International Sociology of Sport Association
Association Internationale de Sociologie du Sport
Sub-Committee of ICSSPE
Research Committee 27 of ISA
Affiliated with UNESCO

Established 1965

ISSA eBulletin (2020-2) – A Covid-19 Special

Contents
A message from our President

Page 2

An update on submissions by our journal’s General Editor

Page 3

Lockdown diaries in Scotland

Page 4A meeting with other sports associations

Page 6

A reflexion on Tokyo 2020

Page 7

An update on the 2020 Graduate Paper Award

Page 9Renew your membership!

Page 9Call for ISSA Honorary Member Nominations

Page 10

International Review for the Sociology of Sport
Call for Submissions and Media Reviews

Page 11

Call for ISSA Archives

Page 13

Call for Members’ News

Page 14

Call to Share Recently Published Books

Page 14

Call for proposals
Routledge book series: Women, Sport and Physical Activity

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An Important Message from the ISSA President
Dear ISSA members,
I sincerely hope that this message finds you well and safe. It will be no surprise to you that
ISSA's 2020 World Congress in Viña del Mar, Chile, will not take place this year, due tothe pandemic and its associated disruptions. Importantly, the Local Organising Committee(LOC) has expressed its desire to postpone the event until October 2021.
After careful consideration, the ISSA Executive Board has decided to uphold its commitment
to the LOC and its partners (ALESDE - the Latin American Socio-cultural Studies of Sport
Association and CLACSO - the Latin American Council of Social Sciences) towards hostinga joint Congress in Viña del Mar in October 2021.
Of course, the decision to postpone the Viña del Mar Congress has implications for ISSA's
plans in the coming years. The LOC in Ottawa has agreed in principle to postpone its
Congress there until 2023. This in turn, enables ISSA to go ahead as planned with co-hosting
our World Congress with the European Association for the Sociology of Sport (EASS) in
Tübingen, Germany in 2022.
It is now trite (but necessary) to say that these are turbulent times. As such, all of our plans
hinge on the current uncertainties around international travel availability, economic
conditions, domestic quarantine regulations and WHO guidelines. We are hopeful that a'holding pattern' of more than a year (20 months between now and October 2021) will
provide sufficient time for members to consider what is best in terms of their own plans forCongress attendance. We will provide an update later this year.
In the meantime, we remain committed to fulfilling ISSA's objectives and we are currently
exploring ways in which we can connect members during this Congress hiatus. We thankyou for your unfailing support of ISSA, and encourage you to continue your engagement withus via our newsletter, programmes (e.g., Graduate Student Paper Award) and journal (theInternational Review for the Sociology of Sport).
All the best,
Mike Sam

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The IRSS General Editor reflects on the impact ofthe pandemic on submissions to IRSS

The social response to Covid-19 makes this the first pandemic to be fundamentally shaped by
our internet connectivity. Covid-19 will be remembered (amongst other things) for theexperience of working from home, the dissemination of ‘fake’ and ‘real’ news via social
media, and the tracing and tracking apps that may yet define the new normal. And it isremarkable to think that just 8 years ago, before the IRSS moved to electronic submission,
lockdown would have led the journal to grind to a halt, with packages gathering dust in auniversity mail box.
But life not only goes on, journal through-put has been increased. Last year IRSS welcomed abumper 220 new submissions (a 10% increase on previous years) which equates to a newsubmission every 1.66 days. 2020 started in similar vein, with manuscript 40 arriving on 3
March, 63 days into the year (one every 1.58 days). There are always seasonal peaks andtroughs as people resolve to complete a manuscript before they go on vacation, break for areligious holiday and so on. But April (and Easter) saw an explosion, with more than one
submission per day. Manuscript 60 arrived on 2 April. Number 90 (and 91) arrived on 28
April (a new submission every 0.85 days). 26 April saw the journals’ first COVID-related
submission. Fortunately, I’m sharing lockdown with the Editorial Operations Manager.
But before we conclude that lockdown represents some kind of extended writing retreat forsociologists of sport, it’s important to recognise that the impact affects members of ourcommunity in very different ways. I see this most clearly in the response to invitations toreview. Even some of the journal’s normally more dependable reviewers are declining
invitations due to pressure of work, domestic situation (thankfully so far not health!). Others
are turning round reviews in just a few days. Lockdown makes some people time rich, others
time poor. That probably has a lot to do with teaching peaks and troughs (with the demandsof switching teaching delivery to on-line very demanding) and broader family commitments(caring for older family members, or sharing living space with small children). I wish you all
well during this difficult period, keep the submissions coming, and do bear with us if it takes
longer than usual to get a decision on manuscript. While we will not be compiling a COVID
special issue, we do welcome papers on this most pressing of social concerns.
Dominic Malcolm

