Mobilising sociology of sport for social change beyond the pandemic

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, conversations about how to build sport back better are becoming increasingly pronounced. The crisis both deepens inequities and creates opportunity as a new way to configure sport post-pandemic demands to be discovered. The challenge has been thrown down to sociologists to help reimagine and reshape the course of sport. What might such re-enchantment look like? And how might it help realise the sociology of sport’s untapped potential to advance impactful public sociology? This paper explores these questions with a particular focus on sociologists of sport as co-creators of, and actors in, social change. I discuss five issues that I see as being relevant for rethinking and reconfiguring sport beyond the pandemic: (1) reclaiming the ludic and pleasure; (2) rethinking sociality in sport; (3) social inequities and ‘sport for all’; (4) de-/re-centring power in sport for development; and (5) global interdependence and interconnectedness. The insights presented can hopefully make a modest contribution to our collective understanding of transformative practice in and through the sociology of sport in uncertain times.

Sociological podcasting: radical hope, care and solidarity in a time of crisis

Sociological podcasting is a radical way of communicating scholarship and assisting in the kinds of knowledge production needed in a heightened period of political calamity. It is part of a vast body of scholarship, work and art produced to contest the grand narratives which have come to dominate our understandings of society. It has the potential to make more legible the interconnections that underpin our most pressing issues as a society. This article discusses its role as public sociology, looking at the work of Michael Burawoy as well as some of his critics such as John Holmwood, Avi Goldberg and Axel van den Berg. It also discusses its creativity in taking listeners beyond the (academic) written word, and its potential for resisting and countering 'presentism' (accounts of events that are unhistorical and contextfree). Sociological podcasting has the capacity to generate hope and care, and here the work of Patricia Hill Collins is seen as exemplary, as is the work of Bev Skeggs and the Solidarity and Care collective. The dialogical characteristics of sociological podcasting are strengthened by the possibility it offers of drawing on real life examples of events, people and collectives. The authors - the people who produce the Surviving Society podcast - are resistant to positioning such projects as anything other than a collective endeavour, but are also mindful that, as Black creatives, podcasters and academics, their method and praxis can be overexposed to processes of co-option, plagiarism and erasure.

Three types of indigenization in the development of Korean sociology

This article focuses on the intellectual efforts to implement Western sociology into a Korean context during the country’s dynamic modernization. Three different types of responses are explored from the perspective of indigenization: historical sociology, critical sociology, public sociology, and comprehensive sociology. They suggest different approaches and strategies with their own research topics and academic activities. Although the simple dichotomy between Western universalism and Korean particularism is no longer presumed, intellectual efforts for indigenization remain an ongoing issue in Korean sociology.

On decolonial revisions of modern social theory

This review essay discusses decolonial and revisionist approaches to the sociological canon, centring on a major new work, Colonialism and Modern Social Theory by Gurminder Bhambra and John Holmwood (2021). The challenge to ‘classical’ social theory and the demand to reconstitute the theory curriculum come in the context of increased visibility for wider decolonial agendas, linked to ‘fallist’ protests in South Africa, Black Lives Matter and allied antiracist organizing, and calls to decolonize public and civic spaces and institutions such as universities, effect museum restitution, and colonial reparations. The review identifies continuities and complementarities with Connell’s critique of the sociological canon, though Colonialism and Modern Social Theory takes a different tack from Connell’s Southern Theory (2009). Bhambra and Holmwood’s opening of sociology’s canon converges with Connell’s recent work to align a critical project of global and decolonial public sociology with a pragmatic programme for doing academic work differently.

„E-Public Sociology“ als kritische soziologische Intervention?

Die Soziologie spielt im Vergleich zur Betriebswirtschaft, Volkswirtschaft und neuerdings auch Virologie im öffentlichen Diskurs eine vergleichsweise untergeordnete Rolle. Letztlich lassen sich dabei zwei Paradoxien entfalten: Die Soziologie (a) spielt in gesellschaftlichen Diskursen häufig keine Rolle, obwohl sie hierzu prädestiniert sein müsste, und (b) wenn doch, wird ihr Blick besondert. Im Zusammenhang mit der Debatte zur öffentlichen Soziologie bildet sich mittels digitaler Möglichkeiten die „E-Public Sociology“ heraus, die eine beinahe voraussetzungslose Kommunikation mit der interessierten Öffentlichkeit annimmt. Im vorliegenden Text entwickeln wir ein Vier-Felder-Schema zur Analyse soziologischen Wirkens in der Öffentlichkeit und ein darauf fußendes Kommunikationskonzept als Teil der „E-Public Sociology“. Exemplarisch für die sich durch Digitalisierung neu ergebenden Kommunikationsmöglichkeiten fokussieren wir Podcasts als spezifische Form soziologischer Tätigkeit zwischen ‚öffentlicher Soziologie‘ und ‚Soziologie in der Öffentlichkeit‘. Dabei zeigt sich, dass zur Intervention Systematischeres als die bloße Steigerung der Präsenz der Soziologie gefordert ist.