Open Call for Papers
The overarching mission of the Journal of Amateur Sport (JAS) is to provide scholars an outlet in which to share scholarship relevant to the amateur sports realm. We define amateur sport as those who participate and govern at the youth, recreational, community, international, and intercollegiate level. We acknowledge the tenuous debate surrounding the amateurism of intercollegiate athletics, thus at this time we welcome examinations that are focused on the less commercialized avenues of college sport participation and governance (especially NCAA Division II, III, and other less publicized governing bodies and settings). Submissions from all disciplines are encouraged, including sociology, communication, and organizational behavior. Similarly, we welcome a wide array of methodological and structural approaches, including conceptual frameworks, narratives, surveys, interviews, and ethnographies.
As an open-access journal, submissions should be of interest to researchers and practitioners alike. In all, the content published in JAS should advance the collective understanding of the participants, coaches, administrators, and/or institutional structures that comprise amateur sports worldwide. We challenge authors to submit creative and nontraditional manuscripts that are still high-quality in nature. Authors are encouraged to email the editors before submitting if they are unsure if their manuscript is a proper fit within JAS.
Please consider the Journal of Amateur Sport (JAS) for your scholarly work. Manuscript submissions should be sent as a Microsoft Word file attachment to co-editors Jordan Bass and Brian Gordon at jamsport@ku.edu. To aid in the double-blind review process, please include three separate files: (1) a title page with corresponding author information, (2) an abstract of no more than 500 words with no identifying information, and (3) the full manuscript with no identifying information. In the body of the email, explicitly state the current manuscript has not been simultaneously submitted for publication or been published previously. Manuscripts should follow the current Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association with exception to the elements noted below. The document must be double-spaced, in Garamond font, size 14, and utilize one inch margins throughout. Maximum length, including references and figures, is 50 pages. Be sure to include a running header, page numbers, and footnotes (when appropriate). Authors are responsible for receiving permission to reproduce copyrighted material before submitting their manuscript for publication.
There is no charge for submission or publication. Authors will be provided with a free digital and print copy of published articles. JAS is an open-access, online journal and thus strongly encourages the posting and sharing of published articles by authors on their personal and departmental websites, Google Scholar, and e-portfolios once they are posted to the JAS website. Authors should expect a maximum 60 day turnaround time from initial submission to receving the initial review. Submissions that are determined to be outside of the scope or not appropriate for JAS are subject to desk rejection. If an article is deemed fit for publication, the author(s) must sign a publishing agreement before the article is officially accepted. Submissions will be subjected to a double-blind review from at least two members of the editorial board (or outside reviewers when appropriate).
Please visit the Journal home page.
Special Issue Call for Papers: The Political Economy of Amateur Athletics
Guest Editors:
- Joshua I. Newman, Florida State University
- Kyle S. Bunds, North Carolina State University
Concerned by the rise of professionalism in sport, and in an attempt to protect the sanctity of amateurism, the famous author and early bicycling aficionado G. Lacy Hillier proclaimed in 1892, “Sport is amusement solely…The essence of sport is relaxation…The sportsman (sic), then, is the man who has an amusement which may cost him something, but which must not bring him in anything, for an amusement which brings him in anything is not a sport but a business” (as cited in Allison, 2001, p. vii). In the historical present, however, it has become quite clear that sport is now a deeply privatized and commercialized feature of most societies. Considering the widespread development of both mass participant and mass spectator sport over the course of the last 150 years, historians, sociologists, economists, legal scholars, and behavioral scientists have in recent decades dedicated considerable effort to the study of how market forces and logics have infiltrated, and in some ways been remediated by, the function of amateurism within sport.
This coupling of sport and business has impacted the structure of amateur sport organizations as well as the ethic of amateurism more generally. Issues such as a) the professionalization of the Olympic Games, b) the rights of intercollegiate student-athletes to gain remuneration through their economically-productive sporting practices, and c) the hyper-commodification of youth sports feature largely in many a nations’ public discourse. It has been argued that amateurism serves a double function: on the supply side, amateurism produces a system of governance that suppresses wage labor (in relation to market value) and exacerbates income inequality (allowing those with capital to produce incomes at rates that exceed those producing income through labor); and on the demand side, the structure of amateur sport allows for the uneven allocation of public resources dedicated to fostering community development and health through sport and physical activity.
Given the current environment, there is a need for scholarly research and discussion on the political economy of amateur sport in the contemporary (global) market society. In this special issue on the political economy of amateur athletics, we welcome submissions focused on the following topics:
- Intercollegiate Athletics at all levels
- Adult Amateur Sport and Recreation
- The blurring lines between Amateur and Semi-Professional Sport
- Amateurism and the Olympic Games
- The Commercialization/Marketization of Youth Sport
- The political economy of the contemporary sporting body
- The market politics of gender, race, sexuality, or (dis)ability
We invite a wide range of articles, essays, and creative works that will embrace and carry your work and/or the conference experience into the journal; scholars, researchers, and practitioners across disciplines and drawing upon a wide range of methods are encouraged to submit.
If you have an interest in pursuing a manuscript for submission, please send an initial proposal (including a working title and a 150-200 word abstract) through e-mail to both Dr. Joshua Newman (jinewman@fsu.edu) and the JAS office (jamsport@ku.edu) by April 15th, 2015. The final manuscript needs to be submitted for review no later than October 1st, 2015.
