Episode 6: Should Sport Contribute to Society?
Racism, sexism, climate change, poverty – how can sporting organisations and athletes effect change?
Professors Corinne Reid and Kate Henne give us their insights.
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Sport reflects life – all of it's beauty, and all of its ugliness too. But is it a two-way street? What role does sport play in shaping society? Sporting organisations and athletes are in a powerful position to effect change across all manner of fundamental issues, so how can they do that and how much responsibility lies on their shoulders?
To break things down, host Professor Sam Robertson is joined first by Professor Corinne Reid, Interim Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research at Victoria University. Having previously worked with numerous Olympic teams and athletes, Corinne is now the executive sponsor of the university's Sport Strategy and its Planetary Health Initiative, both committed to addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Next up, Sam speaks with Professor Kate Henne, Director of the School of Regulation and Global Governance, Professor at the Australian National University, leader of the Justice and Technoscience Lab, and Honorary Professor at Arizona State University. Her studies focus on how science and technology contribute to the governance of persons and populations, spanning biometric surveillance, human enhancement and well-being, sports governance, and technologies of policing.
Together, Sam, Corinne and Kate discuss how sport and sportspeople can drive social change, the barriers in doing so, and the level of responsibility we should take on.
Want to dive deeper into this episode? Start here:
The First Stadium to Turn Football into Electricity
(Barca Innovation Hub)Will People Care About Climate Change Once it Starts Ruining Sports?
(Fast Company)Patty Mills’ Indigenous Community Basketball League
(Sporting News)Planetary Health Initiative
(Victoria University)United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
(United Nations)
Full Episode Transcript
06. Should Sport Contribute to Society?
Intro
[00:00:00] Sam Robertson (Host): Many of us would contend that sport is fundamental to humanity, linked to the identity of people, locations and even the planet. So it should come as no surprise that sport tends to hold a mirror up to society, with both the stunning features and the ugly blemishes on show for all to see. Whether it's collegiality, excellence and innovation - or racism, waste, and social media trolls - most of what we see in life is reflected in sport.
[00:00:25] Whilst not at all a new phenomenon, perhaps more than ever before sport has become a vehicle to further some of society's most important causes - reducing inequalities, maintaining human rights, and of course, protecting the planet.
[00:00:38] Just as continuous improvement is embedded into the DNA of sport, it appears that this endeavor can be transferred to influence society in more impactful ways than it already does. But what are the key drivers and restrictions that it will need to overcome in order to make this a reality? And how far do the responsibilities of athletes in sports extend? Is it actually incumbent on them to use their voice to enact change? And is it always in their best interest to do so?
[00:01:03] I'm Sam Robertson and this is One Track Mind.
(Musical Interlude)
Interview One - Professor Corinne Reid
[00:01:09] Hello and welcome to One Track Mind. I'm your host, Sam Robertson, and this episode we ask: What is the role of sport in society?
[00:01:20] My first guest is Professor Corrine Reid. Corrine is the Interim Provost and Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. Corinne is also Executive Sponsor of the Victoria University Sports Strategy and its Planetary Health initiative, which are both committed to addressing the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. This includes a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030.
[00:01:48] Corinne formerly held a Chair in Psychological Therapies at the University of Edinburgh, and has also worked with a number of Olympic teams and athletes. This includes the Australian water polo and men's hockey team, the double gold medal-winning Hockeyroos, and more recently with English Rugby and the British Olympic swimming team.
[00:02:06] Corinne, thanks for joining me on the show.
[00:02:07] Corinne Reid: It's lovely to be here, Sam.
[00:02:10] Sam Robertson (Host): Now I'd like to start off this episode with a quote, which isn't something I normally do, but this is a recent one that I really like and I'm sure you might too, and I think it's quite relevant to this conversation. It's from the futurist Michio Kaku and it reads, "Sports, which in the past were essential in forging a tribal and then a national identity, are now forging a planetary identity." Now, I think this illustrates a couple of things. Firstly, at the macro level, just how the importance of sport is continuing to grow. And what it brings to mind, in particular for me, is how sport and the ecosystem in which it operates are very complex and interrelated.
[00:02:46] And also how all our endeavors of human performance really do overlap in some way. So for instance, insights we learn from preparing humans for space exploration should filter down to athletes and vice versa. What does it mean to you? What do you take from a quote like this?
[00:03:01] Corinne Reid: That's a fantastic quote. I think for as long as there has been international travel in one form or another, sport has been part of creating a global village, which I think is one of the key messages there. It's about forming a global identity, if you like. That sport is very much about creating a strong sense of one humanity of bringing the world together, if you like, and the Olympism movement is in fact built around that principle, which is why I love it so much. That Olympic values are very much about people, about our commitment to one another, about connecting and pushing each other to bring the best that we can to everything that we do. And I think the idea of the Olympics is to join people and communities up around the world and to commit to shared endeavor through sports and sportsmanship.
[00:03:52] So I guess the key touchpoint there that I'm really interested in is that idea that we're stronger together than we are apart and that we may compete with one another, but that there is much more than individual accolades at stake. It's very much about our competitor being our greatest ally or our greatest friend and that by pushing one another, we create new possibilities. So I think that idea has gone back for time immemorial, and as you pointed out, at both tribal level, at community level, and certainly at planetary level. And now we've really turned our attention, I guess, from a global identity, which is very people-focused, to also include a planetary identity and to focus on a broader sense of planetary health. So caring for people, certainly, and for community, but also caring for planet and understanding that each of these is intricately interdependent on the other.
[00:04:45] Sam Robertson (Host): You mentioned something around the role of the planet there, around the health of the planet. For some of our listeners, it might be worth just expanding upon what you mean by that term 'planetary health'.
