Women, Sport and Exercise in the Asia-Pacific Region

Focusing on women, sport and exercise in the Asia-Pacific region, this book presents a diverse range of empirical case studies from areas such as India, Fiji, North Korea and Japan, shedding new light on the nexus of sport, exercise, gender, sexuality and power.

Gyozo Molnar is Principal Lecturer in Sport Studies at the University of Worcester, United Kingdom and was Reviews Editor for the Sport in Society journal. His current publications and research revolve around migration, globalisation, national identity, the drive for muscularity and feminist methodologies. Sara N. Amin is Lecturer of Sociology at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji. She was the Co-Principal Investigator on a multi-country research study examining how gender relations in Muslim families in South Asia are being negotiated as women's opportunities for education and employment expanded between 2013 and 2017. Her research focuses on the intersection of gender, migration and identity. Yoko Kanemasu is Senior Lecturer of Sociology at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji, where she teaches feminism, social theory, and research methodology. She was one of the convenors of the first academic conference to focus on rugby in the Pacific region, Fiji Rugby Centenary Conference: Reflections on the Past, Present and Future, held at the University of the South Pacific in 2013.

1. Introduction: Rest and the West - Present Absence of Non-Western Research,  Part I: Nation-Building and Nationalism,  2. Women, Sport and Gender Politics in Taiwan,  3. The Politics of Female Football in North Korea: Socialism, Nationalism, and Propaganda,  4. Resurgence of Ethnic Sports in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan: Still Hunting for Women,  5. Her 'Soldiering' On: Female Athletes in Combat Sports Negotiating Thailand's Gender Politics,  Part II: Sport, Physical Activity and Empowerment,  6. "The Right Way For Me to Do Things For Me": Experiences of Some Afghan Women in Entering and Practicing Karate,  7. Going It Alone and Strong: Athletic Indo-Fijian Women and Everyday Resistance,  8. Girls and Sports in Samoa: Culture, Policy and Practice in Urban and Rural Communities,  9. Discursive Construction of Athletic Nutrition in Bodybuilding: from Ideology to Pharmacology of the Female body in Kazakhstan,  Part III: Challenges, Change and Development,  10. Fiji's Women Rugby Players: Finding Motivation in a 'Hostile' Environment,  11. Improving Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Facilities and Women's Participation in Netball in Papua New Guinea,  12. Women's Sports in Japan: Enters a Period of Change,  13. Women and Sports in the Solomon Islands,  14. Increasing mobility and visibility of women and adolescent girls through a sport-based Gender Intervention in Low-Income Communities in Mumbai,  Part IV: Transnationality and Globalisation,  15. Reconstructing Body and Mind: Narratives of Health and Wellbeing in Self-Help Books From Global East Asia,  16. Forging a New Research Imagination Regarding Chinese Girls' Physical Activity