Women, Sport and Exercise in the Asia-Pacific Region
Although socio-cultural issues in relation to women within the fields of sport and exercise have been extensively researched, this research has tended to concentrate on the Western world. Women, Sport and Exercise in the Asia-Pacific Region moves the conversation away entirely from Western contexts to discuss these issues with a sole focus on the geographic Asia-Pacific region.
Presenting a diverse range of empirical case studies, from bodybuilding in Kazakhstan and Thailand, karate in Afghanistan and womens rugby in Fiji to womens soccer in North Korea and netball in Papua New Guinea, the book demonstrates how sports may be used as a lens to examine the historical, socio-cultural and political specificities of non-Western and post-colonial societies. It also explores the complex ways in which non-Western women resist as well as accommodate sport and exercise-related socio-cultural oppression, helping us to better understand the nexus of sport, exercise, gender, sexuality and power in the Asia-Pacific area.
This is a fascinating and important resource for students of sports studies, sports management, sport development, social sciences and gender studies, as well as an excellent read for academics and researchers with an interest in sport, exercise, gender and post-colonial studies.
Gyozo Molnar is Principal Lecturer in Sport Studies at the University of Worcester, United Kingdom and was Reviews Editor for the Sport in Society journal. His current publications and research revolve around migration, globalisation, national identity, the drive for muscularity and feminist methodologies.
Sara N. Amin is Lecturer of Sociology at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji. She was the Co-Principal Investigator on a multi-country research study examining how gender relations in Muslim families in South Asia are being negotiated as womens opportunities for education and employment expanded between 2013 and 2017. Her research focuses on the intersection of gender, migration and identity.
Yoko Kanemasu is Senior Lecturer of Sociology at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji, where she teaches feminism, social theory and research methodology. She was one of the convenors of the first academic conferences to focus on rugby in the Pacific region, Fiji Rugby Centenary Conference: Reflections on the Past, Present and Future, held at the University of the South Pacific in 2013.
Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society
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Knowledges, Practices, Structures
Edited by Thomas F. Carter, Daniel Burdsey and Mark Doidge
Football Fans, Activism and Social Change
Dino Numerato
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Surfing, Sex, Genders and Sexualities
Edited by lisahunter
The Aesthetics, Poetics, and Rhetoric of Soccer
Edited by Ridvan Askin, Catherine Diederich and Aline Bieri
Politics and Identity in Chinese Martial Arts
Lu Zhouxiang
Corruption, Mafia Power and Italian Soccer
Alberto Testa and Anna Sergi
Researching Difference in Sport and Physical Activity
Edited by Richard Medcalf and Chris Mackintosh
Surfing and Sustainability
Gregory Borne
Women, Sport and Exercise in the Asia-Pacific Region
Domination, Resistance, Accommodation
Edited by Gyozo Molnar, Sara N. Amin and Yoko Kanemasu
www.routledge.com/sport/series/RRSCS
First published 2019
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2019 selection and editorial matter, Gyozo Molnar, Sara N. Amin and Yoko Kanemasu; individual chapters, the contributors
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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ISBN: 978-1-138-89572-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-17938-4 (ebk)
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This book is dedicated to all the women of the Asia-Pacific region who continue to fight for control over their bodies and persist in participating in sporting and physical activities
Contributors
Alan Bairner is Professor of Sport and Social Theory at Loughborough University. He studied politics at the universities of Edinburgh and Hull. He is co-editor (with Gyozo Molnar) of The Politics of the Olympics. A Survey (2010) and (with John Kelly and Jung Woo Lee) of the Routledge Handbook of Sport and Politics (2016). He has written extensively on the relationship between sport and national identity and is the founding editor-in-chief of the Asia Pacific Journal of Sport and Social Science.
Shweta Bankar is a Technical Specialist at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). She has academic training in clinical psychology and counselling. Having worked closely with low economic settlements, she understands the dynamics in the urban slums. Bankars work as a school counsellor for two years provided her with an opportunity to work with children, especially in their adolescence, helping her understand gender dynamics with adolescent girls and boys. At the ICRW she provides technical support in research, evaluation, intervention and other programme management aspects to projects on gender equality and gender-based violence working mainly around adolescent wellbeing.
Leentje BeSoer is a community development worker with a background in womens human rights. She has worked in the NGO sector since completing her tertiary education. Her passion for human rights focuses on creating spaces for young women and men in communities to challenge traditional norms that are harmful and discriminative towards women and girls. BeSoer is currently engaged as a support staff with a provincial organisation in Jiwaka Province, Papua New Guinea, working on reviewing the organisations Young Womens Leadership Program funded by the International Womens Development Agency through its WAVE Program.