[00:04:54] Corinne Reid: Planetary health has been a growing movement that's built upon, again, a long tradition and history of other movements that have been, in one sense or another, green movements that have been about caring for our lands and our oceans and our animals. And I think planetary health has really extended this idea to understanding that we are all connected. And so the health and wellbeing of individual people, of place and of communities, and of the planet that we share, is bound up tightly with one another. And that if we affect one of those things, we inherently affect the others either for good or for ill.
[00:05:30] So planetary health is very much about trying to use multiple points of impact, is trying to make a difference to the health and wellbeing of our communities, as well as making sure that we have a planet to live on by interjecting with individuals, but also with groups and looking around our local and our global communities to look at where the critical tipping points are, so that we can try and make a difference.
[00:05:57] Sam Robertson (Host): From listening to you describe that it seems like it's very broad and it's very complex, but it also needs to have a very narrow and very local focus at times. In sport, and perhaps not even in sport, other governing bodies around the world, who do you see as leading advocates in this area? I mean, you mentioned the Olympic movement before as being quite important in this, but which are the leading sporting organisations or universities, or even non-sporting entities, that are doing really well in this area in your opinion?
[00:06:24] Corinne Reid: I actually think that it's becoming almost an expectation now. So it's been fantastic, in fact, to watch over the last year, while the whole of the planet has been sharing this experience of COVID and also of other natural climate disasters, it's really been fascinating to watch. It was almost like sport as a community was ready and poised to join in with the challenge that is bigger than itself.
[00:06:48] And in fact, if you look at how we've responded to COVID, almost every country in the world has made exceptions for its sports people and to try to bring sport back sooner than other parts of the economy or parts of business. And I think that's a recognition that in fact sport has an enormous role to play in both what we do ourselves as a sporting community, but also how we can impact others.
[00:07:12] I'll maybe come to some examples in a minute, but just some preliminary comment is that I think sport has influence and so we need to take that influence seriously, that we need to share important messages with others. And I think that's a broader-based understanding across community and elite sport now, that sport is the inspiration. We can inspire others through our own actions and that's either for good or ill. People watch and learn from what we do or don't do, the choices that we make. That sport is for innovation, it's about encouraging people to forge new paths, not just in sport, but beyond sport. But it gives people confidence that we, as human beings, can innovate our way out of challenges, and I think sport organisations at all levels lead in this area.
[00:08:00] But sport is also about community cohesion, and that's about helping people come together around sport. COVID is a really fantastic example of that, of where people have joined up around the planet to find something positive and optimistic to look to. And I think sport is also for social change and we've seen that during COVID, is that despite the fact that we've been experiencing a global emergency our athletes have been activists and advocates and ambassadors at an individual level and also at a group level. So we've got people leading in the Black Lives Matter movement, we've got Patty mills of the San Antonio spurs leading on that front. We've got other groups leading on what's happening in our own backyard. So sport has a responsibility, in some senses, to lead by making sure that what we do ourselves has a positive impact on the community.
[00:08:47] From the way that we build stadiums, to using recycled materials in construction, where we build them and the effects of dislocation of communities. Is there going to be a toxic legacy left after a major sporting tournament? Should we be thinking about things like the carbon footprint from the travel when we attend tournaments? How can we manage the large amounts of waste that we utilise during major sporting events? From banning single use water bottles through to how we manage our human resources.
[00:09:19] So I think at a very broad level, there's a lot of shift, a lot of change going on. And in terms of specific examples, the Olympic movement itself, I think, is really leading the way and an expectation that every Olympic games from here on in will have to meet climate responsibilities. The IOC has its agenda for Paris and ongoing both in summer and winter Olympics, also in the Paralympic games to make sure that in both the bids that are put in, but also the planning that goes into the games, and then in the doing of the games, that we think about our planetary health responsibilities in every aspect of that.
[00:09:56] And then if we move to particular sporting codes and sporting clubs, the Barcelona Football Club has very much been focused on the impact of social responsibility in sport and trying to make a difference beyond the football field, as well as on the football field. So I think there are growing examples of where each individual club is recognising that they have both a responsibility and an opportunity to, for example, try to produce zero energy stadiums and also healthy communities. We've got an example last year, I think, of the Helsinki International Equestrian Show who used horse manure to cover all of the energy expended during the tournament, which I thought was absolutely fantastic.
[00:10:40] Sam Robertson (Host): So it's innovation as well as response, isn't it?
[00:10:43] Corinne Reid: Absolutely, and it's at every level - it's both on the field, it's off the field, it's during training, it's during competition, it's in our community engagement. It's things like Qatar pledging that the World Cup will be carbon neutral, in 2022.
[00:10:58] But also, when we come back to that definition of planetary health, that it is about planet, it's also about the health of people and communities. So we've got the Opals last year, boycotting training until Basketball Australia committed to a campaign to target racism and discrimination. That's a very big call. Close to home for us, the Western Bulldogs Community Foundation that is looking for ways to support health and wellbeing in hard-to-reach local communities by joining up with local services in health and mental health. It's the Rugby World Cup looking at gender equality and how they can achieve that. There are so many examples we could spend a day looking at them.
[00:11:37] Sam Robertson (Host): Yeah, and you've probably covered a couple of things I wanted to ask you there. I think one thing I was going to ask you was, what do you say to the naysayers out there that think sport might've got a special ride throughout COVID and some special exemptions, but I think you've kind of provided a lot of illustrations there about why it's more than just sport and it's more than just entertaining the masses, so to speak. It's a voice for people, it's a message for cohesion, and it's a method for inspiration as well, amongst other things.
