Small Nation,Big Sport: Basque Ball – Its Past and Present Cultural Meanings for the Basques

Abstract

The Basques are a nation living in the Basque Country – a territory that is divided between two states – France and Spain. Isolated in the mountainous terrain they have preserved their original culture and collective identity. However, they still need to struggle for recognition, using some elements of their own culture to promote their identity and reject their status as a peripheral region of Spain or France. One of such elements is sport, especially so-called ‘traditional sports’ which this nation has preserved over centuries. The aim of this paper is thus to analyze one example of such a sport – Basque ball and its historical and present situation, connections with other elements of culture and its socio-cultural importance for the Basques.     

El desmadre: counter-hegemonic fervour in Carlos Monsiváis’s 1986 World Cup chronicles

ABSTRACT

The 1986 Mexico World Cup is memorialized in terms of two iconic moments produced by Argentine legend Diego Maradona’s on-field magic in the game against England – the controversial ‘Hand-of-God’ goal and the dribbling masterpiece score, unarguably considered to be the ‘Goal of the Century’. However, the World Cup with these dramatic events came in the backdrop of a tragic earthquake that devastated Mexico City taking a heavy toll of lives only a year back. While Mexico’s ruling party was accused of corruption and mismanagement in relief work, the government went ahead with the organization of the tournament. Interestingly, popular protests and movements against the government centred around stadiums such as the Estadio Azteca – the site of Maradona’s famed goals, transforming the same into sites of contestation and solidarity for many Mexicans. Writing at the time, Carlos Monsiváis, Mexico’s most notable chronicler, in his famous ‘¡¡¡Goool!!! Somos el desmadre’ (1986), captured the subversive atmosphere of these sporting venues through fan behaviour amounting to their counter-hegemonic fervour, coined ‘el desmadre’ in the chronicle. This study offers a discursive literary analysis of Monsiváis’s text and argues that both Monsi’s chronicle and his protagonists’ ‘disorderly’ behaviour served as popular discursive forces that challenged the Partido Revolucionario Institucional’s historical dominance in Mexico’s political arena.     

Gene-talk and sport-talk: A view from the radical middle ground

Abstract

In this paper, we explore and reflect critically on what elite sport may expect or fear from genetic technologies. In particular, we explore the language in which we (where ‘‘we’’ denotes scientists, sports scientists, the media, sports coaches, academics) tend to speak about genetics, elite sport, and the human body – we call this language ‘‘gene-talk’’ – which imagines the world of elite sport as one in which genes were always dominant in athletic performance. The dominant question here seems to be whether what is thought to be possible ought to be, and can be realized. We unpack the question by asking whether the practices needed for genetics to intervene so powerfully in elite sport exist in the straightforward and uncomplicated manner that the ‘‘gene-talk’’ literature seems to suggest. We argue that there is a lack of relevant studies to support and analyse the notion of sports performance as an immensely rich and complex practice.We conclude that elite sport may be more complex and heterogeneous than ‘‘gene-talk’’ has imagined to date.     

Healthying physical education - on the possibility of learning health

Background: As part of the annual activities at the British Educational Research Association (BERA) conference, the Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy Special Interest Group (SIG) organises a so-called Invisible College, where a Scholar Lecture is delivered by a researcher who has made a significant contribution to the field. This paper is the 2018 Scholar Lecture.

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to discuss two concepts and the relations between them – health and learning.

Key concepts: In the paper, the metaphor of the swimmer in the river, as introduced by Antonovsky, is used in order to go beyond individualistic, dualistic and instrumental notions of health and education. I argue for a move away from a notion of teaching young people how to be healthy through the deployment of ready-made educational packages, towards acknowledging health education as a societal responsibility, where it is recognised that sociocultural and economic contexts afford diverse opportunities to be healthy and to learn to live healthy lives, however these are construed.

Discussion and conclusion: Rather than confining health and health education to the prevention of premature death and disease, I discuss health, in relation to learning, as always being in the process of becoming. The health resources for living a good life can then be found in the ‘river’, with the ‘swimmer’, and in the relation between the ‘river’ and the ‘swimmer’. In this way, health can manifest itself in many different ways. I ask why we even attempt to talk about health in the singular when talking about different diseases. Is health rather a plural? Is it even a noun? Or is it something we do – a verb? If the latter, health education can be conceived of as a practice – ‘healthying’ – rather than a fixed, static outcome set up by research and public health policies as something to achieve in education.     

