This book considers the ability of individuals and communities to maintain healthy relationships with their surroundings—before, during and after catastrophic events—through physical activity and sporting practices. Broad and ambitious in scope, this book uses sport and physical activity as a lens through which to examine our catastrophic societies and spaces. Acknowledging that catastrophes are complex, overlapping phenomena in need of sophisticated, interdisciplinary solutions, this book explores the social, economic, ecological and moral injustices that determine the personal and emotional impact of catastrophe. Drawing from international case studies, this book uniquely explores the different landscapes and contexts of catastrophe as well as the affective qualities of sporting practices. This includes topics such as DIY skateparks in Jamaica; former child soldiers in Africa; the funding of sport, recreation and cultural activities by extractive industries in northern Canada; mountain biking in the UK; and urban exploration in New Zealand. Featuring the work of ex-professional athletes, artists, anthropologists, sociologists, political ecologists, community development workers and philosophers, this book offers new perspectives on capitalism, nature, sociality, morality and identity. This is essential reading for academics and practitioners in sociology, disaster studies, sport-for-development and political ecology.

Catastrophic Injuries in Sport and Recreation is an essential reference guide to safe participation in a wide variety of sports and recreational activities. A masterful achievement of methodology, it is the first complete epidemiological study and analysis of all catastrophic injuries in all sports and recreational activities that occurred within a large defined geographical area with a large population: ten million people within the province of Ontario between 1986 and 1995. Concentrating on injuries that resulted in death or long term disability, the contributors identify both the personal risk factors for participants and the societal risk factors that are important causes for these kinds of injuries. Providing detailed analysis of 2154 case studies, the contributors demonstrate what went wrong in each event, and show how each injury could have been prevented. Recommending specific prevention strategies for a wide range of injuries, Catastrophic Injuries in Sport and Recreation is a practical medical reference for athletes and doctors alike.

This book explores the local environmental impact of sports stadiums, and how that impact can disproportionately affect communities of color. Offering a series of review articles and global case studies, it illustrates what happens when sport organizations and other public and private stakeholders fail to factor environmental justice into their planning and operations processes. It opens with an historical account of environmental justice research and of research into sport and the natural environment. It then offers a series of case studies from around the world, including the United States, Canada, Kenya, South Africa, and Taiwan. These case studies are organized around key elements of environmental justice such as water and air pollution, displacement and gentrification, soil contamination, and transportation accessibility. They illustrate how major sports stadiums have contributed positively or negatively (or both) to the environmental health of the compact neighborhoods that surround them, to citizens’ quality of life, and in particular to communities that have historically been subjected to unjust and inequitable environmental policy. Placing the issue of environmental justice front and center leads to a more complete understanding of the relationship between stadiums, the natural environment, and urban communities. Presenting new research with important implications for practice, this book is vital reading for anybody working in sport management, venue management, mega-event planning, environmental studies, sociology, geography, and urban and regional planning. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This book explores the various ways in which participation in sport and physical activity might contribute to effective solutions within criminal justice systems. Focusing on a range of different sporting and physical activities across an array of social contexts involving both adult and youth populations, the book offers insight into the way in which sport and physical activity is interpreted by participants and practitioners, and how these interpretations relate to broader policy objectives within and across justice systems. It focuses on a series of key issues, including how sport policy (national and international) has developed in recent years in this area; how and to what extent such policy developments have impacted organisations and interventions (both custodial and non-custodial) across sport and criminal justice systems and sectors; and how participant cohorts (such as disadvantaged and/or ‘at-risk’ young people) have experienced these changes. With shifting debates around criminal justice and the need for policy and practical solutions to extend beyond tougher and longer sentencing, this book is important reading for students, researchers, and practitioners working in sport pedagogy, sport-for-development, sport and leisure management, sport coaching, physical education, criminology, youth work, youth studies, social work, and health studies.

Preventing Sudden Death in Sport and Physical Activity, Second Edition examines the etiology, prevention, recognition, treatment, and return-to-play protocol of the common causes of sudden death in sport. Chapters are written by content area experts, offering a blend of clinical, scientific, and research expertise regarding each medical condition that is discussed.

This handbook critically examines spaces of mental health and wellbeing across multiple, often intersecting, domains from green and blue spaces to lived and embodied spaces, creative spaces, work and home spaces, and institutional and post-institutional spaces. The Routledge Handbook on Spaces of Mental Health and Wellbeing features 45 chapters from leading international scholars who collectively interrogate the spatial dimensions of mental health and wellbeing from conceptual and experiential viewpoints. The ways in which these theoretical developments prompt a re-thinking of mental health and wellbeing as concepts is also discussed before presenting some highlights from the handbook’s five main sections – (1) green and blue spaces, (2) lived and embodied spaces, (3) creative spaces, (4) work and home spaces, and (5) institutional and post-institutional spaces. The key benefits of this book include a great appreciation of the complex networks and assemblages of mental health and wellbeing, the value of a geographical/spatial approach to thinking about mental health, and the vast array of spaces and places that are implicated in human and posthuman notions of wellbeing. This book will be of interest to students and scholars across the social sciences and the humanities as well as researchers and practitioners in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, social work, nursing, health geography, social and cultural geography, anthropology, mental health social studies, cultural theory, and architecture.

The author's purpose in writing this book was to show readers that sport and related physical activity assumed greater or lesser importance starting with primitive societies and continuing to the present day. Sport and physical activity helped people in a variet of ways as they lived out their lives.