The aim of this midterm conference is to bring scholars, researchers, educators, students, professionals and other groups interested in sports and physical activity to propose their works. The focus of this midterm conference lays in the challenges that sociology of sports and physical activity have to face to understand these new complex scenarios, the main issues we had to face, the successes, the criticalities and the lessons learned, the new horizons of our understandings of the social and cultural landscapes.

ESA Research Network 28 Society and Sport Midterm Conference Sport and crisis: bodies, practices, representations

Educational Sciences’ Department, “Alma Mater Studiorum” - University of Bologna, Bologna (Italy), 25-26 March 2021.

Argument

Recent crises, from the economic and migratory to the present covid-19 pandemic, have dramatically affected all areas of individual and collective life – and sport and physical activity are no exception.

Many aspects of the sportscape have been affected: sport-health practice, the use of sports as a means of social inclusion for immigrants, professional sports events, their media coverage, the place of sport and physical activity in the welfare system, the relationship between body and sports’ practice, sports and physical activity’s representations and so on. In summary, bodies, practices and representations.

The aim of this midterm conference is to bring scholars, researchers, educators, students, professionals and other groups interested in sports and physical activity to propose their works. The focus of this midterm conference lays in the challenges that sociology of sports and physical activity have to face to understand these new complex scenarios, the main issues we had to face, the successes, the criticalities and the lessons learned, the new horizons of our understandings of the social and cultural landscapes.

Beyond this main theme, the conference will also feature a wide range of sessions to give the opportunity to share and discuss the latest research experiences, including (but not limited to):

• Sport, Migration and Forced Migration
• Methodological and Empirical Challenges on Sports and Physical Activity
• Sports and media: mass and new publics
• Sport and Volunteering: Representations and Perspectives
• Sport and Bodies
• The sociology of sports, sports in sociology. A critical and reflective session
• Health promotion, health and education, sports and physical activity
• Social Fitness, new media and gamification
• Physical activity, sports and social health determinants

The midterm Conference will be held in Bologna (Italy), at the Sport Sciences’ Department of the “Alma Mater Studiorum”-University, 25-26 March, 2021^[1]. It will be organised in collaboration with some Italian academic actors in the area of sociology and sociology of sports. Among those: AIS (Associazione Italiana di Sociologia), SISCC (Sociologia Cultura Comunicazione - Società Scientifica Italiana).

Submission Guidelines

Proposals should be sent in English to alessandro.porrovecchio@univ-littoral.fr

before December the 1^st 2020 (250 words)

They should include a title and the author(s) institutional affiliation. Proposals will be evaluated by the scientific committee, and authors will receive feedback before December the 15^th . Registration will be open until February the 15^th 2021.

Key dates

Abstract Submission Deadline: Until 1^st December 2020.

Feedback on Abstract: Before 15^th December 2020.

Registration: Before February 15^th 2021.

Fees

• Members (ESA RN28, AIS, SISCC) : 10 Euros young researchers (students, PhD, post-doc), 50 Euros permanent researchers.
• Non-Members : 20 Euros young researchers (students, PhD, post-doc), 70 Euros permanent researchers

Scientific Committee

• Nico Bortoletto,  University of Teramo, RN 28 Vice-Coordinator
• Lucie Forté-Gallois,  Université Toulouse III, RN 28 Board member
• Enrico Michelini, TU Dortmund, RN 28 Board member
• Stacey Pope, Durham University, RN 28 Board member ac.uk
• Alessandro Porrovecchio, University of the Littoral Opal Coast, RN 28 Coordinator
• Kaja Różdżyńska, University of Warsaw, RN 28 PHD/ECR representative and Board member
• Loredana Tallarita, “Kore” University of Enna, RN 28 Board member

^[1] If ever the European sanitary situation would make it impossible to maintain the conference in presence, other solutions online will be considered for the same dates.