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Associate Professor Daryl Adair

Daryl Adair

Associate Professor, Management

Philosophy

Email: Daryl.Adair@uts.edu.au
Phone: +61 2 9514 5498
Fax: +61 2 9514 5195
Room: KG01.06.72 (map)
Mailing address: PO Box 222, Lindfield NSW 2070 Australia

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Biography

Dr Daryl Adair is Associate Professor of Sport Management. He has taught at The Flinders University of South Australia (Adelaide), De Montfort University (Leicester), The University of Queensland (Brisbane), and the University of Canberra (ACT) before joining the School of Leisure, Sport and Tourism in July 2007. Daryl is on the editorial board of the academic journals Sporting Traditions, Sport in Society, Performance Enhancement and Health, and the Journal of Sport History.

Teaching areas

Sport management

Research

Research interests
sport management; sport history; Olympic Games; sport tourism;

Publications

Research books

Cronin, M. & Adair, D. 2002, The Wearing of the Green: A History of St Patrick's Day, 1, Routledge, London, UK.
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Every year, all over the world, millions of Irish people, both native and by descent, together with their non-Irish friends, celebrate the life of a man who died over 1500 years ago. St Patrick's Day is a boisterous festival of parading and revelry, dancing and drinking, emblazoned with shamrocks and harps, and all in emerald green. The fascinating story of how the celebration of 17 March was transformed from a stuffy dinner for Ireland's elite to one of the world's most public festivals is captured for the first time in "The Wearing of the" "Green: A History of St Patrick's Day." Long celebrated with more fanfare in New York than in Dublin, the holiday has been criticized for its loss of religious meaning, ever-increasing commercialism and embarrassing displays of drunkenness. More recently, it has become a flashpoint between political divides within the Irish community. At the same time, however, it has served to unite Irish emigrants worldwide, whether they be in America, Australia or Canada.

Research books chapters

Adair, D. 2011, 'Making sense of Australian sport history' in Georgakis, S; Russell, K (eds), Youth Sport in Australia, Sydney University Press, Sydney, Ausralia, pp. 1-25.
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Despite the high profile of sport in Australian culture, the historical analysis of sport in this country has not attracted much coverage, whether in terms of academic research, media interest, or the reading public. Australian sport fans are eager to recount glorious performances by the nation's teams and athletes, and they certainly indulge in eulogistic books and magazines about sport. But these enthusiasts have comparatively little knowledge about, or interest in, Australian history and the role of sport in shaping its evolution. This is, in large part, a reflection of inadequate education: in many schools history has been supplanted as a key area of study, with the Australian story conveyed as part of broad brush subjects like 'social studies' or 'civics and citizenship: Moreover, at university level Australian history is typically taught with scant regard for the explanatory potential of sport and physical culture.

Adair, D. & Stronach, M.M. 2011, 'Natural-Born Athletes? Australian Aboriginal People and the Double-Edged Lure of Professional Sport' in K. Spracklen and J. Long (eds), Sport and Challenges to Racism, Palgrave MacMillan, London, pp. 117-134.
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In examining race in sport, this book is an essential contribution to debates about sports policy, the role of sport in society, and the globalization/localization of sports policies. In particular, it maps out local, national and international responses within sport to racism, and initiatives within sport to tackle racism in and through sport. The unifying concept through the chapters is a political and intellectual commitment to a critically realist position on racism. This collection, including an international line-up of contributors, assesses anti-racism strategies in the context of practices, policies and challenges. Combining empirical research with more theoretically-framed understandings of policies about and towards racism, this book is more than a set of case studies of different experiences: its goal is to map the dimensions of the challenge to racism in and through sport.

