Routledge Focus on Sport, Culture and Society showcases the latest cutting-edge research in the sociology of sport and exercise. Concise in form (20,000-50,000 words) and published quickly (within three months), the books in this series represents an important channel through which authors can disseminate their research swiftly and make an impact on current debates. We welcome submissions on any topic within the socio-cultural study of sport and exercise, including but not limited to subjects such as gender, race, sexuality, disability, politics, the media, social theory, Olympic Studies, and the ethics and philosophy of sport. The series aims to be theoretically-informed, empirically-grounded and international in reach, and will include a diversity of methodological approaches.
By Enrico Michelini
February 08, 2023
Drawing on original research, this book looks at what sport can tell us about the social processes, patterns and outcomes of forced migration and the ‘refugee crisis’. Adopting a systems theory framework and examining different sport disciplines, performance levels and settings, ...
By Tom Webb, Mike Rayner, Jamie Cleland, Jimmy O'Gorman
May 30, 2022
This book explores issues related to the abuse of referees and match officials in sport. Drawing on original empirical research in football, rugby union, rugby league and cricket, it provides an insight into the complexities involved in the recruitment, retention and development processes of match ...
By Daniel Burdsey
May 20, 2022
Racism and English Football: For Club and Country analyses the contemporary manifestations, outcomes and implications of the fractious relationship between English professional football and race. Racism, we were told, had disappeared from English football. It was relegated to a distant past, and ...
By Thomas Søbirk Petersen
April 29, 2022
In this provocative and thought-provoking book, Professor of Ethics Thomas Søbirk Petersen explains why the World Anti-Doping Agency’s doping rules are poorly justified and makes a case for a new third way in anti-doping policy that would allow athletes to use substances and methods currently on ...
By Joseph D Lewandowski
October 04, 2021
This book is a philosophical and cultural critique of contemporary boxing. It broadens and deepens our understanding of the empirically and normatively entwined complexities of a sport that is often misunderstood and all too easily reduced to stereotypes. Moving between and among work in ...
Edited
By John Harris, Nicholas Wise
August 13, 2019
This book critically examines how rugby union has developed in recent years, in nations on the periphery of the sport. Focusing on people and places on the fringes, it examines contemporary issues and challenges within the global game. Such a collection is timely, as the sport’s governing body ...
By Huijie Zhang, Fan Hong, Fuhua Huang
May 20, 2019
Despite the popularity of sport in contemporary China, the practice of physical education is not indigenous to its culture. Strenuous physical activity was traditionally linked to low class and status in the pre-modern Chinese society. The concept of modern PE was introduced to China by Western ...
Edited
By Andrew Adams, Leigh Robinson
April 30, 2019
This fascinating collection of essays explores the complex economic, political, cultural and social claims over sport, from multi-disciplinary perspectives including philosophy, history, political science and management. The book seeks to uncover some of the tensions and dilemmas wrapped up within...
By Geoffery Z. Kohe, Holly Collison
March 19, 2019
Using an interdisciplinary approach, Sport, Education and Corporatisation offers an important critique of the intersection between sport organisations, commercial agendas and educational development. It reveals a discomforting interplay between sector stakeholders that has been normalised via ...
By Sine Agergaard
April 17, 2018
Rethinking Sports and Integration offers a critical cultural analysis of the idea that sport can promote the integration of migrants and their descendants. It examines the origins of this idea and the concept of integration, and analyzes the problems in focus, the methods applied and the results of...
By Honorata Jakubowska
June 21, 2017
Teaching the skills necessary to play sport depends partly on transmitting knowledge verbally, yet non-verbal or tacit knowledge also has an important role. A coach may tell a young athlete to 'move more dynamically', but it is undoubtedly easier to demonstrate with the body itself how this should ...
By Liu Li, Fan Hong
June 13, 2017
The history of China’s National Games reflects both the transformation of elite sport in China and wider Chinese society. This is the first book to describe the origins and development of the National Games through their dynamic relationship with Chinese politics, nationalism and identity in the ...