[00:12:02] Corinne Reid: I think it's also a two-way street, though. I think, you know, we have been prepared to make exceptions and have sporting hubs and bubbles so that sport could come back, but we've also come down pretty hard when there has been a sense that perhaps an individual athlete or a particular team or a coach haven't lived up to that special exception that they've been granted and where people have breached guidelines. I think we've sent some fairly strong messages as a community that, yeah, we need you, we need sport, we want sport to show leadership and help us connect together as a community, but you need to live up to our expectations as well. So I think it's a strong message in both directions.
[00:12:41] Sam Robertson (Host): Yeah, and I think that's also helped it to resonate a little bit more with the public as well. Now you mentioned a lot of challenges as well then, and it does seem to me that many sports could almost feel, I suppose, overwhelmed by the enormity of the task in embracing something like planetary health. And it almost feels to me like there'd be benefit in some form of, almost, template that could be accessible to sports for informing this purpose. I mean, who is really showing the leadership in that space, if anyone, in your opinion?
[00:13:12] Corinne Reid: I think some of the strongest leadership that we've had has in fact been from grassroots sports, local clubs and communities that have in fact been sharing with one another, how they are handling some of the challenges, both for strengthening their local communities and also for addressing the climate emergency and other planetary health issues.
[00:13:31] It's been fantastic to see these popping up all throughout the suburbs, as each club chooses their challenges, chooses their local challenges, and finds a place-based solution. What is going to work in their neighborhood? What is going to be helpful in changing hearts and minds in their neighborhood to do things differently and to tackle some of these challenges in a stronger way?
[00:13:51] I think that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals gives us a really clear rallying point around which we can identify what some of those local and more global challenges are, so that we can agree that here are some ways in which we can make a difference. Health and wellbeing is really super important. How can we address poverty? What about food security? Some of these things seem more clearly and obviously aligned to sport - so health, for example. But I think most sporting codes now are understanding that, in fact, the power and influence of sport can extend well beyond that, to sending important messages and taking important stands to shift some of the other United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
[00:14:35] So I think education has been a key for a lot of sporting clubs, is seeing that their education of their players is not simply in their local sporting code, it's not simply in the rules of the game, but the education is how to create good citizens and good leaders. How do you create a mindset that is about thinking about others, about sportsmanship, about making sure that you look out for people who perhaps have less advantage than you do, about how you stand strong on important issues.
[00:15:03] And so I think sport is really showing an important leadership at the moment, because it's an accessible message. There might be other people who say the same thing, but actually, most of our community, in one way or another, is prepared to listen to our sports people, to our athletes, to the coaches, because we trust them. We feel connected to them. We feel like if they can do it, if they think it's important, then there's something that I should be doing about it, or I want to join with them. And so it's been really lovely seeing the number of websites that have popped up, put together by athletes or athlete organisations, but also by coaches, by officials, and by the Olympic movement, that really provide opportunities and pathways for people to join up with something that might feel too hard for them to tackle on their own, but where they can make a difference by being part of a local and a global community coming together to address it.
[00:15:54] And I think the other thing that sport is really good at is that sense of optimism. You know, that no hurdle is too high to get over. That's what sport is all about, is saying it looks too hard, it looks too far, we've never achieved it before, but you know what? We're going to give it a crack. We're going to give it a go.
[00:16:12] Sam Robertson (Host): Yeah and I think that comes back to that initial quote at the start of our conversation, doesn't it? Sport's well-placed to tackle a lot of these things because it's inherent in sport, it's reaching for the stars and trying to become better all the time.
[00:16:23] The other thing I wanted to pick up on in your answer there, which was interesting, as you were talking, I felt like almost is there a need for new roles and new positions in sporting organisations? And we know how difficult that is right now because of COVID and other reasons of financial climates not perhaps what it once was, but in your response there you really talked about the responsibility of people already in sport and changing the way they're thinking and changing the way that they're leading and their messaging, not only externally, but also internally. So I think it's not always just about getting new jobs and new types of jobs, it's about changing the way that people's jobs exist now.
[00:16:55] I do want to talk about the potential negative of all this, which is not so much a negative, but we know that not every organisation is taking up all these opportunities. I think, as you said earlier, a lot of them are, but I think there's still some pockets of sport that have this perception of incompatibilities and even risk pursuing certain areas of, not so much planetary health but maybe a little bit of planetary health, but certainly social change.
[00:17:17] For example, an organisation might still view zero waste policies as quite cumbersome or expensive to implement. I probably won't name any specifically, but we saw this year already certain organisations have taken a stand on particular social issues and that's potentially alienated parts of their fan base. So, this is probably a tricky question to answer, but how do you think those bigger sports, or any sport really, should be trying to approach this?
[00:17:41] Corinne Reid: I think it's a really important question and one that we can't avoid as a sporting community. I think that sport deals in risk. That's our business. That's what we've always done. You know, we deal in risk on the field, we make all sorts of judgements about, you know, how far we can push our bodies and our minds to get the job done without creating injury, we try and see how far we can push the rules without breaking them - our core business is risk. And so this idea about being at the heart of social change movements should be nothing new to us. It's really just applying our expertise in risk to something that extends beyond the white lines around the edges of the field, and extends into our community.
[00:18:24] So I think there's a few things. One is being brave and being bold. We need to walk the talk on that. There's a lot of talk in the sporting community about being tough, about pushing the limits, and really those organisations who have picked up the mantle of really challenging social topics, I think are living that. They are living and breathing that, instead of just saying that we're tough on the field, it's really saying, we recognise that these issues are too big to walk away from and that we have a responsibility here. So I think sometimes that starts from a small seed and often it's an individual athlete in a particular group, and it might be an individual athlete who speaks up about something, or it might be an individual athlete who's struggling in some way or living in circumstances where perhaps their ability to engage in their sport is compromised. So we've seen lots of examples where in the Olympic community, for example, we perhaps send resources from one country to another because we recognise that it's not a fair playing field when you're inviting people to compete against you who don't have the requisite minimal situation available, or resources available, to prepare adequately or fairly. And so we see decisions being made that are person to person.
