Sociology in the 1980s: the rise of gender (and intersectionality)

The social, economic and political context of the 1980s in Britain shaped the contributions to the journal, and the early part of the decade was marked by emphasis on the interrelations between class and gender. The introduction of this e-special discusses the increasing importance of gender in sociological analysis in the 1980s. This development is related to a shift from production to consumption and a growing interest in life-style leading to the debate around “the end of class”, the “cultural turn” and “identity politics”. We assess the influence of articles published in the 1980s and how sociology – both the discipline and the journal – have changed since these articles have been published. The selected articles provide a historical perspective and are – as we argue – still highly relevant for the current state of the discipline and sociological debate. They illustrate the evolution of British sociology, from emphasis on class analysis in the 1970s towards the growing prominence of intersectionality and subjectivity in the 1990s and beyond. Feminist theory and research in the 1980s within and beyond Sociology indicate the importance and utility of intersectionality, even if the terminology has shifted, and the decade resulted in considerable advances in terms of the prominence, legitimacy and sophistication of gender analysi

‘Don’t call me an academic’: Professional identity and struggles for legitimacy within the vocational field of Events Management higher education.

Events Management is a relatively new subject within universities, and is positioned as a vocational field with links to industry and practice. This paper considers the role of the academic within Events Management higher education, and how individuals within this field position themselves and make claims to legitimacy. Drawing on interviews with 16 Events Management academics in the UK, we identify three narrative strategies adopted by individuals in this field as they position themselves in relation to academic and professional identities. The three narrative strategies identified – the anti-academic, the traditional academic and the blended professional – illustrate the precarious and often unstable identities of those within vocational subjects. Individuals within Events Management experience difficulty in terms of both their professional and academic identities, and may rely on a mixture of both traditional (e.g. research and teaching) and industry metrics in their claims to status and legitimacy

Intelligent investment’? Welsh sport policy and the (in)visibility of ‘race’

In this paper, we draw on research conducted in Wales to consider reasons for participation and non-participation in sport and physical activity among Black and minoritised ethnic (BME) groups. This study exposes the challenge at the heart of sports policy in relation to ‘race’ and ethnicity in Wales that, if not addressed, may lead to the marginalisation of attempts to increase BME participation in sport and physical activity despite good intent. It points to a disjuncture between supply and demand and leads us to question the extent to which such policies resonate with the interests, needs and lived experiences of people from different BME communities in Wales. We draw on testimonies of policy-makers and implementers, as well as individuals from various BME communities in five regions of Wales, to consider the extent to which national sports policy encourages strategies to increase participation among different ethnic groups. We suggest that increasing participation among BME communities and other ‘hard-to-reach’ groups must go beyond accounting for the supply aspects of sport and physical activity to consider more critically the plethora of barriers and exclusions facing many BME communities. We conclude by arguing that for racial inequalities to be reduced, and promises such as ‘sport for all’ to be realised, the analysis of policy needs to be related to broader relations of power in the culture of both sport and society

Exploring gender in British equestrian sport

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Representations in UK Witches Tours: Walking Over the Roots of Misogyny

inpressDark tourism is still an emerging scholarly subject specialism, which draws upon cross-disciplinary literatures and methodologies to provide deeper critical understandings of the less salubrious aspects of visitor attractions, place-based destinations, and travel and tourism industries. As with any emerging subject, this often means there is scope to develop investigations into more marginalised subjects and topics, as the initial focus is often on mainstream and dominant groups to set the context for further conceptualisations. Although research has been published on dark tourism as it relates to identity and geographies of belonging (e.g. White & Frew, 2013), much of the literature still focuses on disparate case study examples (e.g. Lennon & Foley, 2000; Stone et. al., 2018), which help to define and indicate types of dark tourism in a more generalised way. This research draws upon this body of work to focus more distinctly on issues of gender in dark tourism. Although there is attention surrounding commercial sex tourism (e.g. Carr & Berdychevsky, 2021; Hall & Ryan, 2001), gendered inquiry is an area that the field of dark tourism has barely addressed. Based on feminist approaches, this research explores the gendered experiences of witches tours throughout the UK. Witches tours are a popular tourist attraction in places that once held witch trials and executions. In this chapter, we were interested in investigating the ways in which witches and witchcraft are represented through edutainment to attract and entertain, possibly educate, tourists across Britain. We conducted analysis of online materials associated with the tours (websites and social media) to evaluate the representation of witches, women, the tours, tour participants, and associated gendered narratives, including how these tours are advertised and how so-called witches are represented in order to examine the ways in which the historic persecution of (some) women has been commercialized and sanitized for touristic consumption. Case study examples of the tours were selected by geography to have a representation from different areas of the country as well as the necessity of a social media presence. Independent tours, so ones not associated with bundled entertainment sites, were selected to focus on witches tours as stand-alone experiences more specifically. How we view the past often influences how we see things in the present, and even tourist attractions based loosely on historic events can have an impact on re/constructing and reinforcing gendered narratives. In this chapter, we examine the ways in which witches, and the related dark history of misogyny and violence, are represented in witches tours in Britain.inpressRebecca Finkel - ORCID: 0000-0003-2120-6211 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2120-621

“Dear International Guests and Friends of the Icelandic Horse”: Experience, Meaning and Belonging at a Niche Sporting Event

Landsmót hestamanna is the national championships for the Icelandic horse and a major festival for the special interest group addressed by the event organisers as “Friends of the Icelandic horse”. As the designated country of origin for this particular equine breed, Iceland has a special place in the discursive practices of the communities involved with the Icelandic horse worldwide, while the Icelandic horse plays an important role in the tourism marketing of Iceland as a destination. Participant observation was conducted at the 2012 Landsmót in Reykjavík by two independent observers; one was an international visitor while the other was a native of Iceland. The data collected raise interesting questions about belonging to a niche market and attending associated events, the social construction of event experiences, about being an insider and an outsider, and how these positions are contingent and changeable across spatial and temporal boundaries within the flow of an event

20 years of Nordic rural tourism research: a review and future research agenda

This review focuses on how the concepts rural and rurality have appeared in the context of Nordic tourism and hospitality research published in the Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research. All publications that contained the term rural or a synonym in one or more of these: title, keywords or abstract were considered. Content analysis was conducted based on the publications that have the term rural or a synonym in their title, keywords and abstract. Furthermore, the review considers the measurable impact of the publications on rural tourism and offers suggestions for fruitful future research directions. A brief theoretical framework is provided to analyse what rural and rurality refer to in the publications