John Sugden - Sport and Peace-Building in Divided Societies: Playing With Enemies

Sport is a cultural institution that stands at the interface between political and civil society. In divided communities, sport has been an agent of separation, sectarian hatred and violence, but also a highly effective tool for conflict resolution, reconciliation and peace-building.

In this important study, John Sugden and Alan Tomlinson draw on their extensive international experience of working with divided communities to develop a methodological and theoretical model for peace-building in sport. The book showcases original case studies from three regions of the world in which sport has played a prominent role in social deconstruction and reconstruction: Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine and South Africa. Combining a wealth of primary and secondary data, the authors chart the rise of the contemporary Sport for Development and Peace movement (SDP) and outline an important new practice-based framework for understanding, researching and working to achieve positive social change in the SDP sector.

This is essential reading for any student, researcher or practitioner with an interest in the sociology of sport, sport development, international development, peace studies or conflict resolution.

John Sugden is Professor of the Sociology of Sport at the University of Brighton, UK. He is well known for his work on the sociology of boxing; sport and peace-building in divided societies; his studies with Alan Tomlinson of the world governing body for football, FIFA; and for his investigative research into footballs underground economy. Currently, John is a leading member of the Sport and Leisure Cultures research network at Brighton, and Director of the University of Brightons flagship worldwide community relations project, Football 4 Peace.

Alan Tomlinson is Professor of Leisure Studies, School of Humanities, at the University of Brighton, UK. He is a renowned scholar and researcher on the social history and sociology of sport, leisure and popular culture. Alan has researched the history and politics of FIFA since the mid-1980s, alongside studies on the political economy of the Olympics and the IOC. He is the author/editor of numerous books on sport, leisure and consumption, including Consumption, Identity and Style and FIFA: The Men, the Myths and the Money, and a long-term contributor to the soccer periodical When Saturday Comes.

Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society

For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/sport/series/RRSCS

82 Transgender Athletes in Competitive Sport

Edited by Eric Anderson and Ann Travers

83 Sport and Militarism

Contemporary Global Perspectives

Edited by Michael L. Butterworth

84 Sport, Community Regeneration, Governance and Development

A Comparative Global Perspective

Rory Shand

85 Women Sport Fans

Identification, Participation, Representation

Kim Toffoletti

86 Sport in Korea

History, Development, Management

Edited by Dae Hee Kwak, Yong Jae Ko, Inkyu Kang and Mark Rosentraub

87 Sport and National Identities

Globalization and Conflict

Edited by Paddy Dolan and John Connolly

88 Sport and Contested Identities

Contemporary Issues and Debates

Edited by David Hassan and Ciaran Acton

89 Sport and Peace-Building in Divided Societies

Playing with Enemies

John Sugden with Alan Tomlinson

This book is considerably different to the one I had originally envisaged writing and believed I would be close to finishing by the beginning of June 2013. How wrong could I have been? It was a late Sunday evening in May of that year when, hurriedly packing my bags in preparation to go on an outdoor education field-trip to Cornwall in the west of England with a group of students the following day, I made sure my laptop was safely tucked away hoping that I would be able to find some time while the students were playing in the surf to do a little more work on the first draft of this book. I had planned to have completed the manuscript before heading off the following week to speak at an international conference in Canada. As I was preparing for bed in anticipation of an early start the following day, I began to feel unwell and found myself stumbling around the bedroom before eventually banging my head on the door jamb, prompting me to stagger to my bed which I managed to lay on the top of before sliding off onto the floor. Fortunately for me my wife, Christine, realised that this was more than a case of me having had a few too many Sunday afternoon beers. Instead she recognised that I was betraying the first symptoms of a stroke, and fortunately she had the presence of mind to call an ambulance. In doing so, between them my wife and the NHS emergency services team that attended my collapse almost certainly saved my life. When several days later I awoke finding myself in Eastbournes DGH (District General Hospital) I had no idea what had happened to me when, rather drowsily, I came round finding myself not in my bedroom at home but tucked up in a hospital bed. Feeling more than a little bewildered, when I was able to I asked one of the nurses what had happened to me; Youve had a stroke sir she replied. Although at the time I wasnt really sure what a stroke was other than it was something serious that would probably put me on the side-lines for a few days my total ignorance of the seriousness of my situation is the only explanation I can offer for my naive response to the nurse: I cant have had a stroke Im too busy Im going to Vancouver next week, where Im due to give a lecture (at ISSAs International Sociology of Sport Association Annual Conference). The nurse gave me a kind smile before saying words that chilled me to the bone: Im sorry sir youll not be going anywhere in the foreseeable future, not at least until youve learned to walk again.

To say I was terrified would be the grossest of understatements. It would take some time before the catastrophic scale of what had happened to me would sink in. This came only later when I was informed by a neurological consultant that I had experienced a significant right-sided brain haemorrhage, a major stroke following which I was lucky to still be alive. Although I did not feel particularly lucky at the time, I would learn later that in the UK one out of three of the one hundred and fifty thousand people who have a major stroke dies within 24 hours of the event. Even if they do survive, victims do so with serious cognitive and physical impairments and/or combinations thereof. Fortunately for me, though to begin with my stroke did leave me with some relatively minor physical problems with some marginal paralysis on my left side, I experienced no immediately obvious cognitive impediments, insomuch as my memory and speaking capacities were relatively unimpaired. Thanks to the dedicated work of the National Health Service (NHS) professionals who were assigned to aid my recovery, several weeks after my stroke I was able to take my first tentative steps around the ward and was eventually by the middle of June mobile enough to be discharged and allowed home to continue my recuperation.