Dear all,
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere I go – but they’re not fooling me, I know it isn’t true. There are several weeks to go until it’s time for mistletoe and holly, so we’re laboring on.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere I go – but they’re not fooling me, I know it isn’t true. There are several weeks to go until it’s time for mistletoe and holly, so we’re laboring on.And last week the following items were published on idrottsforum.org (see below; language and publication dates, YYMMDD, in brackets). Click on the red headings to go to content. Utilize the Google Translate service to turn Scandinavian language pages into (some sort of) English.
Have a great week,
Kjell Eriksson
Editor
Feature Article
UN Experts Don’t Understand Sport (Nor Human Rights)
On the 31st October, a group of UN Special Procedures mandate holders, who are independent, unpaid, voluntary experts, published a policy position urging states and other stakeholders ‘to uphold the ideal of sport that is inclusive of LGBT and intersex persons’. Miroslav Imbrišević has studied the policy position in detail and has found many questionable points of departure and objectionable conclusions. (Published in English 231106.
Book Reviews
Return of the Grasshopper: Games, Leisure and the Good Life in the Third Millennium, by Bernard Suits, Christopher C. Yorke & Francisco Javier López Frías
Return of the Grasshopper: Games, Leisure and the Good Life in the Third Millennium by Bernard Suits with editors Christopher C. Yorke and Francisco Javier López Frías (Routledge) is published in its full and unabridged form for the first time, 16 years after Suits’ death. Pam R. Sailors has read the book on our behalf, and she lauds editors Yorke and Frias for bringing Suits’ final effort to publication. She also congratulates sport scholars everywhere for getting a second grasshopper in their library. The book is, quite simply, a must-read. (Review in English, published 231108.)
Sociology for Physical Education and Sports Coaching, by Richard L. Light & Steve Georgakis
Sociology for Physical Education and Sports Coaching by Richard L. Light and Steve Georgakis (Routledge) introduces an accessible, jargon-free foundation for understanding the relationships between sport, education, and wider society. Our reviewers Norwegian sport sociologist Jan ove Tangen, is not impressed – not by the idea to boil down complex scholarly matter into a 122 page book, and not by the result. Which is not to say that the book is not important, only that it doesn’t live up to the standards that the authors themselves set up. (Review in English, published 231110.)
New Blog Posts
Russia finally got it right, by Erkki Vettenniemi
Though there’s a fierce war raging in and around Israel, life goes on elsewhere in the sporting world, including the exemplary democracies in and around Scandinavia – excluding Russia, of course. Last week, however, a voice of reason emanated from Moscow, a voice belonging to the otherwise rather unhinged foreign minister of Russia. How dare the International Olympic Committee (IOC) suddenly warn against ‘discriminatory behavior’ against Israeli, and only Israeli, athletes? It’s self-evident, according to Sergei Lavrov, that athletes cannot be responsible for the decisions of their government. (Published in English 231109.)
Perth’s Optus Stadium has drawn more consumer anger after the outage. Another case of the ‘stadium curse’?, by David Rowe
Looming over the Swan River in Perth, a shiny sporting structure boldly declares “OPTUS STADIUM Yes”. After the disastrously prolonged communication outage this week, many will have shouted “No”, or other words requiring asterisks in respectable media. Sport stadium naming rights are controversial at the best of times – so why do corporates pay so much for them? And what are the risks?Optus bought the ten-year rights from the Western Australian government in 2017 for a reported A$50 million. This week’s public relations disaster stands in stark contrast to the company’s optimistic announcement that year, celebrating “a combination of mobile network expansion, coupled with game-changing entertainment experiences for events at the new Optus Stadium”. (Published in English 231112.)
New Issues of Scholarly Journals
(We rely heavily on journal publishers delivering on their promises of new issue alerts. Sometimes they don’t.)
Psychology of Sport and Exercise, Vol. 67, July 2023 (231107)- Journal of Sports Economics, Vol. 24, 2023, No. 5 (231107)
- Event Management: An international journal, Volume 27, 2023, Number 4 | Event Innovation and Resilience (231108)
- Sport, Education and Society, Volume 28, 2023, Issue 6 | Environmental attunement in health, sport and physical education (231112)
Psychology of Sport and Exercise, Vol. 67, July 2023 (231107)News items (calls for papers, vacancies, etc.)
- Call for Papers | Language, Gender and Sexuality in Sport | De Montfort University, April 5, 2024. Call ends December 11, 2023 (231108)
- Call for Papers | “Best Practice for Framing Identities and Diversity in Sports Media”, the Sports Media Identity Network Conference #4 | Northumbria University’s London Campus, January 19, 2024. Call ends December 4, 2023 (231109)