[00:19:40] I think that's often how it starts, is that people think that the risk is worth taking when there's a human being attached to it that they can feel connected to and then it kind of grows from there, often. You know, we have to stop and think and ask ourselves, well, if this is true for one person, maybe it's true for more? What difference can we make? What positive influence can we have? And I think that the sporting organisations that I admire the most are the ones who have tried and stumbled. Who've really had a good go at trying to address something, and maybe didn't get it right the first time, maybe their language was wrong, maybe they said some things that were unintentionally offensive, or they made some choices that they thought were hitting in the right direction towards sustainability and they found out later that maybe they weren't. And I think water is one of those. So, you know, access to clean water. Fantastic. We want to make sure that our athletes have access to clean water, but we do it in single use plastic bottles. And so, there's a proliferation of single use plastic bottles all around the place. So then we had to shift again and pivot towards everybody brings their own bottle. And then we have, you know, issues around transmission of infectious kinds of diseases by water bottles, well, then we had to innovate and design bottles that you don't stick in your mouth. (Laughter) I think sport is full of examples of where we stumble our way along, but as long as we're headed in the right direction, we can make an enormous difference.
[00:21:02] Sam Robertson (Host): And this is that complexity we talked about earlier, these downstream consequences of decisions and learning from them, but as you say, it's very difficult to learn from them if you don't make a start, so I would agree.
[00:21:13] Now, just before I let you go, I wanted to ask you a little bit about some of the big drivers in the future that are gonna, not push, but encourage organisations and governing bodies to contribute more directly and indirectly to society. Obviously, there's a lot of challenges that we're facing now, which if we're not yet through, but some of those will become exacerbated in future and some of them will maybe disappear and new ones will arise. What do you see the future of this area looking like?
[00:21:40] Corinne Reid: Well I think certainly this year, and I'm going to use the most frequent word of the year, unprecedented. It's been unprecedented. (Laughter) It's provided us with a really tangible moment in time where we all have to stop and reflect and ask ourselves, how are we going to respond? And in fact, in Australia, we've had two of those moments, one with the bush fires - how are we going to address this overwhelming and urgent example of the climate crisis that's right in front of us? How are we as individuals and as a community going to respond to it? Because there simply isn't a choice to not notice. There was an enormous cloud of smoke that started in Australia and wound its way all around the planet. It was like a big red flag being waved. And so there will be moments in time where we're absolutely and overwhelmingly confronted with circumstances where we have to choose, we have to make a choice and a commitment to act or not to act, and each of them is a choice. If we do nothing, we're making a choice. Similarly with COVID - how is sport going to engage with this? Would athletes be some of the first adopters of wearing masks and set an example? Or would they shun the wearing of masks and set a different example?
[00:22:49] So I think there will be events and global and local moments in time that will challenge us to think differently. But I'm also really hoping that what 2020 has done for us is to make us think independently of waiting for those critical moments. So we've seen that some sporting organisations have introduced, for example, sustainability offices, during this period. Who really have a responsibility now, ongoing, to think about within our organisation what are we doing that can really help the health of the planet? What is it that we can avoid doing that will make us better ambassadors and better community members for the communities that we live in, to make sure that this is a safe and clean and healthy place to be?
[00:23:31] But we've also seen sporting organisations over, perhaps, the last decade, have an increasing commitment to psychologists, to health and wellbeing coaches, that recognise that the health and wellbeing of the athletes and of the communities in which they operate is an important part of the commitment of a sporting club. It's not simply about whether or not the athletes have the requisite on-field skills, it's making sure that they are feeling solid in themselves and feeling able to manage all of the many challenges that they have. So I think sometimes we'll be prompted to respond, but I really hope that we've gone a bit beyond that in 2020, to a personal commitment to respond both as individuals and as sporting organisations.
[00:24:14] Sam Robertson (Host): I think that's a fairly optimistic and encouraging place to finish that conversation. Professor Corinne Reid, thanks for joining me on the show.
[00:24:20] Corinne Reid: It's been an absolute pleasure.
(Musical Interlude)
Interview Two - Kate Henne
[00:24:22] Sam Robertson (Host): My next guest is Professor Kate Henne. Kate is the Director of the School of Regulation and Global Governance and a professor at the Australian National University. She also leads the Justice and Technoscience Lab and is an honorary professor at Arizona State University. Before this Kate held the Canada Research Chair in Biogovernance, Law and Society at the University of Waterloo.
[00:24:48] An interdisciplinary scholar, Professor Henne studies how science and technology contribute to the governance of persons and populations. Her research spans issues of biometric surveillance, human enhancement and wellbeing, sports governance, and technologies of policing. Kate, thank you for joining me on the show.
[00:25:04] Kate Henne: Thanks so much for having me, Sam.
[00:25:06] Sam Robertson (Host): We just heard in your introduction, your own training and career is very interdisciplinary. Do you think are there some really obvious policies and practices from other fields that could be readily implemented straight into sport?
[00:25:17] Kate Henne: Yeah, that's a great question and to be honest, I think I'm so interdisciplinary because I just realised the more I learned, the more I didn't know. So I actually started out more in criminology and then later ended up doing a degree in exercise science, and I did that because I realised as I was studying doping rules, I didn't actually understand the rationale or the science behind it. And in hindsight, the criminology background was a great thing to have because as I started studying doping and doping regulation more, I really started seeing regulators bring in those tools from criminal justice systems. And, you know, we've seen what happens with drug regulation, when you criminalise the outcomes aren't particularly positive. Obviously sport's different, but it gave us some insight as to why that might not be the case and how we actually might be holding athletes to a standard that in many ways is unfair.