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Lockdown diaries in Scotland
Apparently in lockdown we were going to have more time for new hobbies, perhaps cooking
slap up meals from scratch, re-reading the classics or discovering new authors, perhaps evenwriting a novel ourselves (chance would be a fine thing), film or quiz nights, catching up
with the National Theatre’s back catalogue of Shakespeare plays, etc… Really? No. Sure I’ve
saved time on commuting and food shopping, but I still feel I am chasing my tail. Even
though I live on my own, I just do more cleaning, washing up and tidying up because I’maround more. I was no stranger to home working – Fridays have been my WAH days for a
few years. What’s changed is the shrinking of horizons, the emotional labour of supporting
students during this crisis, no prospect of meaningful physical contact with anyone. What day
is it today? Is it too early to have a beer? Hang on, I don’t normally drink mid-week, at 3pm.
What day is this? Was I sleeping just there and is it all just one big dream? Ah what am I
going to do this weekend? I’m definitely not working, no siree. It’s Friday? Oh.
On my Research Methods course we have awarded over 50 extensions (for a class of 200
students) and the narratives supporting these requests have been a tough read. Sure, one or
two students were perhaps ‘at it’, but the majority of emails were a litany of genuine distress– difficulties concentrating, anxiety, inability to control workshifts for students deemed key
workers, home-schooling, bereavements. For a while the emails came at a rate of three anhour. But I thought, never mind, I’ll take a full month off this summer to recover from allthese upheavals and recharge before the new academic year starts.
Then the news came that we would teach the first semester online. There goes the summer I
thought. My mood dipped instantly. Thankfully there is an understanding at my institutionthat we cannot improvise ourselves as genuine distance educators so we will be given someresources and some guidance. Watch this space. But I still have to try and imagine how toadapt my Honours option on the Sociology of the body which relies on student negotiating
their learning based on group work and some pretty challenging theory to an online
environment. Any fun pics of the civilizing process anyone?
I did manage to draft a full paper, on hillwalking women, for a special issue of the Annals of
Leisure Research on the outdoors. I’ve been carrying this wee burden on my right shoulder
for a while now and here was my chance to put pen to paper unhindered by distractions. I did
have a deadline. One of my colleagues set up a zoom writing retreat for our undergraduate
students and I thought I would join them. It was a revelation. I’d never attended writing
retreats before. There is a place in the Trossachs that hosts them. It’s a large Victorian houseon the banks of Loch Venachar. When I first heard about it, there was no mobile phone signal
and I think wifi was switched on only in the evenings. I’d always been tempted but the dates
never suited me or I’d forget. The prospect of doing this virtually did not immediately appeal
but it actually worked. That week, between teaching online and responding to numerous
student queries, I managed to write several thousand words! There was no stopping me
afterwards. Whilst finding the motivation to write an academic article about a topic which is
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also one of my main hobbies proved surprisingly tough – it seemed easier to pack a rucksack
and go hillwalking to be honest. Delving back into my data when stuck at home with noimmediate prospect of going into the hills proved a welcome salve.
But now back to marking…
The weather has on the whole been absolutely gorgeous since the start of lockdown. This is
Scotland so our expectations are both high – we confuse British Summer Time with theadvent of a mediterranean summer – and realistic – it’s not going to happen. A gloriously
sunny morning will turn cloudy by lunchtime so best to nip out for that run now. It was cold
at first but temperatures rose a bit despite a persistent nippy easterly, straight off the North
Sea, and on the whole the weather has been settled for the last 6 weeks! It was time to catch
up with my running – I resumed my thrice weekly runs, going on long walks on theintervening days (I even borrowed a dog!). Of course I upped the mileage a bit too quickly
and the lifelong niggles I keep at bay by a fairly tough strengthening programme reared up
again. So I’m on the bike now. Either way, I can catch a glimpse of our nearest mountains
on my outings. In the limpid unpolluted light we’ve enjoyed of late, I’ve monitored theprogress of a patch of snow on the eastern flank of Ben Vorlich. The hills do look inviting.
They won’t go anywhere, they’ll still be there when we come out of this.
Emmanuelle Tulle

