The ISHPES Award is presented to a sport historian who has a particular interest in and has published pioneering work on the general theme of the ISHPES Congress.
The Award for 2017 has been presented to Malcolm MacLean, Reader in the Culture and History of Sport at the University of Gloucestershire in England. Malcolm has degrees in history and anthropology, and for the last 20 years has focussed primarily on sport and cultural relations in colonial and imperial settings, including rugby union in Aotearoa New Zealand and cricket in the British West Indies. Malcolm’s current work projects centre of activist political campaigns in sporting and cultural boycott movements, including both the dynamics of activism and cultural representations of those movements, and in related activity he is exploring the return of South Africa to international sport in the post-apartheid era. He has published widely on these issues. His most recent book is Philosophical Perspectives on Play edited with Wendy Russell and Emily Ryall in 2016, and The Philosophy of Play as Life also with Wendy Russell and Emily Ryall is currently in press. Malcolm is a former Chair of the British Society of Sports History and is a member if the international councils of the New Zealand Studies Association and ISHPES.