Overview

Although social justice initiatives in education and the workplace have decades-long histories, sport has been slow to follow. In the areas of sport policies, sport practices and sport scholarship, liberal/reform approaches dominate, while the structural roots of injustice - racism, colonialism, misogyny, disablism, homophobia and transphobia - remain largely unchanged. Use and misuse of sport sciences contributes to this pattern, and the Olympic industry serves as the machine driving these forces. Applying an intersectional analysis, the book examines issues of sex/gender/sexualities, disability, Global North/Global South disparities, doping, and violence in all its forms. A discussion of action and outlaw sports as a route to empowerment is followed by an exploration of community-based initiatives and a model for physical activity that puts joy at the centre of human movement.

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9781836625155

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Reviews

Helen Jefferson Lenskyj is one of the world’s foremost critical scholars of sports. For decades, her writings have been both destinations and starting points for many of us. The Quest for Social Justice in Sport is both a distillation of her work and a new and innovative intervention: a distillation in that it follows on from her established concerns; new and innovative because it takes on sports’ most pressing contemporary issues with equally powerful research, theorization, and commitment -- Toby Miller, Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey Helen Jefferson Lenskyj is pre-eminent among critical sport scholars – academics who have written and taught about sport as a prism through which to explain the social and political world in all its often ugly manifestations. Most of these ugly manifestations – colonialism, the use of banned drugs, commercialism, violence, corrosive individualism, racism, sexism, transphobia – are considered in this excellent book, along with examples and suggestions of how sport can be reimagined as what the philosopher Ivan Illich called a tool for conviviality. More and more people, as the book recognises, value physical activity for its intrinsic pleasures and not for fame, fortune or the establishment of world records. This, as Lenskyj shows, means not only considering strategies of ‘desportification’ but also acknowledging the nurturant properties of long-suppressed Indigenous cultures. Way to go. -- Stephen Wagg, Honorary Fellow, International Centre for Sports History and Culture, De Montfort University, Leicester UK I used to ask my students to imagine a world without elite competitive sport—and they couldn’t. It’s everywhere: in schools, on screens, billboards, and in our feeds. No wonder it’s hard to see past it. In this accessible and thought-provoking book, Helen Lenskyj not only challenges us to imagine alternatives—she shows us what they look like. Through a sharp critique of how colonial norms, binary thinking, and the Olympic industry have shaped the last half-century of sport, she outlines the deep inequalities built into the system. But this isn’t just critique—it’s a reimagining. By centering the voices of activists and scholars, and spotlighting vibrant, community-based forms of movement, Lenskyj offers a vision rooted in joy, justice, and belonging. And maybe—just maybe—it’ll help the next generation see beyond the narrow confines of elite sport and toward something more inclusive, more humane, and more hopeful. -- Janice Forsyth, Professor, Indigenous Land-Based Physical Culture and Wellness Kinesiology, University of British Columbia

Author Information

Helen Jefferson Lenskyj (she/her) is Professor Emerita, University of Toronto. Her work as a researcher and activist on gender and sport issues began in the 1980s, and her critiques of the Olympic industry include seven books, most recently The Olympic Games: A Critical Approach (Emerald, 2020). 

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