This book considers the ability of individuals and communities to maintain healthy relationships with their surroundings—before, during and after catastrophic events—through physical activity and sporting practices. Broad and ambitious in scope, this book uses sport and physical activity as a lens through which to examine our catastrophic societies and spaces. Acknowledging that catastrophes are complex, overlapping phenomena in need of sophisticated, interdisciplinary solutions, this book explores the social, economic, ecological and moral injustices that determine the personal and emotional impact of catastrophe. Drawing from international case studies, this book uniquely explores the different landscapes and contexts of catastrophe as well as the affective qualities of sporting practices. This includes topics such as DIY skateparks in Jamaica; former child soldiers in Africa; the funding of sport, recreation and cultural activities by extractive industries in northern Canada; mountain biking in the UK; and urban exploration in New Zealand. Featuring the work of ex-professional athletes, artists, anthropologists, sociologists, political ecologists, community development workers and philosophers, this book offers new perspectives on capitalism, nature, sociality, morality and identity. This is essential reading for academics and practitioners in sociology, disaster studies, sport-for-development and political ecology.

This book explores the local environmental impact of sports stadiums, and how that impact can disproportionately affect communities of color. Offering a series of review articles and global case studies, it illustrates what happens when sport organizations and other public and private stakeholders fail to factor environmental justice into their planning and operations processes. It opens with an historical account of environmental justice research and of research into sport and the natural environment. It then offers a series of case studies from around the world, including the United States, Canada, Kenya, South Africa, and Taiwan. These case studies are organized around key elements of environmental justice such as water and air pollution, displacement and gentrification, soil contamination, and transportation accessibility. They illustrate how major sports stadiums have contributed positively or negatively (or both) to the environmental health of the compact neighborhoods that surround them, to citizens’ quality of life, and in particular to communities that have historically been subjected to unjust and inequitable environmental policy. Placing the issue of environmental justice front and center leads to a more complete understanding of the relationship between stadiums, the natural environment, and urban communities. Presenting new research with important implications for practice, this book is vital reading for anybody working in sport management, venue management, mega-event planning, environmental studies, sociology, geography, and urban and regional planning. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This book explores the various ways in which participation in sport and physical activity might contribute to effective solutions within criminal justice systems. Focusing on a range of different sporting and physical activities across an array of social contexts involving both adult and youth populations, the book offers insight into the way in which sport and physical activity is interpreted by participants and practitioners, and how these interpretations relate to broader policy objectives within and across justice systems. It focuses on a series of key issues, including how sport policy (national and international) has developed in recent years in this area; how and to what extent such policy developments have impacted organisations and interventions (both custodial and non-custodial) across sport and criminal justice systems and sectors; and how participant cohorts (such as disadvantaged and/or ‘at-risk’ young people) have experienced these changes. With shifting debates around criminal justice and the need for policy and practical solutions to extend beyond tougher and longer sentencing, this book is important reading for students, researchers, and practitioners working in sport pedagogy, sport-for-development, sport and leisure management, sport coaching, physical education, criminology, youth work, youth studies, social work, and health studies.

This book represents the first critical examination of the social, cultural, and political significance of mountain biking in contemporary societies. Starting from the premise that cultures of mountain biking are diverse, complex, and at times contradictory, this book offers practical and theoretical insights into a range of embodied, material, and socio-technical relationships. Featuring contributions from an interdisciplinary team of researchers, artists, and (Indigenous) community members with backgrounds in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, community development, and coaching, chapters critically unpack the complex and contested nature of mountain biking identities, bodies, environments, and inequalities within specific settings. Via a range of international case studies from England, Scotland, America, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa, authors highlight how tensions and conflicts in the world of mountain biking initiate important conversations about climate change, colonialism, discrimination, and land-use. This is essential reading for academics and practitioners in sociology, cultural studies, sport-for-development, and human geography.

This book examines the logic of ‘faster, higher, and stronger’ and the technoscientific revolution that has driven tremendous growth in the sports economy and in sport performance over the last 100 years. It asks whether this logic needs revisiting in the light of the climate crisis and sport’s environmental responsibilities. Drawing on multi-disciplinary work in sport history, sport pedagogy, sport philosophy, sport science, and environmental history, the book considers not only how sportification may have contributed to the growing environmental impact of sport but also whether it might be used as a tool of positive social change. It reflects on the ways that sport sets performance limits for other ethical reasons, such as doping controls, and asks whether sport could or should set limits for environmental reasons too. Sport, Performance and Sustainability touches on key themes in sport studies, including digitisation, activism, social media, empowerment, youth sport, and physical education. This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in sport, the environment, development, sociology, or culture. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

This book takes stock of the position of motorsport in the 21st century and considers how it will continue to influence sport business, politics, and society in the future. Presenting a set of thematic essays and multi-disciplinary case studies, the book demonstrates that motorsport continues to play a significant role in relationships between the automotive industry, nationalism, industrialisation, and capitalism as well as motorsports’ position as a feature of contemporary popular culture. Examining issues such as event management and legacy, environmental sustainability and ‘greenwashing’, diversity and inclusion, the rise of gaming and esports, and the use of sport as political soft power around the world across multiple motorsport disciplines, the book shines fascinating new light on this innovative but sometimes problematic industry. This is essential reading for all advanced students, researchers, managers, strategists, sponsors, and other stakeholders working at the nexus of motorsport, business, politics, and culture.

Experiencing the Body in Yoga Practice: Meanings and Knowledge Transfer inspires more mindful and contemplative qualitative research on body and knowledge transfer in bodily practices in hatha yoga. The book explores the work of the mind, as well as the role of emotions and body sensations in perceiving reality and in reflecting on it. Procedures and research methods are an extension of our mind, which wants to reach into the social reality to describe it objectively. It usually refuses body and emotions. The techniques of sampling and representativeness are also tools of the mind. Using these tools, our contact with social reality produces emotions and feelings of the body. These phenomena surrounding the mind and body often go unnoticed during research and are only partially reported in the conclusions. Experiencing the Body in Yoga Practice: Meanings and Knowledge Transfer examines this gap. It presents the application of a contemplative way of thinking and proceeding in qualitative social research and a first-person perspective, focusing on experiencing lived body and knowledge transfer in hatha yoga. It analyzes how the mind focuses and stops working, proceeds in the finite province of the meaning of yoga, how the body produces emotions and deals with them during yoga sessions, and how the knowledge is transferred by using the body in some linguistic and cultural context. The book will be of interest to sociologists and social scientists who want to concentrate on and analyze the experiences of the body from contemplative and phenomenological perspectives. It is also key reading for all practitioners dealing with body and bodywork, such as in sports, recreational activities, physical education, rehabilitation, physical work, educational activities, etc.