Lessons learned and tables turned: ‘(in)security’ and media representations in the 2018 World Cup

ABSTRACT

This essay follows up on an article published in Soccer & Society prior to the 2018 World Cup in Russia. There it was argued that this edition of the World Cup served as particularly interesting for the academic field focussed on sport-mega events (SMEs) and ‘security’, because of its uniquely securitized climate. Written immediately after the 2018 World Cup, the present essay reflects upon the event’s ‘security’ and mega-event security more broadly. It revisits some ‘security-related’ episodes. Then, special attention will be given the media discourse vis-à-vis ‘hooliganism’. The essay argues that the media discourse took an unorthodox ‘turn’ with regard to English ‘hooligans’, who, compared to past events, were portrayed as being ‘in risk’ – rather than being the group generating ‘the risk’ of football-related violence and public disorder.     

A Footnote to Sport History: Twenty Years of Cricket,Conflict and Contestation in Samoa, 1880–1900

Abstract

During the late-nineteenth century, imperial expansion increasingly produced what Louise Pratt terms ‘contact zones’ – ‘social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power’. Sport was one of the most visible spaces where this process took place. This paper uses the example of cricket in Samoa to demonstrate how different groups sought to control sport’s meaning amidst great uncertainty. Almost as soon as they began playing cricket, Samoans radically altered its method and meaning to create the distinctively Samoan game of kirikiti. This act established the cricket pitch as a ‘contested space’ between Samoans and foreigners, who were wary of kirikiti’s association with Samoan politics and customary exchange. As was the case in Samoa more generally, however, this struggle was not neatly divided between Samoans and foreigners. While missionaries and settlers portrayed the game as a threat, others – notably sailors and proponents of British influence – greeted it with relative enthusiasm. For their part, Samoans used the game to signal alignment with or against one or another Western power. Finally, Samoa’s growing ‘mixed-race’ community saw the game as a means of confirming their place in both the Samoan and European ‘worlds’.     

Foucault’s History of the Present: The Birth of the Games Concept Approach in Singapore’s Physical Education Curriculum

Abstract

The year 1999 saw a major shift in Singapore’s Physical Education curriculum when the traditional teaching approach in primary schools was replaced by a more game-like one, aptly known as the Games Concept Approach (GCA). Based on Foucault’s ‘History of the Present’ which intended to distinguish the kind of historical projects that brought this change, the focus is on tracing the forces that gave birth to the present-day practices and identifying the historical conditions which caused this shift towards GCA. Inspired by Foucault’s distinct elements of status, institutional sites and situation, the perspective of revealing a ‘history of the present’ on the birth of GCA in Singapore creates a better understanding of why it is still being taught in the PE curriculum.     

Media,digital technology and learning in sport: a critical response to Hodkinson,Biesta and James

Background: In their 2008 paper, Hodkinson, Biesta and James draw on the sociological theories of Pierre Bourdieu to construct what they claim is a ‘holistic’ theoretical framework for understanding learning. While not an attempt to dissolve the long-standing opposition between ‘cognitive’ and ‘situated’ theories, the authors claim that thinking about learning and learners in ‘cultural’ terms via Bourdieu's theories allows us theoretically to integrate individuals and learning contexts. The result, they claim, is a ‘scalable’ theory of learning that overcomes the dualisms – such as structure/agency and individual/society – that dog learning theory. We welcome both Hodkinson et al.’s ideas and overall goal. However, we were struck by the absence of any mention of communications media or digital technology in their theoretical framework. Does this mean that media and digital technology can straightforwardly be mapped onto Hodkinson et al.’s theory? Or is this a serious oversight?

Purpose: Given the large amount of recent theorising about the transformative educational potential of media and digital technology – admittedly much of it speculative and hyperbolic – there appear to be some grounds for troubling some of Hodkinson et al.’s ideas by prioritising the effects of media and digital technology on learning.

Methods: We used two examples of learning in sports, one historical and the other contemporary, to consider the theoretical implications of media and digital technology's role in sports learning. The first explores the ways professional footballers learned to produce displays of emotion during the 1950s and 1960s. Our second example presents data from semi-structured interviews with downhill longboard skateboarders and focuses on how these young people use and think about digital technology as they learn their sport.