[00:26:02] So I think that extra interdisciplinarity from the social sciences and the humanities has been really productive, for not just understanding the rules, but thinking about the big picture behind the rules and what outcomes we actually want to get so that we can then change the systems that we're navigating.
[00:26:17] Sam Robertson (Host): Wow, well we've got something in common there. I did a single unit in criminology in my undergraduate exercise science degree. And I also didn't know you had an exercise science degree. So you're one of us.
[00:26:26] Kate Henne: I am, in the closet. It's kinesiology technically. And because they realised some of my quant skills needed a little bit of work, I did quite a few more things in psychology and the more applied psychology as opposed to the research side of things. But yes, deep down inside I really just wanted to be an exercise scientist, who didn't really do that well in the field. (Laughter)
[00:26:46] Sam Robertson (Host): I'd like to flip that question a little bit as well. I know you've done plenty of work in sport as well, and are there things that you think sport is doing a good job of that can almost lead the way for broader society or lessons can be learned for society from some things that sport's experiencing now?
[00:27:00] Kate Henne: Yeah, I mean, what's so interesting - and I actually should say I'm in an admin role now and I'm so thankful that I did so much team sport prior to becoming an academic. In particular rugby, actually, so used to combat sports so it lended well to moving into an administrative role. But what I really, really think we can learn from sport is we have so many amazing coaching strategies that we're now seeing brought into the professional world. Because people in sport are used to managing really, really high level expectations, but also working across with different people who also have high expectations. So in a practical sense, I think there's so many things that have been refined in sport that could be exported into other fields that we just don't. We just take for granted as former athletes or former coaches or administrators.
[00:27:44] So that's kind of the big picture stuff around professional life, but in terms of frameworks, I mean, some of the regulatory frameworks in sport, because we're not in normal policy and governance spaces, a lot of the administrators have thought through really nuanced things in ways that, in general policy settings, I think we take for granted.
[00:28:04] Sam Robertson (Host): Yeah, it's a good point and I think a guest earlier on in this season, I think it might've been Ellen Broad, was talking about the experience that athletes and coaches have. Particularly athletes, they are poked and prodded, basically 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and they do have access to all sorts of information on themselves that people don't always have. So they are in a different position and I think people that are involved in sport, and particularly for a long period of time, they almost do take that for granted. They do forget about just how unique they are compared to most of the rest of the population.
[00:28:31] Now, I just want to change tack a little bit. We've discussed fairness in sport earlier this season and really that conversation focused a lot on performance enhancing drugs, a little bit on race and a little bit on gender, but most of that was with respect to the high-performance level and some people might disagree with me, but I think sports are now doing a reasonable job of developing policy, or at least having conversations about those issues, at the elite level, but I'm probably less convinced on it at the participation, the grassroots level. And I think that's obviously difficult because it's very easy to control something that's quite small and quite niche at the top of the pyramid, so to speak. It's a lot harder to roll that out across an entire code. We had FIFA on the season so far, and obviously they're trying to manage football across 140 or 160 countries around the world, so it's quite a difficult problem. But do you have some examples of either sporting codes, or even outside of sport, of organisations that are leading the way in that area of ensuring that those aspects of faintness are really rolled out well across participation and grassroots.
[00:29:33] Kate Henne: Yeah, that's a great question and maybe I'll take it in two pieces. First, just a bit about the elite. I actually think elite sport could learn a lot from grassroots sport in some respect. And I think you're absolutely right, at the elite level, we're talking about these conversations in critical ways we never did before and it's absolutely essential. I think the policy piece still needs quite a bit of work. I mean, I think the anti-doping regime is pretty much settled. We're not going to see big changes in that space, but in terms of racial discrimination and gender, gender being a big one, we're still not bringing in the experts across disciplines in that space. The World Rugby decision around transgender athletes, transgender women in particular, and some issues around differences of sexual development, we're really excluding people on some subjective ideas rather than really thinking through what's happening in different sports, how are things being affected, are we discriminating against certain people and who are they? And we're not really talking to the athletes about what they experience and bringing in different kinds of experts in that space.
[00:30:31] And where I would say, and maybe I will use the gender and the DSD - and that's 'differences of sexual development' - example to talk about grassroots is, having worked with a lot of grassroots organisations on those issues, they're incredibly inclusive spaces. And because the primary concern is participation, you see a lot more conversations between those athletes, the coaches. When they don't understand something, they don't assume that they're experts, right? They have the conversation.
[00:31:00] As someone who now works in regulation, our base level, when we talk about regulation, is actually a pyramid and that base level is one: information sharing, understanding the lived experience, figuring out the level of the conflict there first. And then we start developing rules to kind of make sure, if there's no conflict, we keep it down at that lower level. And then the rules come in place when we've got significant conflict and then we only go up the pyramid when we have a major conflict. So as much as we can keep things at that lower level, in which people are able to manage their conflict on their own without getting higher-ups involved, that's kind of what we try to do and I think in a lot of spaces in grassroots sports, we're seeing a lot of support around different gender identities, different ways bodies work at different levels of their development, a really open and honest understanding about, you know, people are different. And to be honest, as someone who's played with a lot of trans women and non-binary people, I learned so much about myself and my ability because I overcame those stereotypes. So I think in that respect, we can learn a lot from grassroots.