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A meeting with other sports associations
Brett Smith, President of International Society of Qualitative Research in Sport & Exercise,
got in touch with us and other sport and exercise professional associations to discuss theimplications of lockdown on the delivery of teaching next academic year and on ourconference planning. We met by zoom last week. Represented that evening were NASSS,
EASS, BASES, NASPSPA, ISSP and ISSA.
Different approaches to our 2020 conferences were in evidence: some postponed to thefollowing 2021, others decided to go ahead with a remote conference, albeit modified. Those
who postponed were still reflecting on the feasibility of offering online events this year. One
important consequence of postponements is that there will be conference congestion in 2021,
possibly 2022 as well. Do we need some level of orchestration or to organise joint events?
ISSA is already ahead of the game with our links with ALESDE and EASS. But other risks toconsider concerned conference attendance funding and the cost of travelling to conferences.
Universities have started freezing conference attendance budgets and it is likely that the costof air travel will go up quite substantially. Those hosting virtual conferences have offered togive tips and share good practice, experiences, pitfalls etc…
Many of us have been asked to prepare for some measure of online teaching next academic
year. This is bound to generate great anxieties. How will we transfer our syllabus which ispredicated on face to face interactions to a different and effective mode of delivery suitablefor effective remote teaching? We cannot improvise ourselves as expert in distance teachingin just a few short months. We certainly need guidance and resources from our own
universities but also that is not what students sign up for, unless they have to, in which casethey would go to the specialists like the Open University in the UK. We discussed thepossibility of curating and sharing teaching resources, a worthy goal but we weren’t sure how
we could operationalise this. Indeed we must be able to protect intellectual ownership. We
also must be wary of not giving our university sector false hopes that we will all move toonline teaching thus increasing the risk that they will dispense with many of the scholars they
currently employ.
Lastly we discussed the suggestion to create a ’Journal Club’ addressed at students,
consisting of experts talking online about a recent publication and answering questions in realtime.
Overall there was very cautious enthusiasm for sharing and collaborating around the virtualtable. Nobody was jumping with excitement. It was certainly refreshing to see real people
although we didn’t have time to chat idly. If you readers have views or suggestions about
any of the above, feel free to feed them to me at communications@issa1965.org or on our
Facebook page (sorry, still not back on Twitter so you won’t get me there).
Emmanuelle Tulle

