From Monday 6th till Friday 10th June 2022, HART Research Student member Georgia Clay and supervisor/Associate Member Adam Evans attended a collaborative conference hosted by the European Association for Sociology of Sport (EASS) and the International Sociology of Sport Association (ISSA) in Tübingen, Germany.
The conference boasted a large number of presentations, posters and sessions overall, with 289 abstracts being included in the programme. As the overall theme of the conference was ‘Why does sociology matter? The role of sport sociology in interdisciplinary research’, it was evident from the programme overview that a wide range of topics were to be covered in relation to sport, health, and physical activity. Presentation sessions ranged from gender to social theory, sport development and peace to methodology, and from sport and the body to policy and governance. Unfortunately, the capacity to attend all of interest to you was simply impossible, but the range on offer was a good talking point when networking. The conference overall was well run by the team and supported by students at the University of Tübingen, who were around every day to provide practical support and were able to help you navigate the conference rooms, the city and even sort taxis for the journey home.
Adam, as Editor in Chief of the European Journal for Sport and Society, conducted a pre-conference workshop about the revisions process in academic journals, as did HART Associate Member Noora Ronkainen on scientific communication. Adam was also part of a roundtable session on sports events and presented his and HART Lead Hannah Henderson’s work on the Supporting Women in Achieving their Goals (SWinG) project. Georgia presented in the session entitled ‘Sport and Ageing’ on the Wednesday alongside two other experts in the field. She said: “Despite feeling some nerves as this was my first international oral presentation and at such a large conference, I received some interesting comments and questions, and overall, I am so grateful for the opportunity. I got the chance to meet other sociologists also working with Norbert Elias and discuss their research, as well as meeting so many other inspirational academics with whom I intend to keep in touch. The city was a beautiful setting for the conference, and a highlight of the week, alongside getting to spend more time with my University of Copenhagen colleagues, was certainly being able to attend Cassandra Phoenix’s keynote; her presenting style is so engaging and the content surrounding interdisciplinary research followed by perceptions of ageing and the menopause was thoroughly interesting for me.”
The next EASS conference will take place in Budapest, and the next ISSA conference will be hosted in Ottawa, Canada in 2023.