Findings: While not rejecting Hodkinson et al.’s preference for Bourdieu's sociological theories, we draw on other theories that do not see the relationship between the ‘individual’ and ‘society’ as their conceptual starting point. To this end, we touch on Actor Network Theory (ANT), ‘connectivism’ and the theoretical work of Deleuze and Guattari in order to at least question whether Bourdieu's ideas are sufficiently flexible or dynamic to account for learning in media- and technology-saturated environments. Most obviously, rather than the individual/society dualism which Hodkinson et al. simultaneously question but also rely on, are there advantages in using ‘flatter’ metaphors such as the ‘network’ to understand learning?

Conclusions: We agree with Hodkinson et al.’s point that theories are tools for thinking with and that their metaphorical power can and should be harnessed to improve the way we teach. It is for this reason that we question Hodkinson et al.’s claim to offer a ‘holistic’ theory of learning. All theories, like metaphors, have real-world limitations and this is why we should always be suspicious of theories that claim to be able to ‘see’ the world from all angles and, perhaps more fundamentally, to dissolve the dualisms that they are built on. Theories are always a partial view from somewhere and just as they help us to see some things, they do so by demanding that we not see others.     

Internal social processes of discipline formation: The case of kinanthropometry

Abstract

In 1972, the term ‘kinanthropometry’, derived from the Greek words ‘kinein’ (to move), ‘anthropos’ (human) and ‘metrein’ (to measure), was launched in the international, Francophone journal Kinanthropologie by the Canadian William Ross and the Belgians, Marcel Hebbelinck, Bart Van Gheluwe and Marie-Louise Lemmens. The authors defined this neologism as ‘the scientific discipline for the study of the size, shape, proportion, scope and composition of the human being and its gross motor functions’. Presenting a theoretical framework for the analysis of the internal social processes of discipline formation – derived from the social history-of-science tradition – this article critically examines whether kinanthropometry was indeed promoted and developed by its community members as a scientific discipline. Therefore, the focus will be on its conceptualisation and positioning within the field of kinanthropology/kinesiology and on its development by a scholarly association, i.e. the International Working Group on Kinanthropometry (IWGK). The strong emphasis of the kinanthropometry community on the standardisation of measurement techniques and its practical and professional application hampered its disciplinary development. Findings of this study could serve as a basis for future ‘fundamental’ investigations addressing questions of disciplinary development within the field(s) of physical education, kinesiology and sport science(s).     

Conquering the World: The ‘Martial’ Power of Japan Goes Global

Abstract

Throughout the twentieth century Japanese martial arts, or budo, in the West grew from a hardly visible practice for Japanese diasporas and a handful of Japanophiles to an integral part of Western culture. Today, when they have been joined by other cultural exports from Japan, and Karate has been recognized as an Olympic sport in the midst of the decline of traditional martial arts and the rise of Mixed Martial Arts culture, the question of what forces produce such powerful ‘waves’ of Japanese cultural expansion becomes relevant again. To answer this question, the article compares the forces behind the spread of three arguably most popular Japanese martial arts – Judo, Kendo, and Karate – in the West, mainly in America and Europe. Here I offer an analysis based on the division of these forces into those which ‘push’ Japanese culture beyond Japan’s borders (pushing forces) and those which stimulate its consumption in Western countries (pulling forces). Based on the results of the comparison, the article argues that there are certain repeating patterns in both types that form a unique mechanism of Japanese ‘martial’ expansion to the West, with the ‘pulling’ forces being just as, if not more, powerful, than the ‘pushing’ forces.     

Africa at the Football World Cup, 1934–2018: defining moments and memories on the field

ABSTRACT

This article looks at the memorable and defining moments that shaped the history of Africa’s participation in the World Cup. In this context ‘memorable’ refers to moments in the tournament that were attractive in terms of style of play, impact of the outcome and historical legacy. Closely related to memorable is the concept of ‘defining moments’. According to Badaracco (1997), defining moments have three characteristics: they reveal, they test, and they shape. Although this definition applies to leadership, it is used here to identify some defining moments that shaped the history of African soccer at the World Cup final tournaments preceding 1970 and in the subsequent tournaments till 2018. Although past performances by African teams have not yielded a championship trophy, there have been memorable and defining moments at each tournament that inspire hope for abreakthrough sooner than later.

