On the 50th anniversary of the ISSA and IRSS, Alan Bairner, one of the most influential scholars to study the socio-cultural relationship between sport and nation, reflects on the dynamics of national identity and nationalism in sport. Because the sociology of sport has too often taken for granted concepts such as nation, nation-state, nationality, national identity and nationalism, an ongoing need has been to engage debates about those concepts in mainstream nationalism studies. Because the most powerful form of national performance today may be seen in sport, understanding tensions between not only the national and global, but also between the nationstate and the historic nation and between nationality and national identity remain key challenges. Complex dynamics of competing identities may be seen in exemplar studies of sport in Spain relative to Catalonia and the 'united' (or not) qualities of the United Kingdom relative to Ireland, Scotland, Wales and, indeed, England. In the future, it is posed that the study of sport and nation must move beyond reliance on media analysis and received notions of 'imagined community' and seek more access to and understanding of elite performers and organizational actors.

This article seeks to explain why it has proved so difficult for sociologists of sport to assume the mantle of public intellectuals even in relation to sport itself. Using a case study relating to sport in Northern Ireland and rooted in personal experience, the article examines alternative ways in which intellectual activity, albeit unconventionally understood, can influence the world of sport. Specifically, the analysis draws upon Antonio Gramsci's distinction between traditional and organic intellectuals. It is argued that only through engagement with organic intellectuals who exercise authority within the subcultures of sport can critical sociologists hope to influence sporting practices.

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The aim of this article is to analyse China's engagement in global sport through an examination of the case of elite football. Although many studies exhibit a quite proper concern with the extent to which the deep structure of culture is affected by sports globalization, they generally fail to give significant consideration to the role of the state, because of excessive emphasis on other aspects of globalization such as commercialization, commodification and cultural homogenization. We attempt, therefore, to refocus on the role of the state and to investigate its relationship with global sport by adopting the theoretical framework of Held et al. (1999) as the main analytical tool for this study. By taking strategic approaches in the economic and cultural/ideological fields, the Chinese government has demonstrated, to some degree, its capacity to find effective ways to manage its relationship with global football. This was demonstrated particularly by the setting up of new governmental commercial agencies, updating sport and football regulations, and strengthening Chinese communist ideological education.

This article illustrates how the media represent Islam and Muslims in the post-9/11 context through an examination of British newspaper coverage of the death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer at the 2007 Cricket World Cup. The article argues that key elements of the cultural stereotyping of Islam and Muslims identified in Said’s Orientalism—namely, violence, irrationality, and backwardness—were reproduced. These ideas stem from, and reinforce, a narrative of absolute and systematic difference between the East and the West. Thus, representations of Islam and Muslims in sport-related coverage, just as in “mainstream” reporting, tend to be negative and hostile. The article further argues that such representation has become more homogeneous and more heavily focused on religion and terrorism post-9/11 and that uniform and uncritical portrayals are particularly likely to appear in the seemingly apolitical context of sport-related issues.