ABSTRACT
Human rights movements and social inclusion campaigns have evolved significantly in recent years. In particular, children’s rights and child protection (CP) are now central concerns among nations and their social institutions. Within the context of sport, recent European projects and conferences have brought together national sport advocates, to accumulate and share practices and knowledge around the problem of abuse, including sexual violence against children in sport (Chroni et al. 2012). This growth of interest in athlete welfare at international policy, research, and practice levels is likely to influence national and local activity relating to CP in sport settings. Nevertheless, culturally sensitive research and knowledge around the understanding of these elements, especially in the field of sport, remains scarce. The aim of this chapter is to focus on the understandings of actors in Cypriot track and field sport as a way of highlighting their uncertainties and fears around notions of ‘touch’ and other related social practices. It is suggested these fears are double-edged, in that there are uncertainties attached to learning to read touch (anew) within a largely tactile Mediterranean culture, and there are fears that guidelines based on international practices may be too heavy-handed for the local context. First, I briefly describe both the specific culture of sport and that of Cyprus, to set the background for the rest of the chapter.
