British Journal of Sociology - Olympic Special

Read the Special Issue on Olympic and world sport: making transnational society? and the accompanying videocast interview

To coincide with the 2012 Olympic Games in London, The British Journal of Sociology has published a Special Issue on the subject of world sport. Edited by Richard Giulianotti and Susan Brownell, the special issue features six world-renowned social scientists writing about global football, Olympic Games, and the FIFA World Cup, ranging across Canada, the UK, Australia, China and South Africa. The contributors show that sport and sport mega-events are playing a crucial role in the making of transnational society because they draw increasing numbers of actors into a transnational web of connections, and general powerful fantasies of global unity and social order among the world audience. At the same time, the expansion of neoliberal policies and global “best practices” in security and policing has provoked oppositional civil society movements and conflicts over post-event “legacies”. The special issue will be valuable to readers interested in civil society, globalization, popular culture, and urban security, as well as those interested in the global nature of today’s sports.   Introduction Olympic and world sport: making transnational society?Richard Giulianotti and Susan Brownell Research articles Mapping the global football field: a sociological model of transnational forces within the world game Richard Giulianotti and Roland Robertson Planning for the worst: risk, uncertainty and the Olympic Games Philip Boyle and Kevin D. Haggerty The regeneration games: purity and security in the Olympic cityPete Fussey, Jon Coaffee, Gary Armstrong and Dick Hobbs The bid, the lead-up, the event and the legacy: global cultural politics and hosting the Olympics David Rowe Human rights and the Beijing Olympics: imagined global community and the transnational public sphere Susan Brownell “Our struggles are bigger than the World Cup”: civic activism, state- society relations and the socio-political legacies of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Scarlett Cornelissen Plus – Watching Football Football’s Coming Home? Digital reterritorialization, contradictions in the transnational coverage of sport and the sociology of alternative football broadcasts Matthew David and Peter Millward Fans, homophobia and masculinities in association football: evidence of a more inclusive environment Ellis Cashmore and Jamie Cleland