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ISSA BULLETIN – A COVID-19 SPECIAL
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games may be postponed but the books keep
coming…
There is an old saying in Britain about waiting a long time for a bus and then two come alongin quick succession. This year the same applies to two sports mega-events, the UEFA EURO2020 and the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games 2020, which, due to the novel corona
virus, or COVID-19, have both been postponed for the first time ever. Whilst the organizers,
the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), and Tokyo Organizing Committee of
the Olympic Games (TOCOG) with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), have statedthat they expect to put the events on in 2021, and both will retain the names EURO 2020 andTokyo 2020 respectively, to save on rebranding costs as much as anything else, much
uncertainty still surrounds whether they will actually go ahead.
More certainty exists about the existence of books on the Olympics this year. As one of theauthors of Understanding the Olympics, which features a chapter about Tokyo and the
Olympics specifically, I watched with growing professional interest and then alarm as the
COVID-19 virus took global hold with devastating consequences. With respect to Tokyo
2020 it became clear that of the three possible options – carry on, cancel or postpone - only
the latter would be seriously entertained by the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee and theIOC, at least for now. Although some have argued for it, few expected the 2020 Games to becancelled outright. The economic, political and reputational fall out from that would have
simply been too great, not just for the organizers and the Olympic movement, but also forJapan as a whole.
In the opening chapter of the third edition of Understanding the Olympics Garry Whannel
and I offer a broadly historical account of the Olympics in Japan, and Tokyo specifically. At
the time of submitting the manuscript late last year and when the proof pages were submitted
in February we still expected the Games would take place in 2020 as planned. Fortunately
there are no significant inaccuracies in what we discuss. The same applies to another recent
publication in this (non-) Olympic year, Japan through the lens of the Tokyo Olympics(Holthus et al eds., 2020). Featuring over 30 short, bite-size, articles about the Olympics andJapanese society, the authors offer a valuable overview of the society which has been aregular host of sports biggest events.
By postponing the 2020 Games until 2021 some commentators have suggested the possibility
exists for the event to act as a boost to the reputation of each of the main stakeholders
involved. It will be at a considerable financial cost – especially to the host nation and city but the decision to delay and stage the event a year or so later could provide an upturn in theattraction of the global spectacle. This is certainly the hope of the `Olympophiles` (Cohen2013) such as the IOC President Thomas Bach, who recently wrote to Olympic athletes,
International sports federations and, through the Olympic Studies Centre, academics, seeking
advice on ways forward (https://www.olympic.org/news/ioc-president-bach-writes-toolympic-movement-olympism-and-corona ).
At the same time others – who Phil Cohen calls `Olympophobes` - continue to call for a halt
to the Olympic spectacle. In her latest book Helen Lenskyj sustains the critical approach that
she has developed towards the `Olympic industry` over the past two decades. She looks at
Olympic resistance, the Games links to business and its impacts on athletes` human rights
amongst many other topics in a broad-ranging critique (Lenskyj 2020). Jules Boykoff `snewest book offers more focused insights into the anti-Olympic “NOlympians”, partly
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researched when he visited Japan in 2019 (Boykoff 2020). Alongside the ‘1 year to go’celebrations planned by the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee a coalition of activists fromJapan, Korea, L.A., Rio, Paris and other Olympic host cities met in Tokyo last July. One of
the Japanese organizers of this gathering, ‘Hangorin no Kai’ (‘Anti Olympics Group’),provided 18 reasons for saying ‘No!’ to the 2020 Games, including displacement, increasing
costs to the public, and damage to local and national environments identified in connection
with the construction of the new National Stadium. Together the activists produced a jointstatement calling for ‘NOlympics Anywhere’ (https://olympicswatch.org/tokyo-2020/ ).
Whether the postponement of Tokyo 2020 to 2021 will lead to fundamental changes to theIOC, the Olympics, or world sport remains as one of many unknowns about the current stateof the world. The 2020 Olympics were heralded as a “recovery” or “reconstruction" Gamesby some in the organizing committee but no one was expecting the phrase to have thisadditional significance.
References
Jules Boykoff (2020). NOlympians. Inside the Fight Against Capitalist Mega-Sports in Los
Angeles, Tokyo and Beyond. Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.
Phil Cohen (2013) On the Wrong Side of the Track? East London and the Post Olympics.
London: Lawrence and Wishart.
N.B. For a summary of the book see:https://philcohenworks.com/on-the-wrong-side-of-the-track-east-london-and-the-postolympics/
Barbara Holthus et al. (eds) (2020). Japan through the lens of the Tokyo Olympics. London:
Routledge/CRC.
N.B. This book is available Open Access (free) from:https://www.routledge.com/Japan-Through-the-Lens-of-the-Tokyo-Olympics-OpenAccess/Holthus-Gagne-Manzenreiter-Waldenberger/p/book/9780367471682
John Horne & Garry Whannel (2020). Understanding the Olympics. 3rd edition. London:
Routledge.
Helen Jefferson Lenskyj (2020). The Olympic Games. A Critical Approach. Bingley:
Emerald.
John Horne, Tokyo

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ISSA BULLETIN – A COVID-19 SPECIAL_________________________________________________________________________________The 2020 Graduate Paper Award
Thank you to all who sent in their manuscripts. The review
process is underway and we feel confident that we will be able toannounce the results by 31st July.

