Sport and Physical Activity in Catastrophic Environments

This book considers the ability of individuals and communities to maintain healthy relationships with their surroundings--before, during and after catastrophic events--through physical activity and sporting practices.

Broad and ambitious in scope, this book uses sport and physical activity as a lens through which to examine our catastrophic societies and spaces. Acknowledging that catastrophes are complex, overlapping phenomena in need of sophisticated, interdisciplinary solutions, this book explores the social, economic, ecological and moral injustices that determine the personal and emotional impact of catastrophe. Drawing from international case studies, this book uniquely explores the different landscapes and contexts of catastrophe as well as the affective qualities of sporting practices. This includes topics such as DIY skateparks in Jamaica; former child soldiers in Africa; the funding of sport, recreation and cultural activities by extractive industries in northern Canada; mountain biking in the UK; and urban exploration in New Zealand. Featuring the work of ex-professional athletes, artists, anthropologists, sociologists, political ecologists, community development workers and philosophers, this book offers new perspectives on capitalism, nature, sociality, morality and identity.

This is essential reading for academics and practitioners in sociology, disaster studies, sport-for-development and political ecology.

Jim Cherrington is Senior Lecturer in physical activity, sport and health at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. His research explores how identity, bodies, knowledge and objects are materialised in/through everyday life. Much of his recent work is dedicated to investigating the socio-historical, socio-technical and onto-political conditions of ’nature’ (sport). He is also interested in methodological innovation, both in his work on visual methodologies and creative forms of representation and is committed to finding novel ways of documenting a range of human-nonhuman relationships.

Jack Black is Senior Lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, UK and affiliated with the Centre for Culture, Media and Society, where he is the research lead for the Anti-Racism Research Group. An interdisciplinary researcher working within psychoanalysis and the humanities, Jack’s research examines the ontological importance of time, temporality and catastrophe in natural and environmental approaches.