Academic literature on the topic 'Rugby institutions'

This article discusses the growth of rugby as the most popular pastime in Swansea for most of the period 1870–1914. It examines how the game shaped an inclusive civic identity from the 1890s and how this was layered alongside other identities. It also examines how social class and gender were negotiated during the game's rise. Swansea's middle class stamped its authority on local government and voluntary institutions and the town's rugby club was among the foremost of these institutions by the end of the 1870s. It is argued that sport offered a unique opportunity for new civic alliances.

Athletes, their bodies, and their sport performances validate and vivify the nation by lending physical form to an imagined community. For bodies to express and enact so consistently as to constitute a coherent nation, they must be assembled, defined, and motivated within a complex arrangement of culture, civil society, and institutions. Aihwa Ong called this arranging of people with national objectives cultural citizenship. In this article, I write autoethnographic vignettes of my experiences as a migrant and rugby player from Aotearoa/New Zealand playing in the U.S. South, which I use to demonstrate and add to Ong’s theories on embodiment, cultural citizenship, and the nation. I argue that a nation is an unlikely achievement dependent on its members; members, such as athletes, enact their nation in by augmenting its affects, most notably by making the nation capable of having a physical encounter. I recommend qualitative scholars and sport sociologists study instances where athletes and other members fail to embody the nation, because this is where scholars can best observe and study the contingency of nations.

Purpose – Interventions intended to aid offender re-entry, rehabilitation and desistence based around specific sports and championed by sporting institutions have been introduced in custodial settings. Though research evaluating these is positive (Meek, 2012), conclusions are often hampered by the absence of control groups in such work. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the Saracens “Get Onside” rugby-based intervention at HMP YOI Feltham, while employing a non-randomised control group. Design/methodology/approach – In total, 24 young offenders took part. Those in the treatment condition experienced a ten-week course which included a range of activities leading to accredited awards, exercises in functional skills in literacy/numeracy and 72 hours of rugby sessions. Those in the control condition were matched on key static factors, crime attitudes and aggression. Self-reported measures of pro-crime attitudes, aggression, self-esteem, and impulsivity were taken once before the start, once during, and at the end of the course for both groups. Findings – As predicted, self-reported scores measuring attitudes towards aggression and crime did differ significantly across groups, with those experiencing the intervention showing more positive values by the end of treatment compared with others. However, measures of impulsiveness and self-esteem showed no change. Research limitations/implications – Revisions are suggested in respect of both the self-esteem and impulsivity measures, and future work needs better control over the match between treatment and comparison groups. Originality/value – Concerns over the potentially iatrogenic effects of contact sport interventions with offender groups may be misplaced, and the benefits of sporting interventions are replicated in a between groups design.

“Sport has the power to change the world”. This quote from Nelson Mandela following by the story of South Africa and his rugby team is certainly one of the best examples than sport is a powerful soft power tool to promote peace and help to solve difficult diplomatic situations and create cohesion in local communities. It will be needed to increase and improve the using of sport as a tool to resolve conflicts and crisis. The choice of a relationship between Sport and Social Development as subject permit to think and understand the role and the goals of the International organizations in the project creation gait. This presentation aims at thinking about the future of the international institutions after the closure of the United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace and gives some recommendations linked to this paper findings. This new situation is, according to the United Nations (UN), the logical next step but it is including some risks about the aim of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in the area of social development. It will be demonstrated that the work of UN was really effective to create a solid base for sport projects and a huge credibility for international institutions and government. A new form will be developed for projects which include a new form of actions which will include IOC for its influence but also the social actors of United Nations to keep in mind the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s).

In the Philippines, “sex-sell” advertisements (ads), particularly the 2011 billboard by Bench featuring the Volcano Philippine Rugby Team, have been controversial. Community leaders view the ads as being offensive to the socio-cultural values of the community in which the ad is distributed. In response, producers of the ads contend that their works are merely creative options within the frames of the law. This paper approaches the arguments by investigating the linguistic functions of sex-sell ads through the grammatical analysis of its visual syntax. Using the framework of multimodal discourse analysis in visual semiotics, the paper demonstrates how grammar in visual language is compatible with the systemic functional language of Halliday (1985) as applied in the visual design theories of Kress (2006) and van Leeuwen (2005). The multimodal approach to the analysis of the linguistic functions of sexually implicit billboard ads seek to demonstrate the social semiotic perspective in the construction of meaning in print ads, how ambiguous visual lexicon can occur, and how a dissonant visual assemblage invites resistant reading. Through this discursive analysis, the paper hopes to promote a critical awareness among the passive interpreters of texts (i.e. general public information consumers) and the institutions (e.g. education, creative industry) that actively participate in the discourse, design, production, and distribution of meaning in advertising texts and images.