Abbreviations: CAF- Confederation of African Football; FIFA- Federation of International Football Associations     

‘Thus far and no farther’: the rise of women’s hockey leagues in England from 1910 to 1939

ABSTRACT

The Lancashire and Cheshire Ladies Hockey League (LHL) was formed in 1910, ‘by way of dissenting from the policy of the All England Women’s Hockey Association [AEWHA]’, which disapproved of playing for championships or trophies.²2. Anon., ‘Ladies Hockey Gala’, Manchester Guardian, 3 April 1911, 3. Similar league competitions – set up and largely run by men – quickly followed in cities and towns across the North and Midlands, providing women with regular Saturday afternoon fixtures, as well as knockout cup games. After failing to find satisfactory accommodation within the AEWHA, several leagues broke away to form an alternative governing body, the English Ladies Hockey Leagues Association (ELHLA), which remained in existence until 1960. As well as organising inter-league games and cup competitions, the ELHLA selected England representative teams. With a focus on class and gender, this article – for the first time – will examine the AEWHA’s evolving attitude towards leagues from 1910 to the start of the Second World War, and the types of teams that populated these early competitions. It will also explore the conditions that gave rise to the ELHLA and the impact this organisation had on the authority of the AEWHA before 1939.     

The (Re)Constitution of football fandom: Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem and its supporters

Abstract

Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem, a fan owned club in Israel, was established in 2007 by fans of Hapoel Jerusalem, in protest against the management of the original club. The fans have adopted anti-racism, opposition to violence and inclusiveness as markers of their identity, while stressing their links with the surrounding community. The paper emphasizes the role of reflexivity and agency, as the fans built the new club to embody their aspirations. The emphasis on reflexivity is required to integrate in the analysis, both macro-social elements, and processes linked with ‘everyday life’. The paper stresses the unintended consequences of the fans’ success, in creating a football club owned by them. The performance of HKJ fandom forged, over a short time, an inclusive ‘protected space’, wherein norms of solidarity and trust were developed. Such a space attracted several thousand persons – many of them coming to football for the first time – and cultivated a sense of ‘community’ that has become of growing importance in the fans’ collective identity.     

Federal Government Involvement in Australian Disability Sport, 1981–2015

Abstract

Few historical accounts of Australian sport policy have explicitly profiled the federal government’s involvement in disability sport. In this paper, we draw on the concept of ableism as a lens to address this lacuna. In doing so, we profile the history of the Commonwealth government involvement in disability sport and explore how the policy of ‘mainstreaming’ has emerged through partnerships led by the Australian Paralympic Committee with National Sporting Originations (NSOs) and government. We highlight that whilst these changes have arguably made mainstream NSOs more aware of their legal obligations and have led to positive changes in the provision of opportunities for people with a disability through the development of ‘Paralympic pathways’, there is some evidence of potential caveats of ‘mainstreaming’. Specifically, we point to an emerging body of evidence which suggests that despite these policy measures, people with disabilities still report being marginalized and excluded from ‘mainstream’ sporting programmes. Therefore, we question if less governmental leadership is the right path given the limitations of the present policy framework. Additionally, we highlight how performance-based funding mechanisms such as ‘Winning Edge’ are narrowing who is eligible for funding and thus curtailing finite resources for only the most ‘abled’ of the disabled.     

‘You Had to Cover Nadia Comaneci’: ‘Points of Change’ in Coverage of Women’s Sport

Abstract

In the 1970s, women’s sport underwent significant change in the United States resulting in an increase of participation opportunities and funding at the interscholastic, intercollegiate, professional and international levels. Yet, media outlets continued to ignore women and, at best, portray them in gender stereotypical ways. Considering the lack of progress for women in sports media coverage, this study employs sport historian Jaime Schultz’s ‘points of change’ framework in order to identify those moments that constituted an ideological shift in the process of covering women’s sport. Drawing upon oral history interviews with journalists who wrote about women’s sport in the 1970s and 1980s, this research provides a deeper look into how journalists experienced and addressed the shifting gender ideologies of the time period. Journalists’ memories, accompanied by their articles, reveal how media practitioners negotiated meanings about femininity and athleticism in response to events that challenged deeply embedded assumptions about gender and its intersections with ethnicity, race and sexuality. This exploratory research, thus, identifies several ‘points of change’ – or points of struggle, conflict and resistance – and calls for a re-periodization of the history of women’s sports coverage.     

