Global regimes, local agendas: Sport, resistance and the mediation of dissent
Authors: Falcous, M. and Silk, M.
Journal: International Review for the Sociology of Sport
Volume: 41
Issue: 3-4
Pages: 317-338
eISSN: 1461-7218
ISSN: 1012-6902
DOI: 10.1177/1012690207079230
Abstract:Rearticulating Chen (1992, 1994; see also Silk and Andrews, 2005), this article argues for the need to establish an agenda of 'internationalist localism' to analyse the place of sport within unfolding socio-political agendas of neoliberal globalization. In doing so, it constitutes a response to calls within the academy to register critical, reflective responses to ongoing international crises (Martin and Shohat, 2002; Denzin and Lincoln, 2003). We thus extend recent calls to interrogate sport as a site through which various socio-political discourses are mobilized in the organization and discipline of daily life in the service of particular political agendas (Andrews, 1995). We do so by illustrating both the global extent of these agendas and the locally conjunctural nature of such processes. We centre upon the case of Aboriginal Muslim-Australian boxer Anthony Mundine, and the response to his post-9/11 criticism of Australian involvement in the US-led 'War on Terror'. Mundine was vilified and demonized within the Australian corporate media, and sanctioned by world boxing bodies. Critically, the dominant media discourse of the moment revealed that inherently local agendas contour the connection of the national with the global. Specifically, the contested nature of Australian identities in and through the framing and rebuttal of dissent are writ large in responses to global events. Thus, the intimate, yet nuanced connection between local and global power dynamics is revealed.
Source: Scopus
Preferred by: Michael Silk