Women’s rugby (rugby league, rugby union and rugby sevens) has recently grown in participation and professionalisation. There is under-representation of women-only cohorts within applied sport science and medicine research and within the women’s rugby evidence base. The aims of this article are: Part 1: to undertake a systematic-scoping review of the applied sport science and medicine of women’s rugby, and Part 2: to develop a consensus statement on future research priorities. This article will be designed in two parts: Part 1: a systematic-scoping review, and Part 2: a three-round Delphi consensus method. For Part 1, systematic searches of three electronic databases (PubMed (MEDLINE), Scopus, SPORTDiscus (EBSCOhost)) will be performed from the earliest record. These databases will be searched to identify any sport science and medicine themed studies within women’s rugby. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses extension for Scoping Reviews will be adhered to. Part 2 involves a three-round Delphi consensus method to identify future research priorities. Identified experts in women’s rugby will be provided with overall findings from Part 1 to inform decision-making. Participants will then be asked to provide a list of research priority areas. Over the three rounds, priority areas achieving consensus (≥70% agreement) will be identified. This study has received institutional ethical approval. When complete, the manuscript will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The findings of this article will have relevance for a wide range of stakeholders in women’s rugby, including policymakers and governing bodies.

The organizational field that constitutes English rugby union has undergone substantial change since 1995. This paper builds on earlier work by O’Brien and Slack (2003a) that established that a shift from an amateur to a professional dominant logic in English rugby union took place between 1995 and 2000. Utilizing ideas about institutional logics, isomorphism, and diffusion, the current paper explores how this shift in logics actually evolved. Data from 43 interviews with key individuals in English rugby union form the main data source for the study. The results show that isomorphic change in accord with a new professional logic diffused throughout the field by way of three distinct diffusion patterns: status driven, bandwagon, and eventually, the social learning of adaptive responses. An initial period of high uncertainty, intense competitive pressures, and sustained financial crises resulted in unrestrained mimesis in the first two seasons of the professional era. However, this gave way in the third season to increased interorganizational linkages, coalition building, and political activity that promoted normative and coercive pressures for a consolidation of the game’s infrastructure and future development.

Based on an ethnographic study of women’s rugby in the U.S. in the early 1990s, this article suggests that women’s participation in sport represents a type of resistance that can be understood as “queer” resistance, albeit a gendered one. The article argues that queer theories and politics of resistance offer a lens by which to explain how women who played rugby in the early 1990s subscribed not to a “female apologetic,” but rather an unapologetic. The results show the unapologetic to be comprised of transgressing gender, destabilizing the heterosexual/homosexual binary, and “in your face” confrontations of stigma—all characteristics of queer resistance. Furthermore, the results illustrate that each aspect of unapologetic queer resistance in sport is gendered. The article concludes that both the female apologetic and the gendered unapologetic are types of resistance observable in sport and suggests that further research needs to examine the extent to which gendered queer resistances are new and the degree to which they are specific to the institution of sport.

Background: The optimal management of recurrent anterior shoulder instability with significant glenoid bone loss in high-demand collision athletes remains a challenge. Purpose: To analyze the time to return to sport, clinical outcomes, and recurrences following a modified Latarjet procedure without capsulolabral repair in rugby players with recurrent anterior shoulder instability and significant glenoid bone loss. Study Design: Case series; Level of evidence, 4. Methods: Between June 2008 and June 2015, 50 competitive rugby players (practice >2 times per week and competition during weekends) with recurrent anterior shoulder instability underwent operation with the modified congruent arc Latarjet procedure without capsulolabral repair in our institution. Cases included 18 primary repairs and 32 revisions. Return to sports, range of motion (ROM), the Rowe score, a visual analog scale for pain in sport activity (VAS), and the Athletic Shoulder Outcome Scoring System (ASOSS) were used to assess functional outcomes. Recurrences were also evaluated. The postoperative bone block position and consolidation were assessed with computed tomography. The final analysis included 49 shoulders in 48 patients (31 revision cases). Results: The mean follow-up was 48 months (range, 24-108 months) and the mean age at the time of operation was 22.8 years (range, 17-35 years). Forty-five patients (93.7%) returned to playing rugby, all at their preinjury level of play. No significant difference in shoulder ROM was found between preoperative and postoperative results. The Rowe, VAS, and ASOSS scores showed statistically significant improvement after operation ( P < .001). The Rowe score increased from a mean of 39.5 points preoperatively to 94 points postoperatively ( P < .01). The VAS score decreased from 3.6 points preoperatively to 1.2 points postoperatively ( P < .01). The ASOSS score improved significantly from a mean of 44 points preoperatively to 89.5 points postoperatively ( P < .01). No recurrence of shoulder dislocation or subluxation was noted. The bone block healed in 43 shoulders (88%). Conclusion: In rugby players with recurrent anterior shoulder instability and significant glenoid bone loss, the modified Latarjet procedure without capsulolabral repair produced excellent functional outcomes, with most athletes returning to rugby at their preinjury level of play without recurrences.

