Sport, Aggression, Conflict and Peace: an introduction

Citation

Galily, Y. (2013), "Sport, Aggression, Conflict and Peace: an introduction", Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, Vol. 5 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/JACPR-08-2013-0020

Sport, Aggression, Conflict and Peace: an introduction

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, Volume 5, Issue 4.

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation – Plato (Ardley, 1967).

It is well documented that people in all cultures have always engaged in playful physical behaviors and used human movement as part of their everyday customs and collective rituals (Huizinga, 1955; Guttmann, 1978). Dissimilarities in the forms and dynamics of physical activities and games indicate that they are cultural practices that serve different social purposes and take on different meanings from time to time and place to place. Research on these variations has provided valuable insights into social processes, structures and ideologies (Gruneau, 1999).

However, according to Coakley and Lever (2000), conventional sociology has been slow at the institutional level to acknowledge the growing social and cultural significance of sports and sports participation. The tendency among sociologists to give priority to studies of work over studies of play, sports, or leisure accounts for much of this disciplinary inertia. Furthermore, sports have been seen by many sociologists as non-serious, non-productive dimensions of society and culture that do not merit scholarly attention.

Even fewer, according to Schinke and Hanrahan (2012), have really considered, up until lately, the potency of sport and what it can offer pockets of society, be they regional, socio-economic, cultural, or several of these considerations combined. Sport development strikes at the heart of such a discussion. Sport can offer the possibility of solutions where change might be needed, be it within an impoverished community or among a sub-population at risk for differential associations, substance abuse, or disease. Involved might learn behaviors and values through a thought fully designed context, that later spur changes among membership such as in the case of a shift from violence to peace (Schinke and Hanrahan, 2012, p. 7).

Early in the third millennium, many countries around the world are home to different ethnic and cultural groups with diverse social backgrounds, norms, values and community interests. While multi-culturalism has been praised as largely valuable and beneficial to people, in many instances ethnic groups do not get along with each other and violent conflicts occur (Schulenkorf and Edwards, 2012). There is, on the other hand, increasing evidence that community-based sport event projects can be employed to contribute to the building of networks, the enhancement of cultural traditions, the acquisition of skills and the overall empowerment of communities. Equally, Levermore (2008), sharpen the desired outcomes of sport-for-development and peace organizations. Among these outcomes one can count conflict resolution and inter-cultural understanding; building physical, social and community infrastructure; raising awareness, particularly through education; empowerment; direct impact on physical and psychological health and general welfare; economic development and poverty alleviation.

Five papers in this current volume try to shed light and to add valuable date and empirical knowledge, on the relations between sport, aggression, conflict and peace. These studies, like others before, from various different countries and continents, demonstrate the power and cultural significant of sport from varied sociological theories and paradigms. Indeed, such analyses further develop the employment of one of the only cultural practice which is, in actual fact, the true global language.

As an exceptionally universal language, sport can be a powerful vehicle to promote peace, tolerance and understanding. However, serious readers should not be satisfied with these selected examples offered in this volume. If a picture is to be worth a thousand words, I invite you to look around every day and appreciate, in billions, from first-hand the power of sport in our modern lives.

Yair Galily

References

Ardley, G. (1967), “The role of play in the philosophy of Plato”, Philosophy, Vol. 42 No. 161, pp. 226-44
Coakley, J. and Lever, J. (2000), “Sport”, in Edgar, F.B. and Rhonda, J.V.M. (Eds), Encyclopedia of Sociology, Vol. 5, 2nd ed., Macmillan Reference, New York, NY, pp. 2985-91
Gruneau, R. (1999), Class, Sports, and Social Development, Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL
Guttmann, A. (1978), From Ritual to Record: The Nature of Modern Sports, Columbia, New York, NY
Huizinga, J. (1955), Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture, Beacon Press, Boston, MA
Levermore, R. (2008), “Sport a new engine of development?”, Progress in Development Studies, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 183-90
Schinke, R.J. and Hanrahan, S.J. (2012), “Sport as a possible intervention: an introduction”, in Schinke, R. and Hanrahan, S. (Eds), Sport for Development, Peace and Social Justice, Fitness Information Technology, Morgantown, WV, pp. 1-8
Schulenkorf, N. and Edwards, D.C. (2012), “Maximizing positive social impacts: strategies for sustaining and leveraging the benefits of inter-community sport events in divided societies”, Journal of Sport Management, Vol. 26 No. 5, pp. 379-90