scholarly journals Towards a Social Justice Disposition in Communication and Sport Scholarship

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 435-451
Author(s):  
Daniel Jackson ◽  
Filippo Trevisan ◽  
Emma Pullen ◽  
Michael Silk

In this introduction to a special issue on sport communication and social justice, we offer some reflections on the state of the discipline as it relates to social justice. We bring attention to the role of sport communication scholars in the advancement of social justice goals and articulate a set of dispositions for researchers to bring to their practice, predicated on internalizing and centralizing morality, ethics, and the political. Identifying the epistemological (under)currents in the meaningful study of communication and sport, we offer a set of challenges for researchers in the contemporary critique of the communication industries based on “sensibilities” or dispositions of the research to those studied. We then introduce and frame the 13 articles that make up this double special issue of Communication & Sport. Collectively, these articles begin to demonstrate such dispositions in their interrogation of some of the most important and spectacularized acts of social justice campaigns and activism in recent decades alongside investigations of everyday forms of marginalization, resistance, and collective action that underpin social change—both progressive and regressive. We hope this special issue provides a vehicle for continued work in the area of sports communication and social justice.

Politics ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 159-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Moran

Gramsci revised classical Marxist accounts of the role of the state in society, culture and ideology, and stressed the autonomy of the political process from the economic base. Sociologists often labelled neoWeberian also focus on social change, the state and the political process. Michael Mann, whilst remaining discrete from Marxism has nevertheless moved away from classical Weberian sociology, engaging deeply with materialism in analysing the state. This article compares the work of Gramsci and Mann regarding the state, to examine whether a genuine synthesis is possible between Gramsci (perhaps the first ‘neo-Marxist’) and Mann, a neoWeberian.


Author(s):  
Hazel Gray

This chapter explores the role of the political settlement in shaping outcomes of land investments by analysing struggles in key sectors of the economy. Land reform during the socialist period had far-reaching implications for the political settlement. Reforms to land rights under liberalization involved strengthening land markets; however, the state continued to play a significant role. Corruption within formal land management systems became prevalent during the period of high growth. Vietnam experienced a rapid growth in export agriculture but, in contrast with stable property rights for smallholders, Tanzania’s efforts to encourage large land investments were less successful. Industrialization in both countries generated new forms of land struggles that were influenced by the different distributions of power between the state, existing landowners, and investors.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002200272110130
Author(s):  
Kristine Eck ◽  
Courtenay R. Conrad ◽  
Charles Crabtree

The police are often key actors in conflict processes, yet there is little research on their role in the production of political violence. Previous research provides us with a limited understanding of the part the police play in preventing or mitigating the onset or escalation of conflict, in patterns of repression and resistance during conflict, and in the durability of peace after conflicts are resolved. By unpacking the role of state security actors and asking how the state assigns tasks among them—as well as the consequences of these decisions—we generate new research paths for scholars of conflict and policing. We review existing research in the field, highlighting recent findings, including those from the articles in this special issue. We conclude by arguing that the fields of policing and conflict research have much to gain from each other and by discussing future directions for policing research in conflict studies.


2014 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 681-713 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Bowie

AbstractDespite a growing literature revealing the presence of millenarian movements in both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist societies, scholars have been remarkably reluctant to consider the role of messianic beliefs in Buddhist societies. Khruubaa Srivichai (1878–1938) is the most famous monk of northern Thailand and is widely revered as atonbun, or saint. Althoughtonbunhas been depoliticized in the modern context, the term also refers to a savior who is an incarnation of the coming Maitreya Buddha. In 1920 Srivichai was sent under arrest to the capital city of Bangkok to face eight charges. This essay focuses on the charge that he claimed to possess the god Indra's sword. Although this charge has been widely ignored, it was in fact a charge of treason. In this essay, I argue that the treason charge should be understood within the context of Buddhist millenarianism. I note the saint/savior tropes in Srivichai's mytho-biography, describe the prevalence of millenarianism in the region, and detail the political economy of the decade of the 1910s prior to Srivichai's detention. I present evidence to show that the decade was characterized by famine, dislocation, disease, and other disasters of both natural and social causes. Such hardships would have been consistent with apocalyptic omens in the Buddhist repertoire portending the advent of Maitreya. Understanding Srivichai in this millenarian context helps to explain both the hopes of the populace and the fears of the state during that tumultuous decade.


1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 445-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
R J King

The flow of both productive and speculative investment into housing relates to the state of capital accumulation in other economic sectors, as hypothesised in the ‘circuits of capital’ argument, but it also relates to the incentive to ‘switch’ investment into and out of housing, and therefore to expectations of ground rent and the (changing) social conditions that enable ground rent extraction. This is the first of three papers in which the relationships involved in these processes are explored. A series of theoretical problems arising from the argument are dealt with, principally relating to its seeming economic determinism and to an inappropriately narrow treatment of crisis and social change. In the subsequent papers, in this journal, these various ideas will be used to reflect on housing market and related social change in Melbourne from the 1930s to the 1980s.


1965 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-200
Author(s):  
J. H. Shennan

The most recent biographer of Montesquieu has written:…the similarity between the ideas of the former president a tnortier and those of the parlements is sometimes striking.…The king, they admit, is the legislator and the fount of justice. The parlements, however, are the repositories of his supreme juris-diction. To remove it from them is to offend the laws of the state and to overthrow the ancient legal structure of the kingdom.…This tradition of the parlements inspired and was inspired by the political doctrine of Montesquieu; and when the President writes of the monarchy of his own day…as being the best form of government that men have been able to imagine, it is monarchy supported by this tradition which he has in mind.


2021 ◽  

The current political debates about climate change or the coronavirus pandemic reveal the fundamental controversial nature of expertise in politics and society. The contributions in this volume analyse various facets, actors and dynamics of the current conflicts about knowledge and expertise. In addition to examining the contradictions of expertise in politics, the book discusses the political consequences of its controversial nature, the forms and extent of policy advice, expert conflicts in civil society and culture, and the global dimension of expertise. This special issue also contains a forum including reflections on the role of expertise during the coronavirus pandemic. The volume includes perspectives from sociology, political theory, political science and law.


Author(s):  
Richard Whiting

In assessing the relationship between trade unions and British politics, this chapter has two focuses. First, it examines the role of trade unions as significant intermediate associations within the political system. They have been significant as the means for the development of citizenship and involvement in society, as well as a restraint upon the power of the state. Their power has also raised questions about the relationship between the role of associations and the freedom of the individual. Second, the chapter considers critical moments when the trade unions challenged the authority of governments, especially in the periods 1918–26 and 1979–85. Both of these lines of inquiry underline the importance of conservatism in the achievement of stability in modern Britain.


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