Coaching Unlimited: Empowering Generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Leaders: A Research Report Commissioned by Netball Australia and Netball New South Wales

Background: The Coaching Unlimited program aspires to empower coaches with tangible coaching, employment, and health promotion skills to build individual and community capacity. This report discusses the delivery and evaluation of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ netball coaching workshop delivered on August 6, 2017 at Genea Netball Centre, Sydney Olympic Park. Methods: To ensure the success of the first Coaching Unlimited, we conducted a mixed method study to evaluate the netball-coaching workshop. Key Results: Based on the survey and interview results, the workshop was enjoyable and well delivered; included useful information, skills, and resources; and provided coaches with practical ideas for future coaching and leadership roles within their communities. In sum, all coaches either agreed or strongly agreed that the Coaching Unlimited workshop: • Included useful resources • Increased their interest in, and understanding of, the workshop topics • Enhanced their ability to implement strategies relating to the workshop Recommendations • This model of delivering health promotion education alongside coaching accreditation was perceived as highly useful and enjoyable • Penrith, Mt Druitt, and Blacktown have been suggested as potential areas for future workshops, as has Bathurst and Orange as ideal regional locations. • Holding workshops earlier in the netball season were recommended so that coaches could implement their new knowledge immediately. • Moving forward, Coaching Unlimited will conduct a series of similar workshops across different sports in order to continue to provide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with opportunities to both gain coaching accreditation, and become leaders and mentors within their community

'Fuck May 68, fight now!': Athenian anarchists & anti-authoritarians : militant ethnography & collective identity formation

Theoretical thesis.Bibliography: leaves 200-254.Chapter One. Social movement theory & collective identity -- Chapter Two. militant ethnography & taking notes in a furnace -- Chapter Three. The early years of Greek anarchism : "It just doesn't mean anything to me" -- Chapter Four. A contemporary history : 'Fuck May 68, fight now!' -- Chapter Five.The anarchist & anti-authoritarian space : tensions & tendencies -- Chapter Six. Street protests & emotions : a temporary unity -- Conclusion.The re-emergence of anarchist and anti-authoritarian politics in the last two decades has sparked renewed intellectual interest in radical social movements—their form, composition and internal processes. The Athenian anarchist and anti-authoritarian milieu, its geographical and organisational hub a Molotov throw away from the Greek parliament, is a fertile environment to pursue such research. Yet much contemporary academic research on this movement does not directly engage with the activists themselves, typically remaining remote from their on-the-ground struggles against capitalism, the state and the rise of fascism. By contrast, this thesis is based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted amongst the Athenian anarchist and anti-authoritarian movement in 2011. It is premised on a fieldwork methodology emphasising a reflexive collaboration between the ethnographer and activists where, as far as possible, the researcher assumes the role of political activist. With the New Social Movement theoretical paradigm as my point of departure, I argue that the embrace of militant street-protests, as an identity and tactic, helps account for the movement's relative unity. The influence of emotional interactions amongst movement actors is granted particular attention in examining identity formation within the movement. I show how varying shades of anarchic tendencies and ensuing ideological and practical disagreements are, for the most part, overcome in often violent street-protests. Thus militant protest action is more than an expression of collective grievance, desire for retaliation against police injustice and a manifestation of anarchist and anti-authoritarian praxis. Rather, these actions are an important element in the on-going construction and reconstruction of Athenian anarchist and anti-authoritarian collective identity, the main conclusion of the thesis.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (vii, 256 leaves

Aboriginal Sports Coaches, Community, and Culture

This book is the first to celebrate the stories of this group of Aboriginal mentors and leaders and present them in a form that is accessible to both academic and general audiences. In this book, Aboriginal sport coaches from all over Australia share stories about their involvement in sport and community, offering insight into the diverse experiences of Aboriginal people in settler colonial Australia. This collection amplifies the public voice of Aboriginal coaches who are transforming the social, cultural, and political lives of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. These stories have been overlooked in public discussion about sport and indigeneity. Frank and often funny, these intimate narratives provide insight into the unique experiences and attitudes of this group of coaches. This book deepens our understanding of the shared and contested history of Aboriginal peoples’ engagement with sport in Australia

Navigating Fieldwork in the Social Sciences: Stories of Danger, Risk and Reward

The edited collection of first-person stories about risk in the field offers an arsenal of practical examples where fieldworkers have attempted to negotiate the complexities and risks of field research. Field research can be a risky and dangerous journey where the line between safety and danger can be crossed in quick time, often with little warning. These risks manifest in diverse and novel ways. They can be physical and psychological, ephemeral and enduring. They can impact the researchers, participants, collaborators and interviewees. Indeed, they can condition the very foundation of our processes of knowledge production. Fieldwork is no small stakes game. Covering research from Afghanistan, Chad, DR Congo, Greece, the Horn of Africa, Iraq, Laos, Lebanon, Palestine, India, Indonesia, Mexico, The Netherlands, Vietnam and Australia, each chapter highlights diverse, eclectic, raw and vulnerable narratives about risks experienced before, during and after the conduct of this research

Sharing stories

To finish this collection, we want to pull back the curtain on this whole process, the journey of this book. We want to tell you what we have learnt in producing this book about ‘risk’ in the social sciences. The chapters are there for all of us to access as we see fit, to filter through our own realities, and to mine for wisdoms that are relevant to our research and work. And so, here, we want to talk about what happened ‘behind the scenes’; the chats before and after the interviews, the frantic emails in post-production concerning redaction of sensitive information, and the many discussions of ethics, all of which arose around the book’s creation

