Playing on the Edge: Sport Diplomacy in Oceania
Description
Hosted by the UTS Centre for Sport, Business and Society in association with Western Sydney University’s Institute for Culture and Society and World Leisure Centre of Excellence
Over the last decade, sport diplomacy has become an increasingly important component of the geopolitics of Oceania, particularly regarding competition for influence between the USA and its allies and the People’s Republic of China. This seminar analyses sport’s key role in regional diplomacy in the southern Pacific, including in the context of the iterations of Australia’s sports diplomacy strategy since 2015, the AU$600 million investment in rugby league in Papua New Guinea, and the AU$15.6 million investment in Pacific preparation for the 2032 Olympic Games. David Rowe draws on his recent co-authored book Playing on the Edge: Sport, Society and Culture in Asia and Oceania and current writing to question the complex and conflicting relationships between sport diplomacy, sport for development and ‘sportswashing’. Rohini Balram and Adam Cohen will respond, emphasising the intersectional power dynamics of sport in Oceania.
About the Speakers
Presenter: David Rowe
David Rowe is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Research, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, with honorary appointments at London, Bath, and Beijing Foreign Studies Universities. A Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Australian Academy of the Humanities, he received The Australian Sociological Association’s Distinguished Service to Sociology Award (2018) and the International Communication Association’s Sport Communication Legacy Award for lifetime scholarly achievement (2020). David’s academic work has been translated into nine languages, including Global Media Sport: Flows, Forms and Futures (Bloomsbury Academic, 2011), an Outstanding Book Selection of the National Academy of Sciences, Republic of Korea (2018). His latest book (co-authored) is Playing on the Edge: Sport, Society and Culture in Asia and Oceania (Peter Lang, 2026). David frequently contributes expert commentary on socio-cultural matters in print, broadcast and online media around the world.
Discussant I: Rohini Balram
Dr Rohini Balram is a sports sociologist and Adjunct Fellow in the School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University. Her research explores gender, race, migration, sport, movement culture, and equity, with a focus on marginalised communities across Oceania and the South Asian diaspora. She uses arts-based, decolonial, participatory, and reflexive methodologies to centre lived experience and challenge dominant forms of knowledge production. Rohini is the author of Young Indo-Fijian Women Breaking Barriers in Fijian Sporting Spaces: An Arts-Based Approach (Palgrave Macmillan Singapore, 2025). Beyond academe, Rohini is a poet, middle-distance runner, and fitness trainer for women of South and West Asian backgrounds, interests that continue to inform her engagement with movement, creativity, culturally responsive movement practices, and women’s physical activity and leisure.
Discussant II: Adam Cohen
Adam Cohen is a Senior Lecturer in Sport Management at UTS Business School and Co-Editor of the Journal of Sport for Development (JSFD). His research centres on sport-for-development and sport for social change, with a particular interest in participation, inclusion, social entrepreneurship, and the building of social capital through sport. He has also conducted research in developing nations including Nicaragua, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and has collaborated with TeamUp to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of government funded sport-for-development initiatives around the South Pacific.
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