The theme of the 60th an­niver­sary of the In­ter­na­tion­al Sport So­ci­ol­o­gy As­so­ci­a­tion (IS­SA) World Con­gress was ’60 Years of the So­ci­ol­o­gy of Sport: Past, Present, and Fu­ture Tra­jec­to­ries.’ The con­fer­ence took place at Seoul Na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty (SNU), South Ko­rea, from Ju­ly 8-11, 2025.

It drew 400 par­tic­i­pants from 44 coun­tries, in­clud­ing T&T, and fea­tured 300 pa­pers. The Ko­re­an So­ci­ety for Sport So­ci­ol­o­gy (KSSS), cel­e­brat­ing its 35th an­niver­sary, led the Lo­cal Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee (LOC) to en­sure the event's suc­cess.

Do­minic Mal­colm, Pro­fes­sor of So­ci­ol­o­gy of Sport at Lough­bor­ough Uni­ver­si­ty in Lon­don, Eng­land, de­liv­ered the keynote ad­dress ti­tled ‘The So­ci­ol­o­gy of Sport: From Pos­i­tivist to Post-truth Sci­ence.’ His speech dis­cussed three main is­sues in the de­vel­op­ment of the IS­SA over its 60-year his­to­ry. He traced the ori­gins of the so­ci­ol­o­gy of sport back to the 1960s with­in main­stream so­ci­ol­o­gy, em­pha­sis­ing its strong so­cial sci­en­tif­ic or­tho­doxy, which was based on pos­i­tivism and a quan­ti­ta­tive method­olog­i­cal ap­proach. While this ap­proach was sig­nif­i­cant, it mar­gin­alised in­ter­pre­tivist mean­ings, which have proven to be very valu­able in un­der­stand­ing the in­ter­sec­tion­al­i­ty of mar­gin­alised groups.

Re­flect­ing on the 60 years since the birth of the so­ci­ol­o­gy of sport, he ar­gued that some goals set by the founders have been achieved, such as ‘or­gan­i­sa­tion­al and lit­er­ary de­vel­op­ment and its im­pact on so­ci­ol­o­gy and so­ci­ety.’ He not­ed that the dis­ci­pline’s growth has em­braced a broad­er in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary ap­proach, lead­ing to in­creased ‘so­cial ac­tivism and pub­lic so­ci­ol­o­gy,’ as well as re­defin­ing sport to in­clude ‘ex­er­cise, ac­tiv­i­ty, and phys­i­cal cul­ture.’

His fi­nal con­cern cen­tred on how mod­ern so­ci­ol­o­gy of sport op­er­ates in an in­creas­ing­ly post-truth en­vi­ron­ment. Post-truth refers to a sit­u­a­tion where emo­tion­al ap­peals and per­son­al be­liefs of­ten over­shad­ow fac­tu­al ev­i­dence. It has be­come a dom­i­nant force in 21st-cen­tu­ry pol­i­tics and is re­flect­ed in sports through is­sues such as gen­der equal­i­ty, equal ac­cess, en­vi­ron­men­tal con­cerns, con­cus­sion man­age­ment, and sports­wash­ing, among oth­ers. He con­clud­ed by urg­ing the aca­d­e­m­ic com­mu­ni­ty to de­vel­op a ‘the­o­ry of sport’ to en­hance both ‘aca­d­e­m­ic and so­cial in­flu­ence.’

Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus Pe­ter Don­nel­ly from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, Cana­da, dis­cussed the work of the In­ter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee for the So­ci­ol­o­gy of Sport [IC­SS], which was es­tab­lished in 1964 as part of the In­ter­na­tion­al Coun­cil of Sport and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion [UN­ESCO] to pro­mote un­der­stand­ing be­tween sport and so­ci­ety. He en­cour­aged mem­bers to re­flect on how the work of IC­SS/IS­SA has ad­vanced ‘peace­build­ing and in­ter­na­tion­al un­der­stand­ing.’ Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he chal­lenged Con­gress mem­bers to con­sid­er the im­pact of their work, even if it's just a small step for­ward for the chil­dren of the world.

Be­tween Mal­colm’s keynote and Don­nel­ly’s com­mem­o­ra­tive ad­dress, a se­ries of ses­sions and ple­nar­ies ex­am­ined var­i­ous cur­rent is­sues in sport and so­ci­ety. Some of the themes in­clud­ed: Sport, Pol­i­tics, and Pol­i­cy; Sport and [post] colo­nial­ism; Sport, De­vel­op­ment, and Peace; Sport and Me­dia; Sport and Gen­der [9 ses­sions]; Sport and Cul­ture; Sport, Pow­er Re­la­tions, and So­cial Jus­tice; Sport Or­gan­i­sa­tion and Gov­er­nance; Olymp­ism and Olympic Stud­ies; Sport Glob­al­i­sa­tion; Mega-Events; Sport and New Tech­nolo­gies; Sport, Race, and Eth­nic­i­ty; Sport and Cul­ture in Ko­rea; Sport in Asia; Sport and Dis­abil­i­ty; Sport, En­vi­ron­ment, and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty; Sport, Mi­gra­tion; Sport, So­cial­i­sa­tion, and Be­long­ing; Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion and School Sport; Sport and So­cial Class; Sport and Pub­lic Health; E-Sport and New Ac­tiv­i­ties; Sport Coach­ing and Ped­a­gogy; Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty; Meth­ods of So­ci­ol­o­gy of Sport; Sport and Vi­o­lence; Youth Sport; Elite Sport vs. Sport for All; and oth­er is­sues re­lat­ed to the so­ci­ol­o­gy of sport.

As I re­flect­ed, I re­alised that con­fer­ence themes are vi­tal for un­der­stand­ing the link be­tween sport and so­ci­ety in the Caribbean. It is cru­cial for re­gion­al gov­ern­ments—es­pe­cial­ly min­istries re­spon­si­ble for sports, ed­u­ca­tion, health, and so­cial de­vel­op­ment—along with na­tion­al gov­ern­ing bod­ies, clubs, the me­dia, and uni­ver­si­ties, to rise to the chal­lenge posed by Mal­colm and Con­nel­ly. They should pro­mote the study of sport and so­ci­ety, de­vel­op sys­tem­at­ic knowl­edge, and make a pos­i­tive so­ci­etal im­pact.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the lack of com­mit­ment in gov­er­nance across all lev­els of sport to treat it as a valu­able field of study—one that can in­spire ac­tion for so­cial change, so­cial jus­tice, equal­i­ty, and eq­ui­ty—will con­tin­ue to lim­it the full po­ten­tial of sports. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, is­sues like post-truths, lim­it­ed fi­nan­cial re­sources, in­suf­fi­cient hu­man re­source ca­pac­i­ty at or­gan­i­sa­tion­al lev­els, and chal­lenges in im­ple­ment­ing pro­grams, mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion, coach­ing, and phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion fur­ther weak­en gov­er­nance com­mit­ment.

Be­sides a well-or­gan­ised and smooth­ly run con­fer­ence, it was built on a cul­ture of so­cial net­work­ing, ca­ma­raderie, and great hos­pi­tal­i­ty from the LOC. Along­side the aca­d­e­m­ic ses­sions, so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties in­clud­ed op­tions such as at­tend­ing a base­ball game for sports or tak­ing a boat cruise.

The 2026 IS­SA con­fer­ence will be held in Jyväskylä, Fin­land, from June 15-18, 2026.