This study examines how global forces are shaping local indigenous cultures with a particular focus on the relationship between global capitalism, new media technologies, and transnational advertising. Concentrating on Mäori culture and identity in Aotearoa/New Zealand, the authors examine a contemporary political debate related to indigenous culture and intellectual property rights. Specifically, the study explores the politics of identity associated with global sports company Adidas and its use of the traditional New Zealand All Blacks haka as part of a global advertising campaign. A key feature of the analysis is the controversy surrounding a lawsuit filed by a Mäori tribe claiming compensation for the commercial use of its culture. Overall, the study highlights the problem of maintaining and protecting cultural spaces where indigenous identities can be constructed and affirmed.

This article analyses the sources of knowledge New Zealand sport and recreation policy-makers rely on when forming public policy. Specifically, utilizing a Foucauldian lens of governmentality, we consider how New Zealand sport and recreation policy is influenced by various sources of knowledge. Through analysis of official policy documents, media releases and interviews with senior New Zealand policy managers, we argue that despite claims of positivistic, `evidence-based' policy, writers draw on a wide range of knowledge sources. Thus, despite being governed by positivism, policy-makers themselves utilize other, multifarious sources of knowledge in order to construct national sport policy. We offer considerations for the future setting of such public policy, and in particular suggest the existing rationale for the formulation of public policy could be altered to acknowledge these wide ranging knowledges.

As match-fixing has emerged as a global problem, states and sports organisations have proposed a range of countermeasures. However, despite their neutral, technocratic appearance, these instruments produce their own political effects. Drawing from a case study of the 2011 South Korean ‘K-League’ football match-fixing scandal that resulted in a raft of countermeasures, this article examines how match-fixing countermeasures (re)organise the power relations within the sports betting industry. Using a qualitative, interpretive multi-method approach, three consequences are suggested. First, the education programme redefines sports ethics by delivering new codes of conduct that are aligned to the demands of betting. Second, regulations instituted by the K-League and the government frame the illegal activity as infringing upon the key stakeholders’ economic interests, further privileging the importance of the betting regime. Third, the sports betting monitoring system itself empowers the sole betting company as a trustworthy ‘fixer’ of the match-fixing problem through co-optation into its policy framework. Consequently, this study shows that key stakeholders manage the risk of losing legitimacy by showcasing their efforts to fight against match-fixing, while also taking advantage of the countermeasures to normalise the business of sports betting, thus furthering their own interests.

This study maps the media discourses surrounding Ben Johnson’s life “in the fast lane” to further understand one particular aspect of a contemporary crisis of identity (or, more accurately, identities) in Canada. Specifically, this study provides: (a) a context within which to locate Johnson’s rise and fall from hero to scapegoat as articulated to the 1988 crisis of Canadian identity; (b) a chronology of the twist of race, or changing racial discourses which serve to define and redefine Ben Johnson’s racial and national identities; and (c) a discussion of the politics of identity in relation to multiculturalism and the representation of Ben Johnson as the “other” in Canada. The results reveal that Ben Johnson’s identity was the subject of a range of representations including those linked to racist stereotypes. Moreover, the results suggest that the discourses defining Ben Johnson are constituted by, and constitutive of, broader debates about identity in Canada.

This article examines how the National Basketball Association (NBA), an explicitly American, yet increasingly global media(ted) institution, can be located within the local context of New Zealand. Specifically, the article provides: (a) a brief overview of how and why the NBA transformed itself into a global sport commodity; (b) a contextualization of contemporary New Zealand along with a cursory examination of some empirical examples of the global/local nexus of the NBA; and (c) an analysis of how the NBA and American sporting culture serve as points of difference within what Robertson terms the `hegemonic global'.

This paper explores the ways in which the environment of elite-level and, in particular, commercial sport produces expectations and pressures on sports doctors that may compromise their professional standards. Specifically, this paper addresses the pressures and demands that emerge from varying groups and individuals with whom doctors have relationships within the world of elite sport including: the athlete, coach, management, media (including broadcasters) and sponsors. Using grounded theory and drawing upon qualitative data collected from semi-structured interviews with 16 sports doctors the study explores the ethical concerns of medical practitioners working with elite athletes and teams in New Zealand. Key emerging themes include: the complex environment within which sports doctors work, including the limited control over their work environment, the pressures arising from the commercial interests of sport, the issue of competing obligations, and emerging threats to medical professionalism.