On the International Review for the Sociology of Sport,the field of play,and six years of more “more than less”

More than international

The importance of international aspirations for the sociology of sport should not be underestimated. Foremost in the launching of the IRSS (originally titled the International Review of Sport Sociology rather than “for the Sociology of Sport”) and the ISSA was that the socio-cultural study of sport needed to be an international one. On one hand, this was obvious as sport was played around the globe. Yet, on the other, it was just as clear that the articulation of sport across the globe was quite varied. Fueled by distinct regional and national sensibilities, differential political and economic resources, and set amidst social and cultural norms, sport has always been as much local, regional, and most particularly, national as it has been global.

Yet, for a journal such as the IRSS and the nascent field that was forming around an articulation as the “sociology” of sport, the “international” banner was in some ways more essential to establishing its disciplinary viability and, eventually, credibility. As is the case with the successful start-up of any scholarly area, there needed to be critical mass, a “there, there,” to form a legitimate area of academic inquiry.

Indeed, it may be argued that the “internationalness” of the sociology of sport was more founded in its needs to look globally for a critical mass of scholars to help undergird its legitimacy than it had to do with studying international or global sport. Indeed, if we were to be honest, few sports are embraced in a way that could be seen as truly international or global, despite the well-bankrolled marketing efforts of sport organizations looking to grow their global reach through events such as the various World Cups and Olympic Games.

Thus, the notion of “international” for a sport or for a journal remains largely aspirational. For the IRSS and the ISSA, the “international” banner most importantly signals a disposition toward inclusiveness, to grow the community of scholars and work proactively to be a site where the voices of scholars from underrepresented quarters may be heard.

Again, if one were to be honest, the IRSS, while it has featured research on the most “global” or “international” articulations of sport as seen through its mega-events, has always featured more studies interested in understanding localized sporting experience from around the globe than global or international sport per se. In this sense, much of the research that is featured in the IRSS, and the stories that come with that research are less “international” than they are “multinational,” or more appropriately (to get out of a received view of scholars as necessarily entangled with the boundaries of political states) “multi-vocal.”

Thus, during my term as Editor of the IRSS, I have done my best to make sure that the research we publish is “multi-vocal,” that we reach to include scholarship from diverse quarters of the community and those too little heard from. That said, structural barriers, such as those of writing in English when it is not your first language and the nascent development and legitimacy of the sociology of sport in certain quarters of the world, remain. At the end of six years as Editor, a frank assessment would note that our achievements of inclusiveness still lag behind our goals. Indeed, we are “international,” or more appropriately “multinational” or “multi-vocal,” but not enough and I look forward to the new editorial team’s advancing the progress we have made.

More than a review

In a technical sense, the IRSS is less a “review” than it is a journal that attempts to publish the best research articles in its scholarly space. Indeed, we do publish book and media reviews, and will continue to do so. But apart from that, our research articles are infrequently focused on reviewing a given area within the socio-cultural study of sport.

Nonetheless, the IRSS shares the word “review” in its title with many other research journals and thoughtful general circulation periodicals. Still, if typical dictionary definitions of a periodical that calls itself a “review” are scrutinized, it is clear that the IRSS is more than a review. Reviews generally connote periodic publications with critical articles on current events, the arts, or other domains of culture, such as sport. And certainly, the IRSS—most particularly in recent times, with the rise of critical-cultural studies and the shift in sociology away from empirically oriented social science to more humanistic and qualitative inquiry—has participated in this “critical turn.”

Still, following my earlier “inclusivity” arguments, it is my view that the IRSS, and the socio-cultural study of sport more generally, is both stronger and more vibrant by being an open and welcoming place for diverse theoretical orientations and methodological approaches. Indeed, if my tenure as Editor has seen too much of one thing, it has been critically oriented limited sample studies reliant on qualitative interviews, which if again one were to be honest, are more grounded in what can be called the “ethnographic impulse” than the more formal tenets of ethnography as a social science enterprise. I ask that you don’t get me wrong on this observation. Indeed, much of this research, in pursuit of grounded theory, employs decidedly select qualitative interviews and, with the look and feel of ethnography, features rich texture and reveals savvy understandings. These latter benefits are shared and seen vividly in the artifactual insights that come with the rise of well-done autoethnography in sport studies and other areas of inquiry, but what is also shared is the structural liability of limited generalizability.

As a result, the sociology of sport needs the methods and approaches of empirically oriented social science now more than ever. In recent times, the IRSS, and competitor journals in the sociology of sport space, have published a plethora of qualitative studies featuring rich interview data and offering intriguing findings. Yet, because of their case study nature and limited samples, the resultant findings about the sensibilities and dynamics at play call out to be tested for generalizability. In this way, good empirically oriented social science research can be the best friend, rather than something oppositional, to critically oriented qualitative research. Thus, if our area of inquiry needs a bit more of one thing, it would be generalizability, and that comes from broader testing, comparative research, and an understanding that empirical methods and a critical disposition can be good bedfellows. And, on a technical point, this requires the IRSS to be more than a review.

