Tag: Alan Bairner

The collected volume Softpower, Soccer, Supremacy: The Chinese Dream by J.A. Mangan, Peter Horton & Christian Tagsold (Peter Lang) looks at Xi Jinping’s “Soccer Revolution”, the most extensive politicization and geo-politicization of the Global Game. Oliver Rick, well acquainted with sports in China, considers the book an important collection that provides keen insights into the role of football in China’s politics in the Southeast. He does have reservations though, regarding the inclusion of an Australian perspective.

The emphasis of Leisure Studies is on theoretically informed critical analyses within the social sciences and humanities of the topics that constitute leisure as a subject field – including the arts, tourism, sport and more. The Forum Editor’s pick from the current issue: Young surfers finding their wave: telling the tale of enskilment in surf places by Alex Prins & Brian Wattchow.

The Oxford Handbook of Sport and Society, edited by Lawrence A, Wenner (Oxford UP), features leading international scholars’ assessments of scholarly inquiry about sport and society. Divided into six sections, chapters consider dominant issues within key areas, approaches featured in inquiry, and debates needing resolution. Our reviewer is Richards Giulianotti, who edited the Sage four volume set The Sociology of Sport in 2012, and he finds that this new collection, some unnecessary omissions notwithstanding, is a welcome addition to the existing list of handbooks in the field.

The essays collected in Daniel A. Grano & Michael L. Butterworth’s Sport, Rhetoric and Political Struggle contextualize sport and political struggle, examine the mobilization of resistance in sporting contexts, and identify ongoing stigmas that present limitations in and around sport. Judging by Alan Bairner’s review, a more proper title for the book would have been “Sport, Rhetoric and Political Struggle in the US”. Still, our reviewer concludes that the book deserves a wide readership among scholars with an interest in sport and politics.

Sport and Secessionism, edited by Mariann Vaczi and Alan Bairner (Routledge), examines how sporting cultures reflect, inform and sometimes frustrate secessionist movements around the world by investigating a wide range of cases. Our reviewer is Norwegian historian Matti Goksøyr, and his insightful presentation and critical assessment of the collection reveals new takes, new examples and hence new perspectives and more nuances to the ways sport can operate and be applied in secessionist contexts.

Women and Sport in Brazil: Many Roles, a Single Struggle, edited by Katia Rubio (Editora Laços) shows the development of women athletes in Brazilian Olympic sports. The book presents stories of women who overcame various barriers to make it to the Olympic Games, and to make history. Alan Bairner, well up on male Brazilian athletes, primarily footballers, and with little insights into women and sports, now knows considerably more and intends to make it his business to continue to take an interest in women’s sport in Brazil.

This Advanced Introduction to the Sociology of Sport, claims the publisher (Edward Elgar Publishing), highlights the relationship between sport and violence, brain injury, social class, sexual minorities, gender, and race. That's fine with our reviewer, Alan Bairner, but Eric Anderson’s and Rory Magrath’s effort does not, according to Professor Bairner, qualify as an introduction, advanced or otherwise, to the sociology of sport.

As women’s sport continues to grow and develop there is an increasing need to critically examine the conditions in which women as athletes operate. Ali Bowes’ and Alex Culvin’s anthology The Professionalisation of Women’s Sport: Issues and Debates (Emerald Publishing) discusses the processes of professionalisation in women’s sports. Our reviewer is Alan Bairner, and he underlines that women’s professional sport needs to learn from the mistakes that have been made in men’s professional sport.

Academics in various disciplines are writing about sport. Sport in Society is a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary forum for academics to discuss the growing relationship of sport to significant areas of modern life. The Forum Editor’s pick from the current issue: A rebel and a giant: change and continuity in the discursive construction of Chinese sport heroes by Xiaoqian Richard Hu, Junjian Liang & Alan Bairner.

Research Handbook on Sport and Society, edited by Elizabeth C.J. Pike (Edward Elgar), aims to provide a critical examination of the complex issues surrounding sports in contemporary societies. Our reviewer of this collection of contributions from leading sociology of sport scholars, is Alan Bairner. Although uneven, he commends the collection for its quality contributors and the editor for the clever approach of having them all describe their personal journeys into the realm of social scientific study of sport.