Since 1995, the organizational field that constitutes English rugby union has undergone considerable transformation. Utilizing ideas about changes in actors, changes in exchange processes and interorganizational linkages, changes in the legitimized forms of capital in the field, and changes in regulatory structures, this paper explores the nature of this transformation in English rugby union. Data from 43 interviews with key individuals in the English game form the main data source for the study. The results show that changes in the communities of actors composing the field hastened change in other areas. Powerful new actors with strong ties to business environments brought with them professionally oriented values and a new institutional logic. Having made significant financial investments in the field, these actors collectively took measures to protect their economic interests. These measures took the form of political activity and coalition building, which, ultimately, reconfigured the field's regulatory structure. The new emphasis on economic capital prompted significant shifts in key actors' exchange relationships, in that clubs' strategies and structures were reoriented in order to gain access to this important network resource.

Depuis qu’elle existe, la rivalité rugbystique entre l’Afrique du Sud et la Nouvelle-Zélande a fait couler beaucoup d’encre du fait de son originalité et de sa nature complexe. Ainsi, au fur et à mesure de son développement, un certain nombre d’historiens (Buckley, 1996 ; Dobson, 1996 ; Nauright, 1993), de journalistes sportifs (Labuschagne, 1974 ; Harding & Williams, 2000), d’activistes (Thompson, 1975 ; Richards, 1999) et même des hommes politiques (Templeton, 1998) se sont penchés sur son histoire. D’une manière générale, ils s’accordent à situer le point de départ de ce duel singulier en 1921, date de la première tournée de l’équipe nationale de rugby sud-africaine en terre néo-zélandaise. Avec ce travail de thèse, je souhaite montrer que les compétitions entre ces deux ex-colonies britanniques démarrent bien plus tôt, dès les premiers matchs de rugby disputés entre Néo-Zélandais et Sud-Africains pendant la seconde guerre des Boers (1899-1902). Ces tournois font surgir au moins trois questions socio-politiques par le biais desquelles j’analyse, de manière chronologique, l’histoire des échanges rugbystiques entre deux nations en construction (Renan, 1882 ; Hobsbawm, 1990). Il s’agit d’une part, de mettre en évidence le processus qui conduit à la représentation des fédérations sud-africaine et néo-zélandaise de rugby au sein de l’instance internationale du rugby (International Rugby Football Board). D’autre part, j’examine l’évolution des rapports entre joueurs d’origine européenne et joueurs indigènes. Enfin, je porte une attention particulière à la création d’identités nationales dans deux territoires de l’Empire britannique qui s’émancipent à des rythmes différents du pouvoir central londonien. À partir d’archives numérisées, je tente ainsi de retracer l’origine de cette concurrence rugbystique et du racisme qui la caractérise en mettant en lumière les logiques de la domination impériale qui s’exercent autant sur le colon que sur le colonisé (Gleyse, 2004)
Since its inception, the rugby rivalry between South Africa and New Zealand has been much written about because of its complex and peculiar nature. Over the years, a number of historians (Nauright, 1993; Buckley, 1996; Dobson, 1996), sports journalists (Labuschagne, 1974; Harding & Williams, 2000), activists (Thompson, 1975; Richards, 1999) and even politicians (Templeton, 1998) have examined its history. Most of them usually situate the starting point of this unique duel in 1921, when the first New Zealand tour by the South African national rugby team took place. In this thesis, I wish to show that competitions between these two former British colonies began much earlier, as soon as the first rugby matches were played between New Zealanders and South Africans during the Second Boer War (1899-1902). These tournaments raise at least three socio-political questions through which I analyze, in a chronological order, the history of rugby exchanges between two nations under, construction (Renan, 1882; Hobsbawm, 1990). The aim is, on the one hand, to highlight the process that led to the representation of the South African and New Zealand rugby unions within the international rugby body (International RugbyFootball Board). On the other hand, I examine the evolution of racial relations between players of European origin and indigenous players. Finally, I focus on the creation of national identities in two former territories of the British Empire, which emancipated themselves from the central London-based power at different rates. Using digitized archives, I thus attempt to trace the origins of this rugby rivalry and the racism that characterizes it while shedding light on the logic of imperial domination that were exercised on both the colonist and the colonized (Gleyse, 2004)

Football had been played for centuries in Great Britain but did not make a perfect transition to European North America. The sport took on different meanings within colonial society. The game developed as an informal one played by young people. This chapter shows that the link between football and childhood had lasting impacts on the development of the sport in the United States. Unlike baseball, which by the 1850s had moved beyond its childish origins, football remained a kid’s game throughout the nineteenth century. The expansion of educational facilities meant that boys took the game with them to schools and colleges. Initially, football at these institutions emphasized a kicking form of the game, but the influence of rugby-style rules led to a shift toward carrying the ball. A desire for intercollegiate competition encouraged the development of a common version of the game, one that became known as intercollegiate football.

In this chapter, a curator from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London tells of efforts to track down the iconic ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz for the major exhibition Hollywood Costume held at the museum in 2012. Once the shoes were located, they travelled to London from Washington, D.C. in their own seat on a plane, handcuffed to a security guard and accompanied by the curator of the Smithsonian Institution. Their arrival at the V&A prompted a top-secret security operation. The resulting exhibition remains one of the most successful in the V&A’s history.