___________________________________________________________________________Has your ISSA membership expired at the end of December
2019? Please consider renewing your membership now.
RENEW YOUR ISSA MEMBERSHIP FOR 2020!

All members receive:••••

IRSS (8 issues per year) Print and Online
Information and discounts on ISSA conferences and publications
Access to members’ only area of websites
The ISSA eBulletin

ISSA membership is for the full calendar year. This means that your ISSA membership
expires on December 31st regardless of when you joined ISSA. In order to continue toreceive the benefits of ISSA membership, including receipt of our journal and reduced
conference registration, you will need to renew your membership from January 1st.
Membership details are available on the SAGE – International Review of Sociology ofSport website. We highly encourage you to use the online payment subscription process
on the SAGE IRSS web page. It is efficient, secure and ensures that membership

9|Page14 May 2020

applications are processed in a timely fashion and provides you with an automated
reply that confirms your membership application.
To renew your membership visit: https://us.sagepub.com/enus/nam/journal/international-review-sociology-sport

CALL FOR NOMINATIONSInternational Sociology of Sport Association
Honorary Member Award 2020
The Executive Board invites nominations for an Honorary Member award in the International
Sociology of Sport Association. This award honors outstanding contributions to theInternational Sociology of Sport Association and to the sociological study of sport.
The recipient of this award must meet both of the following criteria:• a long career of service to the International Sociology of Sport Association, anda distinguished international academic career as a sociologist of sport. Individuals who are
retired from formal academic positions are eligible for Honorary Member awards. In
addition, the International Sociology of Sport Association will consider

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International Review for the Sociology of Sport
Editor Dominic Malcolm
Call for Research Articles
International Review for the Sociology of Sport
Editor-in-Chief Dominic Malcolm

Call for Research Articles
The IRSS encourages the submission of diverse research
articles seated in the sociology of sport, broadly defined,that shed light on social and cultural understandings ofsport. Interdisciplinary, inclusive, and global, the IRSS is
the journal of the International Sociology of Sport
Association and is published in partnership with SAGE
Publications. Please visit the journal website for more
information about its Aims & Scope, the Editorial Board,
manuscript submission guidelines, and sample issues at
http://journals.sagepub.com/home/irs
The IRSS publishes eight issues each year. To help
expedite the review and publication process, the IRSS
uses the SAGE Track online manuscript submission site
powered by ScholarOne Manuscripts. Scholars submitting
manuscripts for consideration can expect a prompt
double-blind review process that draws on the expertise of
a diverse editorial board and a worldwide network over 3000 expert area scholars. While we
expect in the region of 300 submissions per year (including revised manuscripts) we operate ahighly efficient process such that the majority of decisions are on manuscripts are issued within
40 days of submission. The journal’s use of the SAGE OnlineFirst publication program meansthat accepted manuscripts are usually made available to the scholarly community within weeks
of acceptance. New Content alerts and exposure on the Sage Sociology Twitter channel (witharound 34,000 followers) means that publication in the IRSS provides authors with anexcellent opportunity to get scholarly work promptly disseminated to international audiences.

