Dear RC17 members,
we hope this message finds you well. In this month’s newsletter we would like to draw your attention to the new issue of our Journal of Organizational Sociology. Furthermore, we would like to share a CfP for a Special Issue of the South Africa Review of Sociology on the topic of ‘Sport, Recreation and Leisure in Contemporary South Africa’. Please see the details below.
New Issue of the Journal of Organizational Sociology
We are happy to share Issue 3(1) of the Journal of Organizational Sociology (JOSO) with you: https://www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/joso/3/1/html
Essay
Organizations and Economic Inequality
Heather A. Haveman
Research Articles
Hybrid Organizations – What’s in a Name?
Olof Hallonsten, Anna Thomasson
Organisational Flexibility: Core Business, Interdependence and the Timing of Energy Demand
Stanley Blue, Elizabeth Shove, Karol Kurnick
Orders of the Division of Labor: Self-reference in Organization Structures
Norman Meisinger
On the Interplay Between Boundary Work and Organizational Context
Emmy Hjort-Enemark, Ninna Meier, Andreas Nielsen Hald
CfP: Special Issue South Africa Review of Sociology
CALL FOR PAPERS: A JOURNAL SPECIAL ISSUE FOR 2026 IN THE SOUTH AFRICA REVIEW OF SOCIOLOGY (SARS)
Proposed Title: ‘Sport, Recreation and Leisure in Contemporary South Africa’
Guest editors:
Prof. Kiran Odhav, Research fellow, University of Free State, South Africa.
Prof. Chris Bolsmann, California State University, Northridge.
SARS Co-ordinating editor:
Prof. David Cooper, retired sociologist, University of Cape Town.
Call for Papers:
Three decades after the end of Apartheid, South African society remains characterised by high levels of inequality and economic disparities. These inequalities are primarily but not exclusively experienced through race, class and gender. These differences are also experienced in the realms of sport, recreation and leisure in South Africa. Sport in particular, is often touted as a panacea for divisions and conflict in societies by politicians and public commentators amongst others. This is evidenced in South Africa since 1994 through the hosting of several billion US dollar mega events. The long-term material legacies of these events are often negligible. At the elite professional sporting levels in men’s rugby and women’s soccer in particular, South Africa has excelled. The controversial Apartheid era rugby Springbok emblem has been reappropriated and rebranded as an inclusive unifying symbol. While women’s sport recently receives more exposure and relative funding, it lags behind their male counterparts. In addition, sport, recreation and leisure facilities remain woefully underfunded and neglected at the amateur, junior levels and most significantly in disadvantaged areas across the country.
This special issue is interested in but not limited to papers that address some of the structural and societal inequalities in post-Apartheid South African sports, recreation and leisure landscapes.
Submission Guidelines:
Abstracts
We invite 400-500-word abstracts to be sent to kiran.odhav@gmail.com by 30th April 2025.
Final Paper
Completed manuscripts of (5000-8000) words should be submitted on SARS ScholarOne website by 30 November 2025.
Tentative timeline towards publication:
Feedback on abstracts, submitted by 30th April deadline, will be provided by 21st May 2025.
Review Process:
First Stage
Complete manuscripts (5000-8000 words) must be submitted by 31st August 2025 to Kiran Odhav for the first internal review process.
Reviewer feedback will be sent to authors within 4-6 weeks of submission.
Authors to revise their papers and resubmit directly on the ScholarOne platform for SARS (30th November 2025).
Second Stage:
Double blind external review process: about 8 weeks.
Reviewer comments will be provided by mid-February 2026.
Final revised submissions must be done by 31st March 2026 on ScholarOne (guidance will be
provided).
Please note that final decisions about publication lie with the editorial collective of SARS.
All submitted manuscripts are subject to initial appraisal by the Editors and, if found suitable for further consideration, to peer review by independent, anonymous expert referees. All peer review is double anonymised.
Biographies of Guest Editors
Prof. Kiran Odhav is a retired sociologist but continues his research, and is currently based in Mafikeng, South Africa. His broad areas of interest are culture, media and community, and his publications are on sport in Africa and India, higher education, inequality in BRICS, historically disadvantaged institutions and AIDS. He has over 30 publications and is currently working on youth in the digital age, leisure and inequality, and small club phenomena. Two books published with him as co-author or joint researcher are Handbook of Sociology of BRICS Countries, and The Sustainability of Local AIDS Councils in the North West Province: An Analysis of Organizational Processes.
Prof. Chris Bolsmann is a South African sociologist based at California State University Northridge in Los Angeles in the United States. His work is primarily focused on the social history of sport in Britain, South Africa and the United States. He published English Gentlemen and World Soccer: Corinthians, Amateurism, and the Global Game in 2018 with Dil Porter and co-edited Soccer Frontiers: The Global Game in the United States, 1863–1913 in 2021 with George Kioussis. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters. He also was co-editor of a South African Review of Sociology journal Special Issue on Sociology of Sport published in 2015 Vol46(1).