Malcolm MacLean
The University of Queensland, Australia, School of Health and Behavioural Sciences, Honorary Associate Professor
De Montfort University, International Centre for Sport History and Culture, Honorary Research Fellow
I am Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Queensland, where I completed my PhD in 2004. Until January 2019 I was Reader in the Culture and History of Sport, and taught in the sport and exercise programmes at the University of Gloucestershire from 2000. Between 2006 and 2016 I was also ½ time in Academic Registry as Associate Dean, Quality & Standards. I am also Honorary Research Fellow in the International Centre for the History and Culture of Sport at De Montfort University in England and Senior Research Associate at the Universty of Gibraltar.
My research to date has focussed on sporting identities, mainly in the former British Empire and post-colonising states, with an emphasis on notions of indigenousness, both on the part of first nations and other indigenous peoples and for subsequent settler populations, both voluntary and enforced settlers. Alongside that I have a continuing research strand dealing with social movements, especially sport and other cultural boycotts with a particular emphasis on sport-centred anti-apartheid movements. This work straddles the disciplinary boundaries of history and sociology, with influences from cultural studies.
Most of my teaching has focussed on historical and sociological aspects of sport, exercise and play, although I have also taught research methods for most of the time I have been in the School. My principal undergraduate teaching centred was a final year class in sport & the sociology of consumption. My major teaching commitment is supervising research degrees in the School of Sport and Exercise as well as in the School of Business and Management, although most of my research students work in sport, exercise and play.
As well as teaching I am also active in leading and developing research programmes and capacity, where I now work with the University of Gibraltar to support and help develop ethical literacy in research and support research students. This builds on my work at Gloucestershire where I chaired the University’s Research Ethics Committee from 2006-18 and led the University’s work to develop both enhanced research ethics literacy and more generally to enhance our systems to support research integrity.
I am Special Projects Editor for the International Journal of the History of Sport. I have been Chair of the British Society of Sports History and am currently a Vice President of the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport, have served on and convened several working groups of the North American Society for Sports History and am a member of the International Council of the New Zealand Studies Association.
My research to date has focussed on sporting identities, mainly in the former British Empire and post-colonising states, with an emphasis on notions of indigenousness, both on the part of first nations and other indigenous peoples and for subsequent settler populations, both voluntary and enforced settlers. Alongside that I have a continuing research strand dealing with social movements, especially sport and other cultural boycotts with a particular emphasis on sport-centred anti-apartheid movements. This work straddles the disciplinary boundaries of history and sociology, with influences from cultural studies.
Most of my teaching has focussed on historical and sociological aspects of sport, exercise and play, although I have also taught research methods for most of the time I have been in the School. My principal undergraduate teaching centred was a final year class in sport & the sociology of consumption. My major teaching commitment is supervising research degrees in the School of Sport and Exercise as well as in the School of Business and Management, although most of my research students work in sport, exercise and play.
As well as teaching I am also active in leading and developing research programmes and capacity, where I now work with the University of Gibraltar to support and help develop ethical literacy in research and support research students. This builds on my work at Gloucestershire where I chaired the University’s Research Ethics Committee from 2006-18 and led the University’s work to develop both enhanced research ethics literacy and more generally to enhance our systems to support research integrity.
I am Special Projects Editor for the International Journal of the History of Sport. I have been Chair of the British Society of Sports History and am currently a Vice President of the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport, have served on and convened several working groups of the North American Society for Sports History and am a member of the International Council of the New Zealand Studies Association.
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Papers by Malcolm MacLean
Recent years have seen a change and there is a small but growing body of scholarly research exploring social, cultural and political histories and sociologies of sport, with some of the very best informed both by subaltern perspectives and the drive to decolonise the academy. This paper draws on recent studies of sporting cultures in the Pacific, including the Pacific Rim, focusing particularly on cricket and surfing to discuss the dynamics between indigenous and colonising peoples in historical and contemporary sport settings and to unpick sport as a practice of modernity to begin to open up ways that its practice and its study might be decolonised in a Pacific setting.
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Also reprinted in Wray Vamplew (ed) Sports History, Vol 4, 2014, pp 99-117, Abingdon, Routledge (978-0-415-83747-7);
also reprinted in John Nauright, Alan G Cobley and David K Wiggins (eds) Beyond C.L.R James: Shifting Boundaries of Race and Ethnicity in Sport, Fayetteville, University of Kansas Press. 2014. pp 17-39 (978-1-557-28649-9)
Recent years have seen a change and there is a small but growing body of scholarly research exploring social, cultural and political histories and sociologies of sport, with some of the very best informed both by subaltern perspectives and the drive to decolonise the academy. This paper draws on recent studies of sporting cultures in the Pacific, including the Pacific Rim, focusing particularly on cricket and surfing to discuss the dynamics between indigenous and colonising peoples in historical and contemporary sport settings and to unpick sport as a practice of modernity to begin to open up ways that its practice and its study might be decolonised in a Pacific setting.
********************************
Also reprinted in Wray Vamplew (ed) Sports History, Vol 4, 2014, pp 99-117, Abingdon, Routledge (978-0-415-83747-7);
also reprinted in John Nauright, Alan G Cobley and David K Wiggins (eds) Beyond C.L.R James: Shifting Boundaries of Race and Ethnicity in Sport, Fayetteville, University of Kansas Press. 2014. pp 17-39 (978-1-557-28649-9)
Play and Democracy addresses four principal themes. Firstly, it explores how the relationship between play and democracy can be conceptualized and how it is mirrored in questions of normativity, ethics and political power. Secondly, it examines different aspects of play in urban spaces, such as activism, aesthetic experience, happenings, political carnivals and performances. Thirdly, it offers examples and analyses of how playful artistic performances can offer democratic resistance to dominant power. And finally, it considers the paradoxes of play in both developing democratic sensibilities and resisting power in education. These themes are explored and interrogated in chapters covering topics such as aesthetic practice, pedagogy, diverse forms of activism, and urban experience, where play and playfulness become arenas in which to create the possibility of democratic practice and change.