Adair, D. 2010, 'Australia' in Pope, SW; Nauright, J (eds), Routledge Companion to Sports History, Routledge, New York, USA, pp. 330-349.
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Adair, D. 2010, 'Where the Games never cease: The Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland' in Girginov, V (eds), The Olympics: A Critical Reader, Routledge, UK, pp. 172-190.
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In its current form, the Olympic Museum in Lausanne is only 10 years old. None the less, during that brief time the museum has become a significant showcase for the Olympic movement. This chapter examines the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) rationale for establishing an Olympic Museum, the process of funding its development and the museum's varied roles as archival repository, exhibition centre and tourist destination.

Refereed journal articles

Schulenkorf, N. & Adair, D. 2013, 'Temporality, transience and regularity in sport-for-development: synchronizing programs with events', Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure & Events, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 99-104.
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Definitions on sport-for-development remain silent on guidelines for the longevity and regularity of projects. In other words, initiatives ranging from one-day sport events to decade-long sport programs are all combined - simplistically so - under the S4D definitional banner. We argue that this vagueness provides significant challenges for academics and practitioners trying to evaluate, compare and learn from different projects. A focus on temporality, transience and regularity (TTR) within the S4D paradigm may open up the prospect of analyzing the duration and cycle of different types of S4D activities, i.e. transitory one-off activities, occasional interventions and ongoing day-to-day programs, and trying to pinpoint the efficacy of these approaches in relation to the aspirations of S4D project organizers, the needs of local populations and the impacts on host communities. With this background and research problem in mind, this paper will investigate the inter-related themes of TTR in S4D. We also pursue an associated proposition by theorizing the potential significance of synchronizing special events with regular sport programs.

Merrett, C., Tatz, C.M. & Adair, D. 2011, 'History and its racial legacies: quotas in South African rugby and cricket', Sport in Society, vol. 14, no. 6, pp. 754-777.
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South African identity has always been shaped by racial quotas; that is, divisions, assignments, allowances and allocations based on socially created ideas of race and difference. Both law and custom assigned a hierarchy which separated the rulers from the ruled, and allocated and rationed goods, services and enjoyments in all spheres of life, including sport. `Superior+ whites were layered above the Cape coloured people, followed by the Indian community and, lastly, the Africans, the black majority. This article looks briefly at the historical context of racial divisions and, with the downfall of apartheid, the rhetoric of an avowedly de-racialized `new South Africa+. Given the chronic history of negative discrimination, it is understandable that affirmative action has become a major policy framework in the building of a post-apartheid society. But sport is a sobering example of how a domain can be `re-racialized+ in this quest. How does the African National Congress justify the (re)introduction into sport of a proportional or numerical quota system based on racial categories? Is there a need for demographic representativeness in white-dominated sports like cricket and rugby, but seemingly not in black-dominated soccer? Is an arithmetic quota system not merely a logical extension of the reviled racial genres and divides of previous centuries?

Stewart, B., Adair, D. & Smith, A.D. 2011, 'Drivers of illicit drug use regulation in Australian sport', Sport Management Review, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 237-245.
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Most Australian sport stakeholders not only believe that government regulation is a good thing, but also assume that intervention in the drug-use problem will improve sport+s social outcomes and operational integrity. In this paper we examine the regulation of illicit drug use in Australian sport through an interrogation of two cases: the Australian Football League and the National Rugby League. Using Pierre Bourdieu+s conceptual frames of social field, capital, and habitus, we aim to secure a clearer understanding of the drivers of Australian sport+s illicit drug regulations by (1) identifying those stakeholders who set the drug regulation agenda, (2) revealing the values and dispositions that underpin these regulations, and (3) explaining how dominant stakeholders go about sustaining their position and marginalising those stakeholders with opposing drug regulation claims. Our results show that Australian sport+s drug-use regulations are driven by a set of values and dispositions that views sport as an instrument for shaping the character of its participants, and drugs as a threat to sport+s moral fabric and good standing. The dominant stakeholders, comprising the Commonwealth Government, its sport agencies, and the major governing bodies for sport, imposed these values and dispositions on peripheral stakeholders by designing a drugs-in-sport social field that yielded capital and power to only those participants who endorsed these values and dispositions. Peripheral stakeholders + including players, their agents, and drug-treatment professionals + who mostly shared different values and dispositions, were sidelined, and denied the opportunity of adding to their already limited supplies of capital, power, and policy making influence.

