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Four and a half years after Jerry Brown won Oakland voters' trust to become the city's first 'strong mayor,' Oakland residents are giving their city charter another look. A Charter [...]

Air travel is a key factor in Super Rugby and can have a negative influence on players' performance and well-being. The aim of this study was to identify the current practice to reduce the effects of air travel and to understand the rationale behind these interventions. "Travel managers" from eight Super Rugby teams were interviewed and answered a questionnaire. A qualitative description was performed to identify common themes and differences between participants' answers. To protect the privacy and identity of the participants, all data have been de-identified and represented as two fictionalised amalgams (Bob and Peter). The rationale behind each intervention appeared to be based on a mix of anecdotal, practice and, occasionally, literature, confirming that scientific findings are not always easily translatable to applied settings. Two different approaches, clinical (Bob) and holistic (Peter), were identified. Even if both characters acknowledge that travel variables are too many to control, it appears that team culture and practices are perceived as important as biological interventions in controlling the negative effects of travel on players' performance and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wild swimming is currently experiencing a surge in popularity as people avowedly attempt to reconnect with the natural world. Previous research has positioned wild swimming as a solitary pursuit whereby individuals retreat from society to connect with or overcome nature and better themselves. This article draws on an ethnographic examination of a wild swimming group in Australia and reveals that while being in nature and personal fulfillment are key motivations for these wild swimmers, it is the social interactions that facilitate a deep engagement with their local "bluespace." We argue that rather than swimming away from the world, by "wayfaring" together these swimmers become connected to their environment, and each other, simultaneously. Such findings indicate potential social, health, and environmental benefits of collective wild swimming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the positive role of sport in building social cohesion and the accrual of social and cultural capital for many young Pasifika men. In the process, we also critique the disciplinary discourse, underpinned by bio-racism and commodification, which is enacted on the bodies of Pacific Island men in the context of post-colonial, neoliberal, Australia. This results in over-representation in the rugby codes, manual labour, the security industry, and in prison. Of specific interest to this paper are the ways in which certain spaces, and the means to occupy them, become naturalised. This naturalisation serves to obscure the actual regulatory, and at times exploitative, function of sports; instead positing them as exemplars of individualism and self-governance. In positioning neoliberalism as the reengineering, rather than simply the deregulation, of the state, sports such as rugby enact considerable disciplinary power over the bodies of a minority ethnicity. We refer to this diversion from conventional working class employment opportunities as 'sportfare'. Qualitative data for this paper has been drawn from several independent studies engaging with Pasifika communities in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on a larger ethnographic project that examines the construction of gendered identity within a Japanese men's rowing club. For members, notions of masculinity and Japanese identity converge to the point of naturalization. The embodied experience of being a rower is underpinned by the cultural artifacts of hierarchy, social positioning, and group membership. Membership in university rowing clubs somatizes and naturalizes the valued characteristics associated with salary-man identity (duty, loyalty, self-sacrifice, mental and physical endurance) to the point of common sense. The resultant masculine identity is congruent with forms of hegemonic masculinity that are critical for successful employment in company-centered Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Byline: Brent McDonald Sport has undergone major changes due to the influence of globalisation. In the context of Japanese sport the influences of globalisation has created tension between the old position of sport for social integration and the new, market-oriented position (Yamashita, 2006). Whilst tracing some of the globalising influences on professional sport this paper examines how such influences effect identity and practice at a 'grass-roots' level. In examining sport from the 'old school' educational perspective, this paper explores identity and practice at a university men's rowing club. Based on responses and observations the paper finds that, whilst superficially there has been an increase in diversity, practice and identity at this level of sport has remained relatively unchanged.

Established in 2012, 'the Seekers' are a football club in Melbourne, Australia. Initially set up to provide social recreation for various refugees and asylum seekers, the Seekers have more recently entered a team in the mainstream league competition. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper considers how football facilitates forms of social inclusion for team members, both in relation to the action of the sport and the political and social context of Australian society more broadly. In many ways the field of sport is highly contested as players engage with the mainstream; however the solidarity forged through playing creates the possibility for moments of social inclusion in other ways. The capacity of sporting interactions to facilitate social inclusion for male team members is vexed, though there is evidence to suggest that, in the correct conditions, sport can contribute to an individual's capacity to access employment and educational opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]