‘Superbowling’: Using the Super Bowl’s Yearly Commentary to Explore the Evolution of a Sporting Spectacle in the American Consciousness

Abstract

In the days following Super Bowl III, New York Times columnist Robert Lipsyte coined the phrase ‘superbowling’. Consisting of the ‘chatter’ and diverse perspectives voiced throughout the nation in the days surrounding each Super Bowl, superbowling includes the off-the-wall psychiatric evaluations and epic gloating by football fans, political reactions and sociological analyses concerning the game’s affect on the nation’s institutions, as well as the hasty generalizations by alarmed moralists and university professors. This paper utilizes the ‘superbowling’ penned between Super Bowls I and XXXVI as evidence that provides insight into ‘the variety of ways in which Americans understood and enacted their political culture at a specific time’. By investigating the varieties of superbowling topics highlighted within each yearly Super Bowl, one cannot only better understand the evolution of Super Bowl Sunday, but can also understand its relationship to the prominent historical happenings and personalities of the time. It is concluded that by the turn of the millennium, superbowling revealed at least three enduring qualities of Super Bowl Sunday: ‘conspicuous consumption’, ‘shared experience’, and ‘national holiday’.     

Amerika: The Super Bowl and German Imagination

Abstract

The Super Bowl has played a central role in the diffusion of American football in Germany, as interviews with the ‘founding fathers’ of ‘gridiron’ football clubs and analysis of German media accounts reveal. American football and the Super Bowl have also played an important role in the construction of traditional German Amerikabilder – images, ideas, and symbols associated with America. German media rarely covered American football until the late 1970s. At that time, brief highlight shows of the Super Bowl on German television and broadcasts on the American Forces Network significantly contributed to the diffusion of American football and the emergence of an American football league in Germany in the late 1970s. In the process of covering the Super Bowl, German journalists reproduced Germany’s double-headed Amerikabild: America as a model of modernity on the one hand, and as a violent, cultureless society on the other. The press further invoked historical clashes between German Kultur and the dreaded Zivilisation of the West. This exploration of the social processes surrounding the reception of the Super Bowl in Germany employs the theories of cultural globalization, migration, and electronic mediation developed by the anthropologist Arjun Appadurai to explain the complexities of contemporary global cultural flows.     

History and Singularity of Krav-Maga

Abstract

Krav-Maga (‘contact combat’) is an Israeli combat discipline practiced by thousands of individuals worldwide. During the past few decades, it has attracted a considerable amount of attention mainly as a self-defence system, although its origins are also rooted in sport. Despite the widespread popularity of Krav-Maga, its origins, history, and evolution have not been seriously examined in the academic literature, nor has its key role in promoting the use of reflex reactions in combat. This paper addresses these gaps in the literature while emphasizing the distinctive characteristics of Israeli combat disciplines. It also challenges popular misconceptions about the historical roots of Krav-Maga. Our research leads to three key conclusions: First, Israeli combat disciplines played a pioneering role in the use of situational awareness and reflex responses to an attack – in preference to a reliance on forms training. Second, contrary to commonly held beliefs, Krav-Maga is a direct development of Jewish hand-to-hand combat disciplines that can be traced back to 1891. Third, the development of Krav-Maga may be viewed as a reflection of historical and political events affecting the Jewish people from the late nineteenth century.     

‘Defnyddiwch y Gymraeg’1: community sport as a vehicle for encouraging the use of the Welsh language

Abstract

Despite cultural and statutory changes, including significant investment in Welsh medium education, latest census data show a drop in the percentage of Welsh speakers. Moreover there is a concern that many of those who are able to speak Welsh are not using it – the language is not ‘alive’. The Welsh Language Commissioner has identified sport as a space where Welsh can be used, encouraged and promoted. The aim of this study was to investigate whether community sport clubs can provide a space to encourage the use of Welsh. Using qualitative methods we found that strategies to promote Welsh in sports clubs are potentially divisive. The dominant and ‘operational’ language of many community sport clubs is English. Increasing the use of Welsh in these clubs risks excluding non-Welsh speakers, but ignoring the language denies Welsh speakers the opportunity to participate in Welsh.