Adair, D. & Rowe, D. 2010, 'Beyond boundaries? 'Race', ethnicity and identity in sport', International Review for the Sociology of Sport, vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 251-257.
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This dual engagement of race and ethnicity widens the scope of analysis, but it also presents challenges, such as contention over what these descriptors are said to represent, and their complex and often contradictory relationship. For example, there is a widespread view that there is no scientific basis to `race+, hence the qualifier `race+ is sometimes highlighted to emphasize the social constructedness of this term and, therefore, the fallacy of biological determinism (Graves, 2001). `Race+, in this sense, is simplistically applied to skin colour and stereotypical assumptions about identity and status associated with racialized appearance. Despite its flaws, `race+ has currency in social practice; as Warmington has put it, `the paradox of race-conscious scholarship+ (2009: 281) lies in the need to work within, yet against, problematic conceptual tools. Indeed, by placing `race+ in inverted commas in this context, we have signalled our refusal to legitimize the concept while recognizing its stubborn persistence within language, culture and politics. The articles herein, when taken as a whole, provide the reader with an opportunity for reflection upon sport and societal structures, norms, values, narratives, discourses and symbols in the context of what might be termed ethno-racial studies.

Adair, D., Taylor, T.L. & Darcy, S.A. 2010, 'Managing ethnocultural and 'racial' diversity in sport: Obstacles and opportunities', Sport Management Review, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 307-312.
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Diversity involves coming to terms with alterity (otherness) and negotiating inclusion (togetherness). That goal is more likely, philosopher Emmanuel Levinas argues, when people usually separated + socially culturally, politically, economically geographically + are brought together in consensual face-to-face contact and in social contexts where equitable interpersonal co-operation and group cohesion are fostered (Burggraeve, 2002, 2008). Such a quest for consensus about diversity and mutuality, as opposed to discordance through disdain for difference (Grillo, 2007), is a challenge (but also an opportunity) in a range of normative environments, such as business, education and sport (Kostogriz & Doecke, 2007; Lim, 2007; Sykes, 2006). In an overarching sense, the management of diversity and the policies that underpin mutuality are arguably contributions to cosmopolitanism, which Vertovec and Cohen (2002, p. 4) argue incorporates `variously complex repertoires of allegiance, identity and interest+. They conclude that cosmopolitanism, as an applied philosophical position, `seems to offer a mode of managing cultural and political multiplicities+ (2002, p. 4).

Emmerick, R.R. & Adair, D. 2010, 'Prestige, privilege and polite society: The origins of fencing in New South Wales, 1800 to 1939', Sporting Traditions, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 67-83.
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Fencing has been an Olympic sport since 1896, but even with that status it has attracted little interest from historians. Internationally the major study of fencing is Cohen´+¢s By the Sword (2002), which is not a history per se but rather snapshots of different people and times. Within that potted context, Australian fencing receives no mention, though such an omission may not surprise. Sporting Traditions has never published a paper on 15 of the 23 Summer Olympic Sports, including fencing. If there is to be worthwhile analysis of the Olympic movement and of the Games, surely an understanding of all of the sports of which the Olympics are comprised is a necessity. Further, while these 15 overlooked sports may be considered `minor´+¢ in Australia, many other countries ascribe great value to them. Indeed, in terms of fencing, World Championships typically have television coverage in more than 50 nations.

