Global Game, Local Meanings explores the dynamic relationship between global sporting systems and the diverse local cultures in which they are embedded. This edited collection brings together interdisciplinary research that examines how sport, physical activity and informal play - whether as practice, institution, spectacle, or industry - both shape and are shaped by local identities, political priorities, and cultural values.
Sport is a global phenomenon, governed by powerful transnational organisations and consumed across borders through mass media and digital platforms. Yet its impact is deeply local. In communities across the world, sport and physical activity can foster belonging, build identity, and reflect complex histories of inclusion and exclusion, and resistance and pride. This volume brings together scholars working across sociology, politics, education, management, and cultural and environmental studies to investigate how global logics of sport intersect with the distinct social, cultural, and ecological contexts in which sport and physical activity are played, taught, governed and experienced.