[00:32:09] Now, are there still problems? Of course. I mean, at the grassroots level, I'm incredibly concerned around discrimination and safety issues, right? There just aren't the resources. People don't know who to go to for advice or help and so that can really create an environment where we do have a lot of discrimination. And we've certainly seen that in terms of racial discrimination with people being pushed out because they don't understand either differences or even cultural backgrounds, right? And just not knowing where to go. So in terms of communication channels at the grassroots level, it'd be great to have more resources in that space. But in many ways, I think we see a lot of good conflict resolution strategies developed at the grassroots level.
[00:32:45] Sam Robertson (Host): When we look at sport at its best, and we do think about it as being all-inclusive, and I think a lot of sports market themselves that way as well, don't they? They say anyone can play this sport, it's safe for you, you're going to have a good time. And of course, I would agree with that, that's what sports should be. But of course, the closer we get towards that elite level, there is a need, or at least a perceived need, to have classifications, to have rules and regulations in place that create fairness. And again, earlier on on this season, I think a definition of fairness was given in terms of the weighting for people. And what I mean by that is, in terms of a presumption of guilt, for example, on an athlete after a drug test, would be incumbent on that person to prove their innocence rather than the other way around which of course we don't see in general public, in normal legal cases. But the rationale given, that it's potentially creating an unfair environment for the larger body of athletes. So, I think it's a really tricky one at which point, and maybe there's not an answer to this, but at which point do we have to start to invoke those classifications or make things more regulated in sport? Is it the semi-elite level? Is it the professional level? It's a hard decision, isn't it, for governing bodies I think.
[00:33:52] Kate Henne: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, each sport's different and each location is different. Like so many places in Australia, we see that recreational and semi-elite overlap in ways that wouldn't make sense in other contexts, but it's a smaller country so that happens. I guess, when listening to you speak, it was making me thinking about how we use the regulatory pyramid. So to use the doping example, I think it's good that we have that standard at a certain level. I guess what I'd like to see, if we started at the base of the pyramid at those junior levels, saying here's what happens when you're approached with someone about this, or this is someone who's an independent person that you can just ask questions to, they're not going to talk to an authority. You can make an independent decision, we'll tell you what the risks to health are, what the risks are to breaking the rules, and really kind of socialise people as they go up that process. And I think that's someplace where we could do a lot better, in terms of we're not going to throw the rules at you, but we are going to give you information if you want to understand things. And if you're thinking about moving up or someone's indicated you have promise, you can then talk to the people you trust about those very difficult decisions that you'll face along the way in many cases.
[00:34:59] So, I completely agree. It's a very difficult thing to balance, but the more we can socialise people at junior levels or at lower levels to talk to others and feel comfortable talking to others and not bring in those punitive sanctions that we bring in at the higher levels at that stage, I think you'd actually get a much more responsible, proactive group of athletes in that space.
[00:35:20] Sam Robertson (Host): Yeah, completely agree. Another example as you were speaking there that came to mind is girls playing boys sport at a young age, and then there's an arbitrary cutoff that so many sports have had to invoke, which is you're now no longer playing this sport because it's unsafe, and you wonder how some of those decisions are informed. You know they come from a good place a lot of the time, but again, they are very difficult decisions for sports to face. You made some really good points there.
[00:35:42] Just moving on to technology, because that's a theme that we've run through this season so far quite a lot, and some of the things that we've explored so far is that a lot of the pushback that we see in technology and sport is less about it being technology and being confronting and more about it just being brand new. And it's not just technology, it's new ideas as well. An example that comes to mind is esports, which is experiencing all sorts of pushback in sport now, because it's seen to be unathletic and potentially actually negative for sport because it's almost encouraging unhealthy or sedentary behaviour. But of course, it also encourages things like teamwork, camaraderie, decision-making and cognitive skills. Now, I'm not an advocate necessarily of it, I'm quite ambivalent, but I'm kind of using it as a bit of an example about how, when things are introduced that are new, they take a while to gain roots and gain acceptance. And that's not just true of sport, that's true of anywhere, I suppose. And I think that ties into the point we just made around governance. That's where the importance of strong governance with forward thinking comes in, particularly for sports. But what are some of the examples that you're seeing in your career or in your research right now, or at least your team's research right now, that are similar to that, where there's a new idea coming in and it's receiving quite a lot of pushback.
[00:36:55] Kate Henne: That's a really interesting point. And esports, I mean, you could just probably talk about that for hours, right? I mean, given some of the dynamics we're seeing around that in terms of gambling, you know, watching something professionalised that was recreational - things that we didn't see in other sports that have already happened. No, I think it's a really interesting one.
[00:37:12] I guess one of the things that we're running into, so as you said earlier, athletes have been under various forms of surveillance for a really long time. And I speak to a lot of people that study surveillance in other spaces where they immediately go to a kind of Big Brother narrative and that it's inherently bad, it's inherently problematic. And admittedly, I've come to some of those conclusions too, at times. And what's been so productive, in terms of thinking about sport, is you see how technology becomes part of the athlete-coach-support staff relationship, in ways that help athletes understand themselves. Whether it be a potential medical condition, or understanding their weaknesses and adjusting them, or becoming more aware of what they're eating, like all these different ways of really productively harnessing their self-awareness through technology that, again, I think athletes take for granted.
[00:38:03] I think some of those insights have been really helpful for us when we've started exploring technology in other spaces, where the immediate narrative is that this is a privacy violation. Well, that is a concern and we should absolutely think about data security and those types of things, but maybe we actually need to also get that grounded experience from the people who are managing the surveillance, because I think we'll find more positive angles than we think. Now, one dimension to that that's worth noting is that I am really concerned about the dominance of quote unquote big tech in these spaces, because we don't have checks and balances on those huge entities and how they use data or how they profit from it. And I know a lot of athletes, for example, would really like to also at least make income from the data and the ways it's used, but also benefit from it in other ways. So I think there's some really thorny issues that we can start pulling apart and not so much rely on traditional frameworks like privacy, but also think through, like, the power relationships. Okay, if we're taking data from people and they're doing this to enhance their performance or to do better in their careers, that's great. But that data gets used for so many other things. In what ways can we be more productively reciprocal with them and how we use basically that reusable data, those resources, for other purposes?
