By Sport and Leisure Cultures Research Group
The podcast currently has 16 episodes available.
In this episode of Transforming Sport, Sean Heath speaks with Jennifer Amann, a rising force in the academic and not-for-profit worlds connecting football and climate change. They speak at length about Jenny’s work in the field of climate change and football, the intersections of sport fandom and climate action, and the requirements to think, and take action, in a holistic manner to work towards environmental sustainability. Jenny discusses her recent work with Pledgeball, a not-for-profit based in the UK, and some of the lessons she has learned while researching the mobilization of football fans to tackle climate change. She has a forthcoming article on this topic which will be published later this year.
Jenny is currently working with the not-for-profit community interest company Spirit of Football (https://spiritoffootball.com/) on the “The Ball 2022” project (https://theball.tv/2022/). She also works for the not-for-profit group Pledgeball where she is a research and development consultant. In addition, Jenny has worked as a Research Assistant at the Sport and Leisure Cultures Research Group of the University of Brighton.
You can find more information about her research and the critical work she is undertaking transforming football and mobilizing football fans to make positive impacts on climate change on her twitter account @hej_jennifer
Contact us: @SportTransform or @SeanmrHeath
https://anchor.fm/transformingsport
On the third episode in our mini-series on eSport I had the pleasure to speak with Dr. Holly Collison, Lecturer at the Institute for Sport Business at Loughborough University London, UK. She is an anthropologist in the field of Sport for Development and Peace (SDP). Holly has completed extensive fieldwork in West and East Africa and South East Asia examining post-conflict development interventions and the use of sport. Her research explores youth identity, notions of community, international development, peacebuilding, social inclusion, and grassroots perspectives and experiences of SDP. Recently her work has shifted to focus on eSport as a space for social inclusion and community development on which she has co-published multiple journal articles.
In this episode we discussed the research she has undertaken with eSport stakeholders in the UK and United States, looking at how eSport communities can provide spaces for social inclusion as well as exclusion, including toxicity and tribal mentalities in these digital spaces. Space is indeed an important theoretical concept for Holly, and she has used a tripartite conception of space following Henri Lefebvre to explore questions around eSports potential for incorporation into Sport for Development (SfD) more broadly.
Dr. Holly Collison’s recent publications include Exploring the Contested Notion of Social Inclusion and Gender Inclusivity within eSport Spaces and Landscapes of Tension, Tribalism and Toxicity: Configuring a Spatial Politics of eSport Communities. She has recently been invited to participate in expert meetings for the United Nations on the topics of the “Sustainable Development Goals and the UN System” (New York, 2018), and “The Use of Sport as an Educational Tool to Tackle Radicalisation and Violent Extremism” (Vienna, 2018, 2019). Find out more about her latest research and publications on her Loughborough University staff profile page here.
Contact us: @SportTransform or @SeanmrHeath
https://anchor.fm/transformingsport
This week we have our second instalment on the topic of eSports. In March of 2021 Jamie Kiff, Co-founder of Gscience delivered aa virtual guest lecture to Sport Management degree students at the University of Brighton. There he spoke about his experiences working outside of academia in the start-up industry, working with professional eSports athletes to develop healthier practices in the professional gaming industry. With a background in sport science and human kinetics, and a Master’s degree in Strength and Conditioning from Loughborough University, he has been applying notions of bodily health and wellbeing to Gamers, who are often stereotyped as the antithesis of high performance athletes in other sports. Through outlining his own educational journey, he highlights some of the practical industry skills he developed as a strength and conditioning student, skills he now applies to working with professional eSports athletes and coaches.
Gscience - eSport Health and Performance: https://www.gscience.io/
Sport and Leisure Cultures Research Group:
https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/organisations/sport-and-leisure-cultures-research-and-enterprise-group
Sean Heath: @SeanmrHeath; [email protected]
Dr. Anne Tjønndal is Associate Professor of Sport Sociology at Nord University, Norway, and has held the title of Norwegian National Champion in Women’s Boxing. She has a prolific publishing record in academia on a variety of topics from gender equity issues in boxing, eSports, coaching policy in sport, and social innovation in sport. She recently published an article “Youth Sport 2.0” which reviews the growth of eSports in Norway between 2016 and 2019. In this episode we discussed the stereotypes of the “gamer” and how her research has shed light on this false portrayal. We discussed the ability for eSport to provide spaces for forms of social inclusion and community, which more traditional “physical” sport clubs have recognized and have begun to incorporate into their club structure. We also discussed the difficulties facing the recognition and incorporation of eSports into national sporting frameworks and policy.
Dr. Anne Tjønndal’s recent publications include Social Innovation in Sport and Gender Equity and Sports Coaching in Norway: Political Discourses and Developmental Trajectories from 1970 to 2020. Her larger research interests include social inequality, gender and sport, eSports, innovation and entrepreneurship in sports, and sports policy. Find out more about her latest research and publications on her Nord University staff profile page here.
In January 2021 Dr. Madeline Orr delivered an online talk for the Sport and Leisure Culture’s research group’s 2021 Seminar Series. In her lecture she explores the bidirectional relationship between sport, the environment, and climate change, and why sport can be a vehicle for change to the growing and continuing climate crisis. As Director and co-founder of the Sport Ecology Group, Maddy is a leading voice for change in the sport sector, how everyone from grassroots to transnational sporting organizations can do their part to help ameliorate and prevent further climate degradation.
This episode shifts between the lecture she gave for the SLC 2021 Seminar Series and a conversation I had with her where we further explored some of the pressing issues of sport ecology and climate change.
