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Prof John Sugden

AHoS/Professor of the Sociology of Sport

contact:
Sport and Service Management
Gaudick Road
Eastbourne
BN20 7SR

Telephone: +44 (0)1273 643729

Email: J.Sugden@brighton.ac.uk

Research interests

  • Global Politics of Sport
  • Sport and International Relations
  • Sport in Divided Societies
  • Sport for Development and Peace
  • Sport and Deviance
  • Ethnographic and Investigative Research Methods

Biography

Professor Sugden studied politics and sociology at the University of Essex and physical education at the University of Liverpool before taking up a postgraduate scholarship in the USA at the University of Connecticut where he earned a Doctorate in the Sociology of Sport in 1984.

He has researched and written widely around topics concerned with the politics and sociology of sport and his books on international boxing and on sport in Northern Ireland have won national and international awards.

Professor Sugden is well known for his work on sport and peace building in divided societies; his studies - with Alan Tomlinson - of the world governing body for football, Fifa; and for his investigative research into football’s underground economy.

Currently, Professor Sugden is Academic Leader of the Sport and Leisure Cultures subject group and Director of the University of Brighton’s flagship international community relations project in Israel, Football for Peace.

Selected external research-related roles

  • Editor International Review for the Sociology of Sport (IRSS) 2006-2012. Currently a corresponding Editor for IRSS.
  • Visiting Professor, the University of Ulster
  • Book reviewer for a wide variety of journals, including Leisure Studies, IRSS, JSSI, Journalism Practice and the Times Higher Educational Supplement
  • Proposal and Manuscript Reviewer for a number of publishing houses including, Sage, Routledge and Human Kinetics
  • External Examiner for PhDs and MPhil at a variety of external institutions
  • Executive Member of ISSA (International Sociology of Sport Association)

Selected invited conference presentations

2008 - Using Sport to Build Bridges in Divided Societies, Second World Congress of Race and Ethnicity in Sport, Sidney Institute of Technology, December
2009 - Sport as a Pathway to Reconciliation, Pathways to Reconciliation World Summit, Amman, Jordan, December
2010 - The Potential of Sport as a Vehicle of Peace Making and Peace Keeping, Security Defence Agenda, British Council and NATO International Conference, Conflict Prevention and Resolution: the Role of Cultural Relations, Brussels, March
2010 - Promoting peaceful co-existence through sport in the Middle East, First International Conference for Sport development and Peace, Northeastern University, Boston, June
2010 - Between Idealism and Fatalism: Critical Pragmatism and a Human Rights Approach to Cultural Interventions in Societies in Conflict, Leisure Studies Association Annual Conference, Leeds Metropolitan University, July
2011 - Sport as a Mediator between Cultures, International Conference on Sport for Development and Peace, Wingate Institute for Physical Education, Israel, September 15-17
2012 - Communication, The University of Texas at Austin, April
2012 - Playing with the Enemy. Sport and Peace Building in Divided Societies, University of Johannesburg,South Africa, May

Selected recent publications

Books

  • 2011   With Alan Tomlinson (eds). Watching the Olympics: Politics, Power and Representation, Routledge. ISBN 0415578337
  • 2007   With James Wallis (eds). Football for Peace: Teaching and Playing Sport for Conflict Resolution in the Middle East, Chelsea School Research Centre Series. Meyer & Meyer, Aachen. ISBN 1841261815
  • 2002   With Alan Tomlinson (eds). Power Games: A Critical Sociology of Sport Routledge, London. ISBN 041525101X
  • 2002   Scum Airways: Inside Football's Underground Economy Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh. ISBN 1840185767

Articles

Carter, Thomas F. and Sugden, John (2012) The United States and sporting diplomacy: comparing and contrasting the cases of table tennis with China and baseball with Cuba in the 1970s International Relations, 26 (1). pp. 101-121. ISSN 0047-1178

Sugden, J. (2010) Critical left-realism and sport interventions in divided societies International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 45 (3). pp. 258-272. ISSN 1461-7218

Sugden, J. (2008) Anyone for Football for Peace? The challenges of using sport in the service of co-existence in Israel Soccer and Society, 9 (3). pp. 405-415. ISSN 1743-9590

Sugden, J. (2008) Watching the Games Foreign Policy in Focus, Strategic Focus: Sports and Foreign Policy. ISSN 1524-1939

Research projects

Evaluating the efficacy of using sport as a vehicle for conflict prevention, reconciliation and coexistence in Israel. £30,000 from various sources including the British Council, The FA, and assorted charities.

Peace building through Sport in Israel: Project Implementation and Evaluation. Euro 490,000, European Commission

John Sugden