This paper considers the interconnected practices of state formation, diplomacy, national identity and sport through an examination of 'Irish' involvement in the British Empire Games of 1930, 1934 and 1938. These events had a contradictory role in bolstering diplomatic relations between those who were committed to the empire but also in expressing the aspirations of those who sought independence from it, or a distinct identity within it. State formation and diplomacy played out in sporting contexts - which we term sportcraft - and this process was especially complex in post-partition Ireland. In the period under examination, a gradual but significant hardening of ideologies and identities occurred in certain sports on the island, notably athletics, mirroring the effects of partition and reflecting British and unionist political actions and sportive interests. Original archival and documentary material is presented from state archives in Dublin, London, Belfast and Ottawa, and from official sports collections in Birmingham, London, Stirling, Melbourne (Australia), Hamilton (Canada) and Lausanne (Switzerland). This demonstrates that by the early 1920s, government officials and sports administrators had already recognised the propaganda functions and utility of sport for state formation purposes and for issues of political control, jurisdiction and territorial boundaries.

This chapter sets out to examine how exponents of global mega-sport events, while claiming that they foster and develop unity, friendship and cosmopolitan identities, are in fact increasingly concerned more with our identities as consumers. It is significant that the campaign was developed within the International Olympic Committee's (IOC's) marketing department, in order to attract and maintain the interest of sponsors, and provide the 'metaphoric empty flask' that the Olympics had come to represent. In fact the IOC have been involved in extensive marketing research since 1985. The aim of branding is for the company or product to accumulate symbolic meaning through various associations, which serve to differentiate the brand from competitors who are essentially providing very similar products, or services. Indeed, in the build-up to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, the IOC is following a similar strategy to previous games – with one exception.

This paper draws on original rigorous research conducted in an extensive range of local, national and international state archives, sporting repositories and personal papers. In focus is the 1948 London Olympic Games, the Olympic movement and a ‘new’ phase in Irish–British relations involving international sport. Here, for the first time, we elucidate the role of non-state sportive diplomats who, acting as cultural intermediaries, were involved in the production of ideas about the normative rules governing international jurisdiction and identity that prevented nations/states from being recognized on their own terms. The intricate details revealed here are made possible by a rigorous two-way traffic between sensitizing concepts and evidence: specifically, the quest for exciting significance by non-state actors, soft power struggles and ‘patriot games’ via the medium of international Olympic and athletic movements. The paper also makes two other important contributions: to sport in/and international relations and the politics of Olympic protests.

This chapter draws on original rigorous research conducted in an extensive range of local, national and international state archives, sporting repositories and personal papers. In focus is the 1948 London Olympic Games, the Olympic movement and a ‘new’ phase in Irish–British relations involving international sport. Here, we elucidate the role of non-state sportive diplomats who, acting as cultural intermediaries, were involved in the production of ideas about the normative rules governing international jurisdiction and identity that prevented nations/states from being recognized on their own terms. The intricate details revealed here are made possible by a rigorous two-way traffic between sensitizing concepts and evidence: specifically, the quest for exciting significance by non-state actors, soft power struggles and ‘patriot games’ via the medium of international Olympic and athletic movements. The paper also makes two other important contributions: to sport in/and international relations and the politics of Olympic protests.

This paper examines historical and contemporary interdependencies in Ireland, north and south. We explore how individual and group identities and traditions on the island were and are understood, felt, expressed and promoted through the medium of modern sport, a powerful transfer mechanism for culture. We examine the interweaving of sportcraft and statecraft, and how group notions of identity contour and shape possibilities for engagement that might, in some conditions, allow for potential mutual understanding and reconciliation. We analyse 'Ireland' and Irish–British relations through the historical and contemporary development of Olympic sports and track and field athletics, in the spirit of a public and policy sociology about a shared Ireland; this can potentially inform decisions about sport-related issues. Without reference to the centrality of sport for identities, considerations of a shared Ireland are more likely both to reaffirm silences, shadows and collective amnesia and to limit future opportunities.

Subjacente à construção e representação da identidade nacional inglesa estão os sentimentos de nostalgia e defesa étnica que são gerados, representados e incorporados. Os media desempenham um papel crucial nesse processo, assim como as práticas desportivas masculinas incorporadas na identidade inglesa. Deste modo, exploro como a identidade inglesa encontrou expressão na cobertura dos media britânicos/ingleses durante as competições futebolísticas masculinas anteriores e mais recentes ao Euro 2020. Inicialmente, descrevo aspetos desse processo, no longo prazo, com referência ao início dos anos 1990. Em seguida, faço uma breve revisão de trabalhos realizados no final da década de 1990 com referência específica ao futebol e indico como a pesquisa se desenvolveu posteriormente. A parte final explora as dinâmicas de continuidade e mudança em relação ao Euro 2020 e como as noções de inglesismo continuam em debate.

