Athletic Activism

Athletes across the globe have engaged in high profile protests against state violence since NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand during the US national anthem in protest of state violence against Black communities. There is, however, a much longer global history that precedes and follows Kaepernick’s protest. This series of sport protests, across both professional and amateur levels, has invigorated progressive politics around the world and drawn attention to ongoing authoritarianism, state violence, and vigilante violence, as well as the role sport can play in both exposing and combatting such issues.

Challenging the dominant Global North narrative, Athletic Activism: Global Perspectives on Social Transformation demonstrates how athletic activism can not only impact global discourse about inequity, but also foster institutional change that advances social justice. This volume uses the term ‘athletic activism’ to understand how athletes, coaches, and sports professionals use sports, sporting institutions, and athletics to engage in conscious, concerted, and sustained efforts to transform the world they inhabit. Borrowing both historical and contemporary approaches to examine grassroots youth sports, quotidian sites of amateur sport, and mega-sporting events, chapters expand on how we conceptualize athletic activism and theorize the transformative potential of sport and sporting participants.

Rooting athletic activism in a global, transnational perspective, Athletic Activism: Global Perspectives on Social Transformation broadens the focus on athletic activism from highly publicized, performative forms of protest on the pitch to local grassroots efforts that seek to address issues of race, violence, gender, sexuality, sustainability, identity, and community development.