The Olympic Games in Japan and East Asia: Images and Legacies: An Introduction

Introduction to The International Journal of Japanese Sociology Special Issue: 'The Olympic Games in Japan and East Asia: Images and Legacies,' edited by Mike Featherstone & Tomoko Tamar

Representations of sport in the revolutionary socialist press in Britain, 1988–2012

This paper considers how sport presents a dualism to those on the far left of the political spectrum. A long-standing, passionate debate has existed on the contradictory role played by sport, polarised between those who reject it as a bourgeois capitalist plague and those who argue for its reclamation and reformation. A case study is offered of a political party that has consistently used revolutionary Marxism as the basis for its activity and how this party, the largest in Britain, addresses sport in its publications. The study draws on empirical data to illustrate this debate by reporting findings from three socialist publications. When sport did feature it was often in relation to high profile sporting events with a critical tone adopted and typically focused on issues of commodification, exploitation and alienation of athletes and supporters. However, readers’ letters, printed in the same publications, revealed how this interpretation was not universally accepted, thus illustrating the contradictory nature of sport for those on the far left

'It's just superstition I suppose ... I've always done something on game day': The construction of everyday life on a university basketball team

Research in sport has tended to focus on ‘spectacular’ or ‘extra-ordinary’ experiences, at the expense of discussing how particular phenomena are embedded in everyday life. Drawing on ethnographic research with a university basketball team in the North of England, this article considers the meanings that amateur players attach to basketball and how such meanings go beyond their participation in competitive games. Analysis reveals the rhythms and rituals which are hugely important in determining the players’ sense of self. It also highlights the carnivalesque celebrations which allow the players to temporarily disrupt the status quo and experiment with alternative identities. In conclusion, it is argued that the meaning of sport should not be seen as rigid, determining and predictable, but rather a creative experience that is largely dependent on the subjective appropriation of time and place

Drugs and supplements in amateur boxing: pugilistic amateurism and ideologies of performance

This research, which is based on the thoughts and experiences of coaches, athletes, officials and others involved in amateur boxing, explores the use of supplements, recreational and performance-enhancing drugs in the sport. After providing some context through a discussion of ideologies that shape elite sport, some key methodological issues are briefly described. The findings explore the manner in which ideologies of performance are shaped in relation to the notion of 'pugilistic amateurism'. In this way, the paper maps out a theoretical scaffold that can be used to understand the manner in which 'old school' training methods and participation in sport align with 'traditional' understandings of work-class manhood to produce an ideological tension with a win-at-all-costs mentality. This sheds light on the ways that boxing gyms might be understood as havens where drugs use can be resisted at the same times as potentially positive behaviours can be learned

Christianity as Public Religion::A Justification for using a Christian Sociological Approach for Studying the Social Scientific Aspects of Sport

The vast majority of social scientific studies of sport have been secular in nature and/or have tended to ignore the importance of studying the religious aspects of sport. In light of this, Shilling and Mellor (2014) have sought to encourage sociologists of sport not to divorce the ‘religious’ and the ‘sacred’ from their studies. In response to this call, the goal of the current essay is to explore how the conception of Christianity as ‘public religion’ can be utilised to help justify the use of a Christian sociological approach for studying the social scientific aspects of sport. After making a case for Christianity as public religion, we conclude that many of the sociological issues inherent in modern sport are an indirect result of its increasing secularisation and argue that this justifies the need for a Christian sociological approach. We encourage researchers to use the Bible, the tools of Christian theology and sociological concepts together, so to inform analyses of modern sport from a Christian perspective

`Football Remembers':The Collective Memory of Football in the Spectacle of British Military Commemoration

This article examines two major rituals of contemporary national life in the UK: association football and military commemoration. It explores the ways in which remembering is enacted and performed within UK football and how these processes are related to issues of power, agency and identity in Britain today. Employing the concepts of collective memory and spectacle, this article argues that ‘memory entrepreneurs’ have sought to embed football as ‘site of memory’ in the performance of military commemoration. It concludes that this has contributed to the transformation of military commemoration, from a ritual that is observed to a spectacle that is consumed. This paper thus contributes to emergent debates on the militarization of civilian space, the shifting nature of civil–military relations in the twenty-first century, and the role of military remembrance in the reproduction of Britishness