portrayals of cities, this lecture begins by
describing the materiality of a contemporary city - its airport,
its transport system, its built environment. Moving from its
physical landscape to the people who populate this city and particularly
to their leisure spaces, including bars, restaurants, cafés,
shops and sports stadia, the lecture advances a case for adopting
the methods of the flâneur to promote sociological understanding
of lived experience. This approach allows for depiction of the
ethnic, religio-political, social differences and the national
and civic peculiarities that characterise life in the city. In
conclusion, the lecture advances the case for engaging with local
specificities instead of assuming that all contemporary cities
are becoming more or less the same.
Alan Bairner is Professor
of Sport and Social Theory at Loughborough University (UK). He
is co-author (with John Sugden) of Sport, Sectarianism and Society
in a Divided Ireland (Leicester University Press, 1993) and author
of Sport, Nationalism and Globalization: European and North American
Perspectives (SUNY Press, 2001). He edited Sport and the Irish:
Histories, Identities, Issues (University College Dublin Press,
2005) and was joint editor (with John Sugden) of Sport in Divided
Societies (Meyer and Meyer, 1999) and (with Jonathan Magee and
Alan Tomlinson) of The Bountiful Game? Football Identities and
Finances (Meyer and Meyer, 2005). He serves on the editorial
boards of the Sociology of Sport Journal, the International Review
for the Sociology of Sport, Soccer and Society, and the International
Journal of Sport Policy. |
Shifting Policy Agendas around Equality
The move towards an equality agenda has left many people active
in the field anxious that the 'race' agenda has been downgraded.
This anxiety has not been dispelled by recent pronouncements
from government Ministers or by the behaviour of the Equality
and Human Rights Commission, each of which appears to suggest
that racial equality has either effectively been dealt with or
that it is less of a priority than, say, questions of economic
class or poverty. This presentation will challenge that view,
reviewing the experience of ethnic minorities in the UK in general
and then, in particular, examining examples from the fields of
sport and leisure.
Gary Craig is Visiting
Professor at the University of Durham and Emeritus Professor
of Social Justice at the University of Hull, where he is also
Associate Fellow at the Wilberforce Institute for the study of
Slavery and Emancipation. His research interests include 'race'
and ethnicity, modern slavery, poverty and exclusion, local governance,
the Third Sector, and community development. He was a member
of the recent RAE social policy and social work panel and advises
DEFRA on racial equality matters. His most recent publication
is Community Capacity Building (jointly edited: OECD 2010) and
he has a book on Child Slavery Now in press. |