Adding extra depth to our understanding of the significance of play as a polit- ical, cultural and social power, this book is fascinating reading for any serious student or researcher with an interest in play, philosophy, politics, sociology, arts, sport or education.
Play, Philosophy and Performance is a cutting-edge collection of essays exploring the philosophy of play. It showcases the most innovative, interdisciplinary work in the rapidly developing field of Play Studies.
How we play, and the relation of play to the human condition, is becoming increasingly recognised as a field of scholarly inquiry as well as a significant element of social practice, public policy and socio-cultural understanding. Drawing on approaches ranging through morality and ethics, language and the nature of reality, aesthetics, digital culture and gaming, and written by an international group of emerging and established scholars, this book examines how our performance at play describes, shapes and influences our performance as human beings.
This is essential reading for anybody with an interest in leisure, education, childhood, gaming, the arts, playwork or many branches of philosophical enquiry.
Contents:
Introduction: 'Just' (pre)tending: the performativity of philosophising play - Malcom MacLean, Wendy Russell & Emily Ryall
Part I: Play and the Performance of Morality
1 Do Toy Guns Kill People? Playing with Guns - Chris Bateman
2 Analyzing Morality via the Philosophy of Play - Martin Weichold
3 A Playful Approach to Cultivating Intellectual Virtues: Why So Serious? - Yujia Song
4 Ethical Dimensions of Play and Care: Reflections Based on Donald Winnicott’s Theory of Play and the Ethics of Care - Alice Koubová and Petr Urban
Part II: Language and Play In/And ‘The Real’
5 Language, Play, and Understanding: What Semantics Might Learn from Children - Charles Djordjevic
6 Living on the Edge: Zhuangzi, Ludus, and 遊 (you) - Brandon Underwood
7 Robert Pfaller and the Disappearance of Play in Contemporary Culture: Illusions without Subjects - Kevin Kennedy
Part III: Playful Aesthetics
8 Notes on Playful Cinema and Performance: Stop Making Sense - Elena Pachner Sarno
9 Childhood Ghosts with Boltanski and Benjamin - Rosana Kohl Bines
10 The Complexity of Play: A Response to Guyer’s Analysis of Play in Schiller’s Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man - Kate Brelje
11 How Computer Game Design Affects Moral Engagement: Mechanics Taking Over - Oliver Milne and Viktor Ivanković
Part IV: Play’s Performative Praxis
12 Unexpected Movements as Meaningful Expression in Play: Strange Twists of the Body - Ellen Mulder
13 Posthuman Interpretations of Mutual Play between a Human, Cat and Machine - Marleena Mustola
14 Time and Creativity in Survival Games: Bergson Plays with the Tao - Ivan Mussa
15 Digital Play as an Epistemic Experience - Rita Santoyo Venegas
Divided into four sections (Play as Life, Play as Games, Play as Art and Play as Politics), this book sheds new light on the significance of play for both children and adults in a variety of cultural settings. Its chapters encompass a range of philosophical areas of enquiry such as metaphysics, aesthetics and ethics, and the spectrum of topics explored includes games, jokes, sport and our social relationship with the Internet.
With contributions from established and emerging scholars from around the world, The Philosophy of Play as Life is fascinating reading for all those with an interest in playwork, the ethics and philosophy of sport, childhood studies or the philosophy of education.
The main objective of The Philosophy of Play is to provide a richer understanding of the concept and nature of play and its relation to human life and values, and to build disciplinary and paradigmatic bridges between scholars of philosophy and scholars of play. Including specific chapters dedicated to children and play, and exploring the work of key thinkers such as Plato, Sartre, Wittgenstein, Gadamer, Deleuze and Nietzsche, this book is invaluable reading for any advanced student, researcher or practitioner with an interest in education, playwork, leisure studies, applied ethics or the philosophy of sport.
The main objective of The Philosophy of Play is to provide a richer understanding of the concept and nature of play and its relation to human life and values, and to build disciplinary and paradigmatic bridges between scholars of philosophy and scholars of play. Including specific chapters dedicated to children and play, and exploring the work of key thinkers such as Plato, Sartre, Wittgenstein, Gadamer, Deleuze and Nietzsche, this book is invaluable reading for any advanced student, researcher or practitioner with an interest in education, playwork, leisure studies, applied ethics or the philosophy of sport.
There is a set of sports and other cultural practices that disrupt this axiomatic association of nations/states and identities: we see these in, for instance, indigenous sports (such as the question of the Iroquois Nationals' travel documents, visas and attendance at the World Lacrosse Championships), events such as the VIVA World Cup for football teams representing nations without states, in various post-national and post-colonial understandings of sport-as-cultural practice such as the place of cricket in South Asian and West Indies diaspora communities, and in transnational/transcultural sports events such as the Francophone Games that seem to be premised on a cultural nation beyond the state.
Papers in the issue analyse rugby, wine and regional identies in France (Occitania), Cornish sporting identities, the potential for normative rules of international sports representation, Circassian sporting identities in the context of Russian nationialism associated with the winter Olympics in Sochi, national and indigenous associations of skiing in northern Norway (Sami) and claims to nationhood in the context of the 2010 VIVA Football World Cup. Our opening essay considers the question of the palce of the state in claims to sporting nationalism.