Sport and Citizenship

This selection of essays delves into the ways in which sport evokes, informs, and contradicts understandings of citizenship in a variety of national, social and political contexts.This book was published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

Citizenship has become a widely significant and hotly contested academic concept. Though the term may seem obvious, citizenship carries a range of subtle social and political meanings. This volume explores citizenship as it relates to sport, on the micro and macro level of analysis and in a variety of geo-political contexts. Citizenship is a central organizing principle of international competition such as the Olympic Games. Furthermore, sport is used to teach, symbolize and perform citizenship. While related to national identity, citizenship pertains more precisely to how citizens are legally and politically recognized by the state and how citizens engage within the nation state. This volume traces the roots of discourses on citizenship before illustrating a variety of ways in which citizenship and sport impinge upon each other in contemporary contexts. This book was published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

1. Sport and citizenship: introduction Matthew Guschwan 2. The athlete as citizen: judgement and rhetorical invention in sport Michael L. Butterworth 3. Stadium as public sphere Matthew Guschwan 4. Globalization, corporate nationalism and masculinity in Canada: sport, Molson beer advertising and consumer citizenship Steven Jackson 5. Bending the codes of masculinity: David Beckham and flexible masculinity in the new millennium Sarah Gee 6. Rosie the right fielder: citizen of the community, not just a temporary patriot Korryn D. Mozisek 7. Men of steel: social class, masculinity, and cultural citizenship in post-industrial Pittsburgh Adam S. Beissel, Michael Giardina and Joshua I. Newman 8. Bound to the nation: Pacific Islands rugby and the IRB’s new ‘one-country-for-life’ eligibility rules Andrew Grainger, Oliver J.C. Rick and David L. Andrews 9. Epilogue Matthew Guschwan

Matthew Guschwan holds a Ph.D. in Communication and Culture from Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA. His research focuses on the ways in which Italian identity is constructed in and through sport.