[00:39:23] So I think one of the things we're trying to think through is what kinds of models can we put in place so that people feel like they have a say in how their data is used, but also how they benefit from it. And I think a lot of people are going to want profit sharing, which is something a lot of scholars in my field are critical of, but I think we really need to deal with their voices in that respect.
[00:39:43] Sam Robertson (Host): There's so much in that response I wanted to dig into and I'll do my best to remember them all. But one of the things that comes to mind is governance there as well, and the data that you're referring to there is coming from so many different sources with so many different stakeholders, it's such a difficult thing to govern because there's so many different governing bodies involved. Sometimes people throw their hands up in the air and just say, we don't know how to handle this.
[00:40:05] An example in Australian football I think of is, and it's a football code thing in general really, is athlete tracking data now. Which is, we choose to be tracked by sensors, but really is now tracked not only by sensors, but also through cameras, and cameras are always going to be at sporting events and so the athlete almost doesn't have the opportunity to opt out of that, but who owns that data and who has a say in where that data goes? There's a broadcaster, there's a league, there's an athlete, there's a professional club as well which pays the athlete, there's fans. They all, potentially, have some level of rights to that data and where it goes and how it's monetised even. But it's a very tricky question about who even owns that data and it's something that we've raised in our research as well.
[00:40:46] Now, the other thing that you raised then around access to information, in terms of it being a positive and a negative. And I think, on the positive side, I've always seen that as very useful from an aspirational perspective. Not only in getting younger athletes to improve their performance and improve their professionalisation, so to speak, by knowing that at the end of the rainbow, so to speak, they're going to have access to all this information that's going to make them better, but also just to help people exercise. And there's some evidence around, that aspiration in that sense, helps people to exercise more. For example, if you see your star player, your favourite player in a sport, doing something, you're likely to follow them and follow their practices.
[00:41:25] I'm getting out of my area here, but I'm interested do you have a comment on this, does it work the other way as well? I mean is there potential for so much attention of people to have looking on that on their own data and self-awareness of what they're collecting on, what they're eating and what they're exercising, that it creates some mental health issues, for example. Is that something you've seen in any of your work?
[00:41:43] Kate Henne: Yeah, absolutely. That's such a good point and I should acknowledge that you're the expert working with data more than I am. I'm just observing how people use it. So we should be talking to you as well. I think of some of the disordered eating we've seen in some of our studies, not just with female athletes, but with men as well, around how those technologies have been, really encouraged, really encouraged to think about yourself and your body and really been channeled in really, deeply problematic ways. And in some cases we've seen coaches and support staff just not catch it, cause they've been so busy rewarding it. And obviously that can change one's life course, right? When you think through the implications of that on multiple levels.
[00:42:20] So that's certainly one dynamic that we've seen in some of our work and it's really hard to counteract that, because it's not just being encouraged by support staff and coaches, you see it online, you see it at the gym. You could see how people really join communities to support each other in their goals and how that could turn very quickly into really counterproductive forms of bodily policing and behaviour that can certainly have mental health effects.
[00:42:44] Sam Robertson (Host): Yeah, I think following on from that, but also something you said in the previous response is, I wonder a lot about whether we're doing enough to actively shape how technology looks. And you mentioned the big tech companies as well, having an almost monopoly in some cases. I do wonder about that in general, but in particular in sport, because obviously that's my area, but I also look around and don't see a lot of leadership and who's going to drive that and are sports governing bodies the ones to do that or is it athletes themselves? I feel like it needs a very concerted effort from people coming together to shape how the technology is going to look for them.
[00:43:18] Kate Henne: Yeah, Sam, those are really great points that you raised, and I really think given the scale of what quote unquote big tech can do, and that's such a generic term for some diverse corporations, I think what we can do at the lower levels is really advocate for those larger, more powerful organisations to organise. And we've seen global sports bodies do that. So for example, if you look at the history of anti-doping regulation, it's really unique because we actually have international law to support it, and that's because in the establishment of the World Anti-Doping Agency, they partnered with the Olympic committee and the Olympic committee said, look, for this to work, we need governments on board and the only way to get governments on board is if we have an international regime that can harmonise that and we have to have some incentives involved. So if you don't sign on, for example, you don't host world championships or Olympic events. You could see global sports bodies really pushing back on big tech saying, all right, we have to use your resources, but we're not going to do this unless it's tailored for some of the things that we need. You could see governments doing the same thing.
[00:44:27] So I think at that scale, we do need that level of intervention if we're going to see things change on a lower level, but it will only happen if sports bodies organise together and have discussions with their governing bodies, but also with governments as well, because it's a wider concern beyond sport. And I think sports sees the pointy end of what can and cannot be good, and this is a space where I think we could actually intervene productively.
[00:44:49] Sam Robertson (Host): Yeah and I think maybe that's part of the problem, that sport does see it as such a big problem and it's almost like you guys take care of it and we'll follow in behind and that's obviously not always going to work very well. I wonder whether researchers, I might be very optimistic here, but whether researchers, particularly sports researchers, need to lead more in this space and break down silos. We've talked a lot about your interdisciplinarity today already, and I would consider myself at least multidisciplinary, but I think we do need to actually break down some silos and get less worried about improving an athlete's running speed by half a second and more around these bigger, bigger questions, which is actually part of the reason behind this whole podcast really.
