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This research work explores the perception of children's experiences as spectators of a sporting event. The study focusses on the 19th Mediterranean Games hosted by Oran in the summer of 2022 and aims to analyse the trace of emotions and memories that the event left in their minds. A qualitative survey was conducted with 22 resident children who attended the event as spectators. The results show that a child's experience at a sporting event is holistic, appearing in several dimensions: a cognitive dimension, referring to what the child learnt from the event, and an affective dimension, which is important for creating strong and meaningful experiences for children at sporting events.

This chapter offers an autotheoretical account of my experiences as a trans man training for my first amateur bout – one that has yet to come but borne out of a never-ending fight. My chapter is in conversation with autobiography (McBee, 2018), journalistic (Oates, 2006) and ethnographical scholarship addressing the intricacies of pugilistic violence as a response to systemic gender, racial, sexual and economic oppression (Beauchez, 2017; Rutter, 2007).

Boxing draws fighters from marginalized communities. As a trans man, I have fought intense ‘negative’ feelings most of my life – emotions culminating into rage. I joined an amateur boxing club in Ottawa after trying to instigate a street altercation with a stranger. Feeling out of control, I sought refuge with others who also believe fighting solves problems.

Influenced by Oates' observations that boxing is ‘primarily about being, and not giving, hurt’ (2006) and sharing McBee's experience of ‘loving those men even as I hit them in the face, and knowing that they love[] me back’ (2018), I explore boxing as intimate and affective grounds for bearing witness to the pain and injury of the other shaping their daily lives. Amateur boxing as an embodied and affective space exceeds the oft reductionist (mis)understanding of the sport as a violent spectacle of individual bravado and the emphasis scholars and the mainstream media place on the ‘heroic body’ (Woodward, 2007); instead, I offer glimpses into the healing justice as social justice that witnessing the pain, vulnerability and resilience of oneself and other boxers can provide.

Mohammad Azharuddin's arrival in professional cricket served, to quote Karl Marx, as a reform of consciousness that awakened the sport ‘from its dream about itself’. His expertise with the bat invoked the wide expanse of human sensorium, provoking reactions of shock and admiration among observers. In this chapter, I examine Azharuddin's life in cricket and public through a dialectical probing of the relationship between shock and aesthetics. Azhar and cricket appear as a productive terrain to carry out the analysis, as it pushes the possibility of what or who can be considered as a valid subject for theoretical scrutiny. Taking cues from Walter Benjamin and CLR James, I theorise the shock effects created by a cricketer most unusual. From his wristy wizardry with the bat to his appointment as captain of the Indian men's cricket team during the rise of Hindu nationalism in the country, Azharuddin's presence and popularity extended beyond the boundaries that are often imposed on a sportsperson. Through his involvement in the match-fixing scandal that was exposed at the turn of the 21st century, Azhar (the name by which he was popularly known) challenged the mores of a game that had emphasised Victorian notions of purity on and off the field. For the purposes of this chapter, I discuss how Azhar constructed a bodily discourse that pushes us to reassess our very notions of art and aesthetics.

Athletes have leveraged their social platform and reach to advocate for a variety of social causes. Most recently, given the persistent impacts of climate change on sport, the sport sector has been leveraged to engage and educate fans, sport participants, and athletes to promote climate action while consuming sport and in their everyday lives. This chapter conceptualizes the term sport eco-activism and presents a rich history of the early stages of this form of activism and its interaction with sport. Specifically, we provide historical context and examples of how athletes and activist sport organizations (e.g., Surfers Against Sewage, Protect Our Winters) have drawn attention to the impacts of climate change on sport. We also highlight how these entities encourage spectators and participants to change their behaviors and further advocate for collective climate action. In addition, we offer insights on future directions of eco-activism within sport and how such activists can best resonate with their target audiences to create positive change through sport.

According to Yubin et al. (2023), films serve as a medium for conveying visual representations of various elements such as landscapes, buildings, landmarks and monuments, which provide a contextual backdrop for the narrative. According to Vila et al. (2021), the number of global tourists visiting film locations exceeds 80 million. In addition, according to Yubin et al. (2023), the promotion of tourism is facilitated through the utilisation of films, which serve to create novel representations, counteract negative perceptions and enhance the portrayal of underdeveloped destinations. A significant number of individuals engage in the practise of visiting movie sets with the intention of re-experiencing the emotional impact of the film. The devaluation of film marketing has been observed. This method represents a highly indirect approach to enticing tourists. This chapter examines the comprehension of travellers' motivations and the perception of film-exposed locations in Bollywood films (Salnick, 2023). Film tourism provides a tailored and personalised experience for individuals. The difficulty in measuring this concept arises from factors such as the emotional responsiveness, personality traits, background and interpretive abilities of the viewers in relation to media images. According to Castro et al. (2023), the inclusion of a destination on a screen can serve as a means to enhance the diversity of a site's tourist offerings or mitigate the effects of seasonality by providing opportunities for experiential activities, showcasing notable landmarks or serving as a filming location. Film destinations have the potential to gain popularity and benefit from advertising and the perception of spectators.

In this chapter, I study athlete activism as practices of collective care in the context of football communities in Kerala, India. This particular collective is formed through a network of football players, fans, organizers of tournaments, team managers, and families of these actors. I look at these practices through two different yet interconnected “events.” One event is the public discussion of a form of care represented in the Malayalam movie titled Sudani from Nigeria (2018). The movie shows the acts of care centered on the mothers of a local football team manager and an African player who plays for a local team in Malabar. The other event that I seek to study is a campaign not yet fully articulated nor has generated significant discussions in the public sphere possibly because of its emerging nature. A local team manager organized a campaign during the initial months of the COVID-19 lockdown to facilitate the safe return of African players in the Malabar tournament circuit. The campaign led to the establishment of a network of care that is invested in the welfare of migrant athletes. Through these two events, I will look at what constitutes athlete activism at a translocal level in South India. I argue that such practices of care reconstitute the relationships among the people across the region as well as the people's relationship with the state. These practices of care recognize the inequalities in terms of race, class, and nationality and encourage action toward social change.