Mediatization & sport: A bottom-up perspective

The concept of mediatization has proved remarkably popular in the past decade although recent critiques have challenged its media-centrism, a-historicism and conceptual clarity. In this paper, we draw on the work of those who suggest that mediatization is best deployed as a means of understanding particular social domains and the ways in which institutions and actors orientate their activities towards media. Using association football, or soccer, as our focus we offer a bottom-up perspective using data gathered from research workshops with young people in England. These not only demonstrate the extent to which football is followed through a range of media platforms but also how broader understandings of the game are shaped by these engagements. Moreover, we adapt insights from recent phenomenological approaches to media (Moores, 2013) to focus on the practical, embodied forms of knowledge and habit that shape how football is currently played, followed and debated

Explaining effective mental health support for LGBTQ+ youth: a meta-narrative review

This meta-narrative review on mental health early intervention support for LGBTQ+ ​youth aimed to develop a theoretical framework to explain effective mental health support. Using the RAMESES standards for meta-narrative reviews, we identified studies from database searches and citation-tracking. Data extraction and synthesis was conducted through conceptual coding in Atlas.ti. in two stages: 1) conceptual mapping of the meta-narratives; 2) comparing the key concepts across the meta-narratives to produce a theoretical framework. In total, 2951 titles and abstracts were screened and 200 full papers reviewed. 88 studies were included in the final review. Stage 1 synthesis identified three meta-narratives - psychological, psycho-social, and social/youth work. Stage 2 synthesis resulted in a non-pathological theoretical framework for mental health support that acknowledged the intersectional aspects of LGBTQ+ ​youth lives, and placed youth at the centre of their own mental health care. The study of LGBTQ+ ​youth mental health has largely occurred independently across a range of disciplines such as psychology, sociology, public health, social work and youth studies. The interdisciplinary theoretical framework produced indicates that effective early intervention mental health support for LGBTQ+ ​youth must prioritise addressing normative environments that marginalises youth, LGBTQ+ ​identities and mental health problems

The place of spirit: Modernity and the geographies of spirituality

In this paper, we seek to map out the specific geographies through which spatialities of religion have been imagined. These involve such spatial metaphors as islands, networks and spheres. Less attention has been given to new forms of spirituality, and to the consequences of thinking through these for our understanding of modernity itself. We argue that modernity, religion and spirituality are entangled and spread through daily life. We conclude that adding new forms of spirituality to the mix of geographies of religion requires reconsidering more than the boundary between secularity and religion, but rethinking the place of spirituality in modern life

Queer Jesus, straight angels: Complicating 'sexuality' and 'religion' in the International Raelian Movement

This article highlights the central role of sexuality and the body within the International Raëlian Movement. The world's largest UFO-inspired New Religious Movement, the Raëlian Movement rejects theism and understands higher spiritual awareness to be dependent upon individual and communal sexual identity. Through a process called Sensual Meditation, Raëlians believe that harmony and peace may be facilitated, a view which also underpins their increasing profile of social campaigns and public protests centred upon rights for diverse adult sexualities. It will be argued, however, that Raëlian views of sexuality, although internally viewed as radical and subversive, are in fact predominantly heteronormative

The queer times of internet infrastructures and digital systems

This chapter examines the queer temporalities of the internet. Our starting point is that space cannot be adequately theorised without reference to time. Geographers have theorised the spatial structure of internet infrastructures, but they have paid less attention to the temporal structure of these systems. Contemporary queer theory provides analyses of temporality as a critique of the heteronormative-reproductive times of state-capitalism, which also characterise imaginaries of digital systems. Instead of the internet as a necessarily futuristic invention, we demonstrate the necessity of thinking through the concrete histories and embodied presents of the internet. We first conceptualise internet infrastructures as historical anachronism—evidence of the continuing inequalities of colonialism. Then we examine how queer presence online can lend itself to a troubling of modern temporalities