[00:45:28] Kate Henne: No, those are great points, and I think they're becoming more clear as we progress, right? Certain aspects of sport just aren't sustainable, right? We're starting to recognise that and grapple with it. So hopefully that's a moment where people realise that we can have these broader conversations.
[00:45:42] Sam Robertson (Host): I wanted to switch focus quite dramatically here and actually talk about social change, because it's not something we've talked about yet. We're seeing a lot of athletes now starting to be advocates or even drivers for social change in sport and obviously it's a really tricky situation for some sports to manage for a whole host of reasons. Do you think this is sustainable for sports to take on, or is it more suited to individual sports, or do all sports need to be starting to think about this in order to remain viable as society changes?
[00:46:12] Kate Henne: Look, I really actually agree with the latter part of your question, in the sense that I think these issues, if we look back - I mean, we can even look back to 1968 when we saw those massive protests and Peter Norman participating in that - so these are long standing issues that, for various reasons, have come to light at certain times of our history and now we're really seeing, for example, around questions of racial discrimination really come to light. I absolutely think it's actually fantastic that people are taking these things seriously, are talking about them, are showing people that you can be more multidimensional than just an athlete, right? That you can care about these things, that it's important to care about these things. You may disagree, but when I think what I found so productive is that athletes are actually not just being vocal, but they're listening to people, they're sparking conversations and this is what we want sport to do.
[00:47:02] And I'm really actually disappointed that the international Olympic committee and some other bodies have actually tried to stifle protest and discussion, because I actually think it is a celebration of what sport is supposed to be about. And I understand there's commercial interests, I understand you don't want to offend people, but as we learn more about athletes as multidimensional people, I think that actually helps people growing up who admire athletes to really see them as not just role models for being able to follow rules or bend them, or do incredible things with their bodies, but also use their platforms responsibly. And I think that's such a great set of role modeling to have, even if you disagree with what's being said.
[00:47:42] I know it scares people. It's different. It can obviously cause strife in teams, because people disagree. But if we can model productive ways to have adult conversations and work towards resolutions, I think that's absolutely fantastic that sport can be a platform to model that in wider society. So I hope, while I know we'll have hiccups along the way, and I know there'll be a lot of tensions, I really do hope it actually continues because I think it helps people grasp with other dimensions of their lives too, by seeing it on a bigger stage.
[00:48:15] Sam Robertson (Host): And this is where sport does really reflect broader society, I think. A comment, I suppose, in terms of the unnecessary polarisation of opinion here, that you've got to be in one camp or the other, whereas in reality it's okay to disagree. It's okay to have conversations. I mean, I don't think I've ever seen a team sport environment of 20 or 30 or 40 athletes that all get on and it's not surprising. They shouldn't get on, it'd be a little bit boring. They probably wouldn't be a very good team if they did.
[00:48:41] But coming back to a point you mentioned earlier, I think it's a big difference for a governing body between advocating for something versus actually not providing people a platform or stifling free speech though, isn't it?
[00:48:54] Kate Henne: It's a fine line to manage, but in many ways, so many athletes have earned that platform and we really do encourage amongst our athletes to be multidimensional now, we don't just say focus on your athlete role. Like we've seen some of the negative consequences of that. So to have that modeled on a larger stage, I think what we need to do is give them the tools to model it responsibly and help them make those tough decisions, but I'm all for the free speech element of it.
[00:49:22] Sam Robertson (Host): I think we're out of time. Thank you so much for joining us, Professor Kate Henne.
[00:49:26] Kate Henne: Thank you so much for having me. It was great to chat.
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Final Thoughts
[00:49:34] Sam Robertson (Host): And now some final thoughts from me on today's question. Sport has always been about inspiration and innovation, but there is growing recognition that it should also create cohesive communities and not only discuss social change, but drive it. And for a whole host of reasons, sport's ability to influence is arguably greater now than ever before.
[00:49:53] Whilst conversations are starting to be had at the elite level of sport about many of society's largest issues, it appears that in many cases it's actually sport at the community or recreational level that is leading the way in creating real change.
[00:50:05] The path to enacting policy, however, still remains often a much larger step. To this end, as we've discussed many other times this season, interdisciplinarity seems key. Not just in bringing together experts from seemingly disparate fields, but also through governments and organising bodies.
[00:50:24] Despite this progress in many areas, often certain stakeholders can feel a level of unease about tackling social issues. Whilst in some cases this can be because they disagree with a certain viewpoint, often the purported view or idea is simply new and may need time to take root and gain acceptance, or due to a perceived impact on operations or financial bottom line.
[00:50:44] As movements such as planetary health encourage people in sport to think and act on everything from local matters to global pursuits, it is worth pausing to consider the inextricable links between many of these issues. Changing one part of a system can cause impact at multiple touchpoints, both for better and for worse.
[00:51:02] This has been our last episode of season one. Thanks for joining us on this, our inaugural season of the show. We hope you've enjoyed it. We're really keen to hear your thoughts. So please get in touch at trackvu.com or leave a review on Apple podcasts.
[00:51:16] After a short break we'll be back with our second season, featuring more fascinating guests and big questions about the future of sport. Until then, I'm Sam Robertson, and this has been One Track Mind.
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Outro
[00:51:29] Lara Chan-Baker: One Track Mind is brought to you by Track and Victoria University. Our host is Professor Sam Robertson and our producer is Lara Chan-Baker - that's me!
[00:51:39] If you care about these issues as much as we do, please support us by subscribing, leaving a review on iTunes, and recommending the show to a friend. It only takes a minute, but it makes all the difference.
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[00:52:10] Thank you so much for listening to One Track Mind. We will see you soon.
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