Dr Holly Thorpe

NZL

Role

Associate Professor of Sociology of Sport and Physical Culture

Organization

University of Waikato

Dr Holly Thorpe PhD is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health, Sport and Human Performance at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. She is an award-winning sociologist of sport and physical culture, and her research interests include action sports, youth culture, gender, women’s health and sport for development.

She has published over 60 articles and chapters on these topics, and is the author of Snowboarding Bodies in Theory and Practice (2011) and Transnational Mobilities in Action Sport Cultures (2014). Thorpe has co-edited various journals and collections, including the Berkshire Encyclopedia of Extreme Sports (2007), Women in Action Sport Cultures (2016), the Routledge Handbook of Physical Cultural Studies (2017), and New Sporting Femininities (2018). She is currently writing a book with Belinda Wheaton based on their extensive research on action sports and the Olympic Games.

Dr Thorpe has been a recipient of both Fulbright and Leverhulme Fellowships, and more recently a three-year Royal Society grant focused on youth engagement with informal sports in sites of war, conflict and disaster. In 2016, she established the Action Sports for Development and Peace (ASDP) website, and continues to lead research in the emerging field of ASDP studies.

The speakers

Using the unique power of sport to bring people together, the Olympism in Action Forum saw a range of global players, including Olympic Movement stakeholders, athletes, private and public sector leaders, NGO representatives, academics, artists and the media come together to talk on topical contemporary issues. Chosen because of their ability to effect change and their wide range of sometimes differing opinions, the speakers led lively debates and seeked to challenge received wisdom to inspire new ways of thinking.