This chapter outlines the integral features of global sportization processes before then considering how power relations between the sexes are represented in these. Thereafter, it draws on sensitizing concepts from process sociology to advance knowledge about contemporary aspects of gender, sport, and globalization. The chapter concludes with reflections on future research avenues on the global sport figuration and the need to remain attuned to the varying social consequences that arise from the equalization of power relations between the sexes.

This chapter sets out the ways in which the concept of globalization, as well as all of its attendant sport-related processes, has been defined and subsequently developed in academic scholarship, ranging from Robertson, Bauman, and Giddens to Robins, Maguire, and Appadurai. There is considerable debate in this connection as to whether global sport is leading to a form of homogenized body culture—specifically, along Western lines. Although frequently ignored by mainstream social scientists, sport is both constituent of and a facilitator of greater global interdependence: both adding scope to global processes, and also being shaped by the influences of globalization patterns. Simultaneously, sport is also a potent symbol of local/national cultures and identities and provides a point of abrasion with global interconnectedness.

This chapter outlines a key aspects of the emergence and diffusion of sport. In doing so reference is made to and discussion undertaken concerning the how and in what ways globalization shaped and influenced this diffusion. This diffusion is viewed as a critical case study that provides clues to the making of the modern world. A process sociological perspective informs this analysis and, in so doing, shows how such an approach can help make sense of broader questions concerning globalization and inter-civilizational relations. That is, the study of sport can cast light on the character of and transformations wrought by global processes more generally.

Eric Dunning influenced the development of curricula and research agendas in sociology, history, social science and sports studies, internationally, in the UK and in Ireland. Dunning was also doctoral supervisor to, and academic colleague/mentor and friend of, both authors (at Leicester, Dublin and Chester). Inspired by him, this paper reflects on the craft of sociological research. The case study is the struggle for recognition of 'Ireland' in international athletics and the associated painstaking ongoing archival and mixed methods research work in multiple venues, involving sporting, state and personal papers, interviews and oral history sources. Such a history of the social dynamics of charisma and shame between the so-called 'mother country' (Great Britain) and a restless dominion (Ireland) was by no means structureless or patternless, but ontologically interdependent with life today. Accordingly, we consider several themes: the interplay between theory and evidence, the involvement-detachment balance and exploring knowledge figurations. In line with Dunning (and Elias), the paper adopts an anticipatory motif, that is to say, the work of understanding social relations between the 'British' and 'Irish' 'then' and 'now' is not finished. This work is one step in carrying forth the baton - the stock of intergenerational knowledge - aboutdoingsociology, handed to us in trust by Dunning.

research-article Share on Back to the future: shaping software engineering education with lessons from the past Authors: Joseph Maguire University of Glasgow University of GlasgowView Profile , Quintin Cutts University of Glasgow University of GlasgowView Profile Authors Info & Claims ACM InroadsVolume 10Issue 4December 2019 pp 30–42https://doi.org/10.1145/3368564Published:15 November 2019Publication History 0citation207DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations0Total Downloads207Last 12 Months35Last 6 weeks0 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access

Sociologists examine the function and meaning of sport in the lives of people and the societies they form, and explain the emergence and diffusion of sport over time and across different societies. In doing so, they identify the processes of socialization into, through, and out of modern sport and investigate the values and norms of dominant, emergent, and residual cultures and subcultures in sport. They also explore how the exercise of power and the stratified nature of societies place limits, and create possibilities, for people's involvement in the sports medical industrial complex (SMIC).

The sportization process involved a shift toward the competitive, regularized, rationalized, and gendered bodily exertions of achievement sport that, in turn, connected to wider changes at the level of personality, body deportment, and social interaction. This process entailed regulating violence, developing formalized sets of rules and governing bodies, and shifting body habitus. Despite the existence of European rivals in the form of German and Swedish gymnastics, and although some older folk pastimes also survived, it was male achievement sport, emerging out of the United Kingdom, that was to affect people's body habitus on a global scale. Resistance to and reinterpretations of this body culture have been evident throughout the ongoing sportization process.

This presentation intends to map out and explain aspects of Anglo-Irish relations through the prism of ‘Ireland’ and athletics during the period between 1920 and the 1960s. Two immediate caveats are necessary. While aspects of events in the 1920s clearly had a bearing on what followed, our focus today is on this latter period. In addition, our work is ongoing, and thus we tend to say more about the inter-war period than more recent times. Yet, what we highlight continued as a feature of Ireland and athletics during the 1960s and beyond. Our work is underpinned by multiple archival and oral history sources, at local, national and international levels, involving sporting, state and personal papers and is, in some ways, at odds with official records and collective memories. In the printed version as a whole we discuss notions of identity, Irishness and Britishness, the role that sport plays in identity politics, imperial culture and diplomacy, and the contemporary relevance of our findings for how countries deal with post-imperial identities.