Book/Media Reviews
Authors wishing to review books or media (films, videos, interactive media) for the IRSS
should review the guidelines for book and media reviews at

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ISSA BULLETIN – A COVID-19 SPECIAL
http://journals.sagepub.com/home/irs and refer to previous issues of IRSS for format
guidance.
To discuss potential media and/or comparative reviews, or to volunteer to contribute to acomparative review, please contact the book and media reviews editor directly: Dr. Kass
Gibson, Plymouth Marjon University, Email: kgibson@marjon.ac.uk
Manuscripts for both research articles and book/media reviews may be submitted at
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/irss The IRSS editorial team looks forward to having theopportunity to consider your work.
Becoming a Reviewer
Being a reviewer gives you an insight into the publication process and a better understandingof how to develop your own research and publications. The easiest way to become a reviewer
is to create an account through http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/irss
Here you will be asked to provide some keywords that describe your expertise and interests.
Think carefully about how these might be used, as often reviewers are sourced through a
keyword search of this database. Feel free to update these keywords as often as you like.
Managing your AccountIf you already registered an account for the IRSS do remember to keep it updated. For
instance, please remember to change your contact details when you move between
institutions. Also consider updating your expertise keywords as your research profile
develops. This will ensure that the journal gets reviewers who are active in their respective
fields, and that you don’t get review requests that are no longer appropriate to your interests.

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ISSA BULLETIN – A COVID-19 SPECIAL_________________________________________________________________________________

Members’ NewsISSA is happy to share information about conferences, seminars, awards, jobs etc. We will
gladly include your news in our eBulletin and the ISSA website. ISSA is always looking forways to improve communication and serve our members. We encourage you to submit
comments and suggestions.
Please send any feedback and information to Emmanuelle Tulle at:communications@issa1965.org and remember that ISSA also has its own Facebook page,and you are welcome to share information via this group.
_________________________________________________________________________________•

retrospectively honoring an individual’s service and scholarship with a ceremonial
posthumous Honorary Member award.
Honorary Members in the International Sociology of Sport Association receive:• Full, lifetime membership in the International Sociology of Sport Association,
including subscription to the International Review for the Sociology of Sport;• Free, lifetime registration to the International Sociology of Sport Association’s annual
conference.
The list of current Honorary Members can be found at
http://issa1965.org/board/#Honorary%20Members
Nominations
Nominators should submit a 1 to 2-page document (letter) by March 1, 2020 that describes inas much detail as possible how the nominee meets the International Sociology of Sport’s
Honorary Member criteria. Submit nominations by email to Mike Sam atpresident@issa1965.org

Call For ISSA Archives
The ISSA Executive Board is calling on all past and current members to submit photos,
documents and other materials that document the history of the association, congresses andjournal. We will gladly accept any items either in digital or hard copy format. We will behappy to copy and return these to you, or to add relevant items to the ISSA Archive as part ofour ongoing efforts to record the history of the ISSA and IRSS. We are particularly hoping toobtain copies of ISSA Congress programs and Books of Abstract prior to 2011. For further

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information about the Archive and/or to donate items, please contact Mike Sam atpresident@issa1965.org.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Call for Recently Published Books
Have you read a good sports related book lately? Send us your favourite titles that you think
ISSA colleagues might also be interested in reading with a short review.
Contact Emmanuelle Tulle at: communications@issa1965.org___________________________________________________________________________

Routledge book series: Women, Sport and Physical Activity
CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Proposals are invited for contributions to the Routledge Book Series on 'Women, Sport andPhysical Activity'. Contributions can either be traditional hard copy monographs, or part of
the Routledge Focus series which are published online with a maximum word limit of
50,000. The monographs are likely to focus on substantive issues affecting women’s
involvement in sport and physical activity, including applied issues such as management andleadership, and/or contemporary topics such as physical activity and health;
digital/technology/social media; the city and urbanisation. The Routledge Focus series
includes books which focus on women’s experiences of participation in one sport, each ofwhich would consider issues such as the global history of women's involvement in the sport,
training/physiological issues, analysis of competition performances, gender perspectives,coach-relationship issues, women's leadership within the sport, and case studies on notable
individuals.
Interested contributors are encouraged to contact the Series Editor, Professor Elizabeth Pike,at e.pike@herts.ac.uk, with a brief outline of the proposed topic area. Proposal forms andinformation about publishing with Routledge can be found here:
https://www.routledge.com/resources/authors/how-to-publish-with-us.
___________________________________________________________________________
edited by Emmanuelle Tulle, ISSA Vice-President Communications
14th May 202014