Dr. Maddy Orr’s recent publications include “Sport Facilities as Sites of Environmental and Social Resistance” and “Climate Vulnerability as a Catalyst for Early Stadium Replacement”. Her larger research interests include the impacts of climate change on the sport sector, with a focus on vulnerability and resilience research. Find out more about her research and the Sport Ecology Group at https://www.sportecology.org/.
Additional resources:
Rapid Transition Alliance
https://www.rapidtransition.org/
UN Climate Change Conference
https://ukcop26.org/
Beyond Sport
https://www.beyondsport.org/
The Transforming Sport Podcast is back for a second season this coming summer. We have a new series of public talks and conversations with sport experts, both academic and professional, coming your way.
In this episode Dr. Thomas F. Carter, Reader in Anthropology at the University of Brighton, speaks with your host, Sean Heath, about all things running.
Tom’s ethnographically focused anthropological research centres on the relationships between the individual and the state, the movement, migrations, and mobilities of various peoples, the politics of spectacle, and the dialectic relations of spatialized embodiment. He is currently working on a project centred around the human body, human movement, and how running makes us human.
Our conversation today centres on his book entitled On Running and Becoming Human: An Anthropological Perspective. We discuss the connections between our own moving bodies, our environments, and how the act of running literally shapes our minds, our bodies and the ways we experience our environments. Tom’s decades of running experience in both mundane and exotic places across the globe provides the route of travel as we wandered through the anthropological, neurological, philosophical and experiential aspects of our very human form of locomotion: running.
From the seemingly simple acts of running through neighbourhoods when we arrive in new cities to get an understanding of the layout of where we are, to the seeking out and exploration of spaces and places near and far from the places we live, Tom weaves together an intricate argument which positions the mind as an extension of the senses and the moving body out into the world. Our being through the act of running incorporates the environments we move through as environs, our individually positioned experiences of those environments informed by our societies, cultures, and physiology.
Dr. Thomas F. Carter has a forthcoming publication in forthcoming in The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, entitled "Gender and Sport" (2020). His latest book, On Running and Becoming Human: An Anthropological Perspective can be found through the link and is published by PalgraveMacMillan. His other research is accessible via his University of Brighton staff research profile page https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/persons/thomas-carter
In this episode of Transforming Sport, Dr. Anastasiya Khomutova from the University of Brighton speaks with Dr. Robert W. Turner II, who is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Clinical Research and Leadership at The George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Science and Global Sport Visiting scholar at Arizona State University. They sat down to discuss the issues facing professional football players transitioning out of sport and the unpaid labour of college athletes in the United States. Uniquely qualified as a former professional football player in the NFL, CFL, and defunct US Football League, and an expert in psychosocial and neurocognitive risk and protective factors in sport scholarship, Robert Turner’s ethnographic account of the lifeworld of professional athletes and the transitions between college, professional, and retired status highlights the struggles of pursuing the athletic dream. Here he discusses his personal journey and trajectory from professional football player to career academic researcher. Noting the mistrust which athletes often have of journalists, Robert discusses the necessity of an ethical approach to building rapport with interlocutors. He also discusses how a lack of focus on the transition to life after sports can have a variety of long-term health consequences and that teachers, coaches, and scholars need to support athletes to develop their skills and themselves as individuals beyond their sport.
Robert W. Turner II’s book is entitled Not For Long: The Life and Career of the NFL Athlete. He can be found on twitter at @robertturnerphd, and his other research, including the HBO Sports documentary Student Athlete, is accessible via his website or his George Washington University staff profile page.
Anastasiya Khomutova is Senior Lecturer and member of the Sport and Leisure Cultures research group at the University of Brighton. She can be found on twitter @DrKhomutova, and her research is accessible via her University of Brighton staff profile page.
In this episode of Transforming Sport, Alex Channon interviews Sport and Leisure Cultures research group member Sean Heath about his ongoing research with youth competitive swimmers An expert in youth competitive swimming and children’s sport scholarship, and an avid swimmer, Sean Heath recently turned his attention to pain, injury, and the well-being of youth who compete and train with competitive swimming clubs. Here he discusses the importance of the physical, emotional, and social aspects of training and competition in swimming as a key aspects of youths’ everyday experiences and their well-being. Noting the disjunctures and disruptions which injury and illness can cause in the lives of athletes, Sean discusses the variations in participation which allows youth to maintain connection to the water and their sport. He also discusses the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic on the sport of swimming in the UK and some of the encouraging lessons a break from organized competitive sport can provide.
Sean Heath has two recent publications on the effects of burnout and the COVID-19 pandemic, on youth competitive swimmers’ well-being. These are in the edited volume High Performance Youth Swimming published by Routledge; Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group, American Anthropological Association. He can be found on twitter at @SeanmrHeath, and his other research is accessible via his University of Brighton staff profile page: https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/persons/sean-heath
In this episode of Transforming Sport, I interview Sport and Leisure Cultures research group member Dr Alex Channon about his ongoing research with combat sport medics. An expert in mixed martial arts and combat sport scholarship, and an avid practitioner, Dr Channon recently turned his attention to medical care, or lack thereof within combat sports. Here he discusses the importance of situating sport medics within the social, economic, and political frameworks which place pressures on combatants, sports organizers, coaches, broadcasters and medics to provide a spectacle for viewers, often at the expense of the health of athletes. Noting a lack of regulation for medical care by any governing body for MMA sport within the UK, Dr Channon discusses the variations in medical care, who is defined as a sports medic and what strategies medics use in what are often ethically fraught situations. Dr Channon has a recently published academic article in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport.
He can be found on twitter at @DrAlexChannon, and his other research is accessible via his University of Brighton staff profile page: https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/persons/alex-channon
The podcast currently has 16 episodes available.