School of Public Health
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1633
The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
Note: Prior to July 1, 2007, the School of Public Health was named the College of Health & Human Performance.
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Item Policing the Void: Recreation, Social Inclusion and the Baltimore Police Athletic League(Cogitatio, 2017-06-29) Bustad, Jacob J.; Andrews, David L.In this article, we explore the relationship between public recreation policy and planning and the transformation of urban governance in the context of the Police Athletic League centers in Baltimore, Maryland. In light of contemporary discussions of the role of youth programs for sport and physical activity within post-industrial cities, the origination, development, and eventual demise of Baltimore’s network of Police Activity League centers is an instructive, if disheartening, saga. It illustrates the social and political rationales mobilized in justifying recreation policy and programming, the framing of sport and physical activity as preventative measures towards crime and juvenile delinquency, and the precarity of such initiatives given the efficiency-driven orthodoxies of neoliberal urban entrepreneurialism (Harvey, 1989). This analysis emphasizes how the PAL centers were designed to ‘fill the void’ left by a declining system of public recreation, thereby providing an example of a recreation program as part of the “social problems industry” (Pitter & Andrews 1997).Item CONTEXTUALIZING THE POLITICS OF “BRAZILIAN” SPORT MEGA EVENTS(2015) Lopes, Victor Brito; Andrews, David L; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The first two decades of 21st century were times of great social, economic and political changes in Brazil where sport mega events (FIFA WC 2014, Rio 2016) played a key role in how the nation portrayed and promoted itself in a global scale. Despite the undeniable importance of Presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff in attempt to present the country as global protagonist with more political power and social advancements, this works is intended to discuss and extended the discussion upon mega events as different ways of repeating old traditions and practices, (radically) contextualizing the role of other players and agents (sport officials, local politicians, sponsors and local media), their biases and interests, in accordance to traditional colonial processes and the dominant neo-liberal paradigm.Item TRAINING THE BODY FOR HEALTHISM: REIFYING VITALITY IN AND THROUGH THE CLINICAL GAZE OF THE NEOLIBERAL FITNESS CLUB(2013) Wiest, Amber Lynn; Andrews, David L; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Against the backdrop of changing understandings of (public) `health' and `fitness' in the contemporary United States, and through a nuanced critique of healthism (Crawford, 1980; Kirk & Colquhoun, 1989; Skrabanek, 1994), the aim of this project is to investigate how mediated renditions of `healthiness' are constructed and maneuvered in the for-profit fitness industry--and interrogate the non-necessary interrelationship between health, fitness, and (bio)citizenship in the historical present (Grossberg, 2006). This is examined through a critical explication of Amber's experiences and observations drawn from her period of (ethnographic) employment in the fitness industry. Focusing specifically on personal training as a biotechnological and pedagogical tool, we explicate how personal training becomes complicit in the communication of particular "healthist" understandings, which unerringly benefit private enterprise (as well as corroborate a pervasive political individualism) through the normalization of the individual's moral responsibility to embody, practice, and ultimately consume healthist practices and ideologies.Item Baseball, Citizenship, and National Identity in George W. Bush's America(2008-11-21) King-White, Ryan E; Andrews, David L.; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The four separate, but related, studies within this research project seek to offer a critical understanding for how American national identit(ies), and particular forms of (cultural) citizenship are discursively constructed and performed in and through the sport of baseball. More specifically, this dissertation will utilize and expand upon critical theories of neoliberalism, citizenship, whiteness, and (physical) cultural studies to engage various empirical sites, which help provide the context for everyday life in contemporary America. Each chapter looks at various empirical aspects of the Little League World Series and the fans of the Boston Red Sox (popularly referred to as Red Sox Nation) that have historically privileged particular performances and behaviors often associated with white, American, heterosexual, upper-middle class, masculine subject-positions. In the first instance this project also attempts to describe how 'normalized' American citizenship is being (re)shaped in and through the sport of baseball. Secondly, I aim to critically evaluate claims made by both Little League Baseball, and the Boston Red Sox organization, in response to (popular) criticisms (Bryant, 20002; Mosher, 2001a, 2001b, 2001c) of regressive activity and behavior historically related to their organizations, that they are striving for a more culturally diverse and welcoming condition for all through their tournament and fan community respectively. To best articulate this critical understanding of the cotemporary moment I analyzed the production of the 2003 Little League Worlds Series, the (multi)media discourses surrounding Dominican star/villain, Danny Almonte, the filmic rendering of 'normalized' members of Red Sox Nation within Good Will Hunting and Fever Pitch, and finally an ethnographic study of Red Sox Nation throughout the 2007 baseball season. In following Andrews (2008) suggestive outline for a Physical Cultural Study I used a multi-methodological, qualitatively based, study to gather evidence through which to best understand the socio-political context of the contemporary moment. In so doing, I hope to clarify the dangerous way neoliberal capitalism is practiced and experienced in America.