Noble athlete, savage coach : how racialised representations of Aboriginal athletes impede professional sport coaching opportunities for Aboriginal Australians

Representations of Aboriginal Australian peoples as genetically predisposed to sporting prowess are pervasive and enduring perceptions. This rhetoric belongs to a larger narrative that also describes a peculiarly Aboriginal style of play: full of flair, speed and ‘magic’. Such imagery has informed a common perception that, in many team sports, Aboriginal athletes are biologically more suited to playing positions characterised by pace, trickery and spontaneity, rather than those that utilise leadership acumen and intellectual skill. There has been a great deal of academic research exploring how such essentialised and racialised representations play out for Aboriginal athletes. In this paper, however, we extend that research, examining how racialised representations of Aboriginal athletic ability affect Aboriginal coaches. Premised on interviews with 26 Aboriginal Australian coaches, we argue that representations of Aboriginal athletes as naturally suited to speed and flair, rather than leadership and sporting-intellect, help maintain an environment that limits opportunities for Aboriginal Australians seeking to move into sporting leadership roles, such as coaching. This paper sheds light on the ways in which racialised representations of Aboriginal athletes feed into a settler colonialist narrative that stymies opportunities for aspiring Aboriginal professional coaches, and speculates on the limitations of this approach, in challenging the political hegemony of settler colonialism

Cultural connections and cultural ceilings : exploring the experiences of Aboriginal Australian sport coaches

Sport researchers have begun to appreciate the perspectives and experiences of Aboriginal athletes in various global communities, yet little is known about Aboriginal sport coaches. Considering sport can play a positive social, psychological, and physical role in the lives of Aboriginal people, it is problematic that there is a dearth of academic literature exploring the narratives of Aboriginal coaches. This is one of the first studies to specifically explore Aboriginal Australian peoples’ experiences in sport coaching roles. Using a socio-ecological framework to frame our discussions, we share the insights of 28 Aboriginal Australian sport coaches from a variety of team and individual sports as they describe an array of factors that facilitated and impeded their sport coaching journeys. By shedding light on these narratives this paper performs two main tasks. First, taking a qualitative approach, it gives agency and voice to Aboriginal people, long-neglected in academic sports scholarship. Second, it provides insights for coaches, athletes, academics, policy-makers, and sporting organisations interested in enhancing opportunities and developing pathways for Aboriginal people in sport coaching roles

'We were made to feel comfortable and ... safe' : co-creating, delivering, and evaluating coach education and health promotion workshops with Aboriginal Australian peoples

This paper outlines the processes for co-creating and delivering Coaching Unlimited, a coach education and health promotion workshops series providing specific opportunities for Aboriginal Australian coaches to develop their capacity as future leaders in leisure settings. To guide our evaluation of the first two netball workshops, we used the Ngaa-bi-nya framework–an Aboriginal health and social programme evaluation framework. Using the four domains of Ngaa-bi-nya, we were able to confirm the importance of co-creating and delivering the workshops in a culturally safe and inclusive environment. Reflecting on our own processes of doing research and working with Aboriginal communities, we learnt that hosting workshops in and with community, is central to the programme’s accessibility and success. The paper concludes by considering the utility of the framework and what researchers can learn about their own practice in the space of Aboriginal sport and health programmes

Eco-spirituality: Collective identity and spirituality in the wilderness action group

At a peripheral glance the collective action of a social movement group creates a perception of rational and homogenous internal group identity. This façade has led some social movement theorists to take for granted the internal cohesiveness of the groups they are studying. Yet this emphasis on the rationality and structure of collective action over-simplifies the complex and dynamic interactions that occur in the construction of individual and collective identities. Accordingly, the constructivist New Social Movement theoretical paradigm actively eschews these misleading assumptions, instead granting primacy to the study of the reflexive, complex and dynamic interactions that occur in the construction of individual and collective identities. By employing the tools provided by New Social Movement theory my study unravels one such under-researched identity, namely the diverse and multifaceted ‘eco-spiritual’ identity. The rich narratives of actors who consider themselves spiritual and are environmental activists are analysed through a case study of the Wilderness Acton Group, a collective within The Wilderness Society, Sydney. Analysis of the fieldwork data informs a theoretical and empirical understanding of social movements with regard to the negotiation and construction of political goals; trajectory and rejuvenation; individual movement motivation and participation; ongoing construction of group identity and solidarity; emotional commitment; action event selection; and group rituals, activism and practice

A guide to conducting systematic reviews of coaching science research

Research in coaching science continues to grow and as such, there is a need for rigorous tools to help make sense of the rapidly expanding literature. The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed description of a systematic review methodology that can be used to summarise literature in coaching science. To do so, we present a test case of a systematic review we conducted on the sport coaching experiences of global Indigenous populations. More precisely, we conducted a systematic review of English, Spanish, French, Mandarin, and Portuguese peer-reviewed journal articles, spanning twelve databases (e.g., Sport Discus, ERIC, and Scopus) from 1970 to 2014. ENTREQ and COREQ guidelines were followed to report the results of the systematic review, and Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory was used as a theoretical framework to extract and synthesise relevant findings from the included articles. In sum, this paper presents a robust methodology for systematically reviewing research in coaching science and provides practical insights for those who endeavour to conduct rigorous literature searches in this domain