“Why should people lose their homes for a hockey game to happen?” The upcoming Beijing Olympics have been in the media due to serious human rights concerns in the host country, but it is not the first time when there have been serious ethical concerns with hosting this sporting megaevent. Mac Ross and Michael McDougall visited the meaningful sport podcast to share their work on the dark side of the Olympics.
The Olympic Games has been celebrated as a way of bringing people together and providing inspiration for the spectators. However, it is rarely mentioned that in many host cities, hundreds if not thousands of people have been displaced from their homes for the Games to take place.
As Michael and Mac have argued in their article in Washington Post, “The Olympics is a disaster for people who live in host cities“.
Before getting into the main part of the conversation on human rights, we start off by reflecting a bit on skateboarding as a new Olympic sport. What was the response from the skateboarding communities when skateboarding was included in the Olympic Games? A step forward for the ‘sport’ or an undesirable development? We also reflect more broadly on the management of meaning that takes place when new ‘sports’ are included.
More on the topic in Mac’s article in the Conversation, From outlier to Olympic sport: How skateboarding made it to the Tokyo Games.
Part 1 here:
The second part, then, is full-on into the human rights issues associated with the Olympic Games. Did you know that displacement of a big number of local people from their homes has been a feature of numerous Olympic Games? Is there any hope or sign that this situation would be improving? Should the sport science community take a more active role in addressing these issues, and if so, what can be done?
Mac’s articles in the Conversation are again relevant: A broadcast boycott is the last chance to mount serious resistance against the Beijing Olympic Games; #WhereisPengShuai: Totalitarianism, violence against women and an overdue Olympic boycott?
Part 2 here:
Dr Michael McDougall is an Assistant professor of psychology at Keystone College, specializing in culture, sport and organizations.
Dr Mac Ross is an Assistant professor of kinesiology at Western University in London, Ontario, where he teaches history, sociology and management of sport.