Living the Olympics: Sociality, Citizenship, Control

This Symposium, held immediately following the 2012 London Olympic Games, will appraise the ‘Olympic experience’ from the perspectives of host city residents and visitors. Participants will address a range of questions concerning the experience of globally mediated sporting events from the perspectives of social science researchers from several countries. There will be a discussion of the community impacts, especially for East London, of hosting an Olympiad, and comparisons with other Olympic Games, including the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games. The areas of focus will include questions of urban regeneration, population displacement, citizen surveillance and social control. The Olympic legacy, the ultimate justification of the expense and disruption of hosting the Games, will be interrogated in asking: ‘which Olympic legacies and benefits for whom?’

The Olympics are also regarded as an excellent excuse for a 2-week party, and the Symposium will address the urban leisure dimensions of the Games. How can the Olympic city maximise the urban pleasures of those who live there and those who are visiting? Can it prevent exclusion of large sections of people on the grounds of wealth and leisure preference, and advance wider rights of ‘cultural citizenship’? In focusing on the experience of the Olympic city, Symposium participants will discuss the dynamics of ‘being there’, the integral role of media technologies, and the use and occupation of public and private space. While much debate has concentrated on how to live with the Olympics, the Symposium will reflect, more expansively, how it might be possible in the Games city to ‘live the Olympics’– even for those who have little or no interest in Olympian sport.

Numbers for Living the Olympics are strictly limited. Please RSVP your attendance request to Christy Nguy (c.nguy@uws.edu.au) as soon as possible, and no later than Wednesday September 5, 2012. Refreshments and a light lunch will be provided.