Stronach, M.M. & Adair, D. 2010, 'Lords of the square ring: Future capital and career transition issues for elite indigenous Australian boxers', Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Jo..., vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 46-70.
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In Australia a serious and widely documented statistical gap exists between the socio-economic circumstances of the country+s Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations. Areas of divergence include life expectancy, health, housing, income, and educational opportunity and employment. This has made career attainment problematic for most Aboriginal people. Among male Indigenous people, professional sport is portrayed as one of the few realms in which they can prosper. This is particularly true in the major football codes + Australian Rules and rugby league + and a feature of elite-level boxing, where Indigenous fighters are also statistically over-represented. However, while sport has provided opportunities for a small number of talented Indigenous athletes, it has rarely been a pathway to lifelong prosperity. This paper contends that as a result of over-reliance on an abundant bank of physical capital, Indigenous Australian boxers are particularly vulnerable to potential occupational obsolescence should their bodily assets erode more quickly than envisaged. Drawing on an Indigenous concept, Dadirri, to inform a wider interpretive phenomenological approach, the paper examines retirement experiences of fourteen elite male Indigenous Australian boxers; the goal of this research is to understand their post-sport career decision making. In this respect, Pierre Bourdieu+s concepts of habitus, capital and field are utilised to frame and interpret the capacity of Indigenous boxers to develop sustainable career pathways + which we describe as future capital + during their time as elite athletes.

Adair, D. 2009, 'Australian sport history: From the founding years to today', Sport in History, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 405-436.
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The academic study of sport history in Australia is a relatively recent initiative, dating back to the 1970s. It was inspired by a handful of enterprising scholars, each of whom is now retired. The following paper has two aims. First, it reflects on the efforts of early sport historians to carve out a research niche within the Australian academy. In keeping with the festschrift theme, it also dwells upon the profound influence of Wray Vamplew - a Yorkshireman who had the temerity to help pioneer sport history in an Antipodean setting. Second, the main body of the paper goes on to identify three key areas of research developed over the past thirty years by scholars of Australian sport history, then concludes with recommendations for further research.

Stronach, M.M. & Adair, D. 2009, ''Brave new world' or 'sticky wicket'? Women, management and organizational power in Cricket Australia', Sport in Society, vol. 12, no. 7, pp. 910-932.
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In 2003 the men's Australian Cricket Board (ACB) and Women's Cricket Australia (WCA) amalgamated to form a gender integrated national body, Cricket Australia. This essay shows that this new organization has served the interests of women well in a number of key areas, including junior development, coaching of talented youth, financial support and scholarships. There have also been modest improvements to the publicity and profile of the women's game. Yet these benefits are, arguably, compromised by an arm's length managerial strategy in which women have little decision-making voice in the state organizations, and are absent from the board of CA itself. The men who run the game of cricket have recourse to substantial amounts of revenue and sponsorship income, which are deployed as they see fit. We argue that if women's cricket is to emerge out of the shadow of the men's game, it is vital to have female representation on the CA board and more generally among state cricket organizations.

Tatz, C.M. & Adair, D. 2009, 'Darkness and a little light: 'Race' and sport in Australia', Australian Aboriginal Studies, vol. 2009, no. 2, pp. 1-14.
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Despite 'the wonderful and chaotic universe of clashing colors, temperaments and emotions, of brave deeds against odds seemingly insuperable', sport is mixed with 'mean and shameful acts of pure skullduggery', villainy, cowardice, depravity, rapaciousness and malice. Thus wrote celebrated American novelist Paul Gallico on the eve of the Second World War (Gallico 1938 [1988]:9-10). An acute enough observation about society in general, his farewell to sports writing also captures the 'clashing colors' in Australian sport. In this 'land of the fair go', we look at the malice of racism in the arenas where, as custom might have it, one would least want or expect to find it. The history of the connection between sport, race and society - the long past, the recent past and the social present - is commonly dark and ugly but some light and decency are just becoming visible.

Adair, D. 2006, 'Shooting the messenger: Australian history's warmongers', Sporting Traditions, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 49-69.
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Adair, D. 2002, 'Sports history in Australasia and the Antipodes', Sporting Traditions, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 23-36.
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