More than sociology

Part of my joy in editing the IRSS comes from its inclusivity, much of which comes with the necessity of the socio-cultural study of sport to be interdisciplinary. Indeed, the IRSS aims and scope statement makes clear its welcoming of interdisciplinary research. Beyond that, by naming contributions from adjacent disciplines such as anthropology, cultural studies, geography, gender studies, media studies, history, political economy, and semiotics as being sought after, the IRSS aims and goals statement makes it clear that the “sociology” of sport—or more appropriately the “socio-cultural” study of sport—necessarily engages a host of disciplines and is thereby a multidisciplinary affair that is “more than sociology.”

Of course, most in the sociology of sport community recognize this. We also recognize that most sociology of sport, at least in certain quarters of the world, is often done by scholars who are not centrally trained in or seated in academic departments of sociology. Ironically, a remarkable paucity of sport sociologists may be found in departments of sociology. Rather, many, if not most, sport sociologists are both trained and foundationally aligned with departments that grow from physical education and the sport sciences. Here too—as is the case in the seating of the sociology of sport in many a department of sociology—those scholars focused on the socio-cultural study of sport, especially those with a critical disposition, may find themselves in a precarious situation, on the periphery of their core academic unit and sometimes in conflict with its priorities.

Ironically, a most common life preserver thrown to those in the sociology of sport community comes from the rapidly growing areas of sport management and marketing. While cooptation may not necessarily come to those sociologists of sport who find themselves commingling with those looking to advance sport markets, the risks are considerable, and they are exacerbated by the undeniable pressure to do fundable research that is structurally biased toward finding pragmatic answers to questions driven by government policy or effective business practice. Situated thusly, those engaged in the socio-cultural study of sport may, on one hand, find that it is “more than sociology,” but on the other—in being bedfellows with those advancing the pragmatics of sport—find that their academic fates hinge on it being “less than sociology.”

More than sport

Just as the sociology of sport is necessarily “more than sociology,” its recent practice makes clear that it is also about “more than sport.” Part of this state of affairs may have come from the relative fruitlessness of the early and long debates about what formally constitutes sport and thereby falls within a domain that is “proper” for the study of the sociology of sport. Usually, considerations in those debates center on constituent elements of a sporting endeavor being both “physical” and “competitive.” Here, physical activity that was aimed at just staying fit or something like chess (or other games) that was competitive but had limited physicality (such as moving game pieces on a board or video gaming) fell outside the scope of sport. Yet, it was generally recognized that there was more lost than gained in being sidetracked by some artificial allegiance to what formally constituted sport.

Most particularly, sport, and its most notable “relative,” physical activity that “merely” engaged in fitness, health, and recreation (and did not mandate formal competition per se), came into the sociology of sport fold. To my mind, this broadening of scope for the sociology of sport has been without question a healthy one. In many ways, this set the stage for resolving the increasingly obvious twin conundrums: (a) that sociology of sport was not only “more than sociology” and (b) that it was also “more than sport.”

One answer to these conundrums has been the positing of physical cultural studies as a broadening of, and, most particularly, a viable replacement for the too delimited “sociology of sport” banner. Although I find physical cultural studies an unsatisfactory replacement for what is clearly a flawed and inaccurate articulation as the sociology of sport, it does provide an alternative, albeit a limited one and one that, in its connotation, may be unnecessarily unwelcoming by seemingly “excluding” rather than proactively “including” many who presently see themselves as part of the sociology of sport community. Still, for some with the desire to escape what has become a necessarily large tent and to reside in a more comforting echo chamber, physical cultural studies offers a more delimited but decidedly critically and politically engaged option to the equally inaccurate and delimited sociology of sport banner.

There may be no easy answer for the future of the sociology of sport. It is clear that it is both “more than sociology” and “more than sport.” As one who has engaged critical-cultural studies after taking a critical turn away from the blinders that too often remain in place in the doing of empirical social science research, and most particularly its administrative research variant, seating myself in physical cultural studies would be a comfortable place. On a personal basis, my politics and disposition align with many of those who have advocated for physical cultural studies. But, in a sense, it would be too comfortable, a silo of sorts and I distrust silos as a place for academic inquiry.

For me, the notion of physical cultural studies doesn’t solve the puzzle about the sociology of sport being an inadequate banner. On one hand, our study of the “physical” seems to me to be a delimited one, albeit one that extends beyond sport. Rather, it strikes me that we are talking about the physical in particular companion with sport, fitness, health, and recreation. Physical work, as in manual labor—while logically falling into the basket of what a physical cultural studies implies—presently falls outside what I understand as our field. Of equal concern on a different front is that physical modifies “cultural studies” and thereby carries particularized connotations to a theoretical and political disposition and forms only one part of the many theoretical and methodological proclivities that are seen under the sociology of sport banner. It is that exclusivity that worries me most about the physical cultural studies option.

In recent times, in the rise of the “alt-right” (or shall I say “alt-wrong”), we have seen the dangers that can come (for both those on the left as well as the right) with cloistering ourselves in silos through social media that feed us a world view with which we already agree, and thus I can’t see that as a pathway to disciplinary health. Our community has strongly benefited from its diversity, being inclusive, and respecting those working from paradigms that are different than our own. While the “sociology of sport” may not be, at this stage of development, an entirely accurate banner, we need to think long and hard about alternatives to “frame our game” not only more accurately, but in a more egalitarian way.