This paper presents data from 40 in-depth interviews that were conducted as part of a study of social capital and health in relation to people's perceptions of the influence of 'place' on their participation levels and health. These data were used to examine features of the western suburbs of Adelaide that were perceived as health damaging and health promoting. The paper demonstrates that our Australian suburban respondents expressed a considerable concern about these features and the impact they have on their perception of community and their ability to participate in it. Safety, connectedness to the area, the reputation of an area and the extent and nature of community facilities are all seen as important to a healthy community. The research found that in the more deprived socioeconomic areas within the study area, there was a significant degree of dissatisfaction with features of the urban environment, such as availability of amenities, provision of public transport, and proximity of industry to private dwellings. The paper concludes by considering certain features of urban environments that might make them more supportive of health through encouraging contact between people. We conclude that these environments could be improved using the following measures: a subsidy scheme to support the viability of local shops and cafés (thereby providing meeting places and employment); parks with facilitators (who could play a role in increasing safety in the park but also encouraging community development); attractive places to walk; and a general environmental improvement program.

Many poor suburbs in Australia with higher than average numbers of public housing tenants do not simply suffer material disadvantage but also suffer from poor reputations that are reinforced though stigmatising assumptions that portray their residents negatively. Preliminary findings from qualitative research undertaken in Adelaide, South Australia paint a somewhat different picture of some residents in public housing which counters such stereotypes and assumptions and suggests that the picture is not as bleak as the stigmatised accounts suggest. This article examines the ways in which residents in stigmatised suburbs and housing actively resist and challenge the negative image ascribed to them and concludes by considering the public policy implications that come from the research.

In this article we examine the cultural practices of a group of South Australian football supporters known as the “Grog Squad.” While hard drinking is undeniably a central part of this group of exclusively male fans, being a “Groggie” is much more than just being in a boozy boys club. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork undertaken throughout the 2005 South Australian football season, as well as Internet research, we argue that the style of support engaged in by the Grog Squad represents a paradox for how we typically understand football fans. On the one hand, much of the language and behavior of the Grog Squad is characteristic of the aggressive masculinity common in male contact sports. On the other, being a Groggie provides access to a range of resources, benefits, networks, and supports that confound many of the popular assumptions about male social relationships in sport. To explain the arrant sexism and homophobia of the Grog Squad simply in terms of hegemonic masculinity is to obscure the very real social supports and connections (best described as social capital) that are often overlooked in studies of male sports fans.

This article examines some of the ways in which fear of crime impacts upon opportunities for social interaction among residents in stigmatised suburbs. As we explore in this article, neighbourhoods that are stigmatised by virtue of material disadvantage and poor reputations tend to be associated with a number of social problems, including higher rates of crime. This association with crime, our research suggests, has an impact on social interaction in these neighbourhoods. Specifically, fear of crime may make people less likely to draw on forms of social interaction which enable people to build trust through contact with their fellow residents. In developing this position, the article draws on qualitative data detailing residents' perceptions of safety in three neighbourhoods in Adelaide, South Australia, two of which are stigmatised as 'problem neighbourhoods'. The article concludes by considering the public policy implications that arise from the research.

This article synthesizes the main themes and research agendas that have been explored in studies of sports-associated drinking. It identifies four themes in which sport and alcohol come together: (a) the commercial economy; (b) social practices and cultural identities; (c) crime and violence; and (d) health behaviors. The article highlights the paradoxical and contradictory nature of the sport-alcohol nexus, especially in relation to health behaviors and crime and violence, where sport is both a context for and a "solution" to health damaging and criminal behavior. The article also argues for the contribution that studies of sports-based drinking can make to the sociology of sport and alcohol use more broadly, particularly with regard to applying new theoretical perspectives such as "calculated hedonism" and "casual leisure" to drinking in sporting contexts. It also extends our analysis of the beer-sport-gender "holy trinity" to considering drinking by women as well as among less traditional forms of masculine identities.