Sports and Naiveté

Abstract

This paper examines varieties of naiveté manifested in the world of sport. In particular, I examine epistemological, ethical, and metaphysical naiveté. My contention is that virtually from cradle to grave forms of naiveté toward sport are present. We are tempted and all too often succumb to the temptation to accept appearances. But the initial appearances of sport often disappoint, and the underlying reality that confronts us is sometimes a hard reality. Faced with disappointment and exposed illusions, one’s next step may be to adopt a hermeneutics of suspicion towards sport. There is no going back to the earlier naive stance. But is this the final word on the matter? Once one has adopted a critical perspective towards sport, is it possible to join the hermeneutics of suspicion to what Wendy Doniger refers to as a “hermeneutics of retrieval”? That is, after the first naiveté toward sport is exposed as inadequate, is it possible to arrive at what the philosopher Paul Ricoeur calls a “second naiveté” that allows one to appreciate, in a renewed and legitimate way, a phenomenon such as sport, subsequent to the loss of layers of innocence? In this paper I examine whether, in the case of sport, this can be done with integrity.     

Pelé, racial discourse and the 1958 World Cup

The aim of this essay is to map out the racial discourses of the 1950s, particularly those pertinent to the 1958 Soccer World Cup, in order to better understand the main ideas about race, which were in vogue at the time when Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pelé) became (inter)nationally famous as a great sports star. The essay argues that Pelé’s statements regarding race and race relations in Brazil were inherently based on the discourses prevalent among academics and Brazil’s black activists during the 1950s. Pelé’s professional asceticism and his belief in individualism, cultivated during his youth in the city of Bauru, were further reinforced by the racial discourses of the 1950s. These views led him to believe that any discrimination he might encounter due to his colour and class could be overcome with a disciplined and professional attitude. Today, this sort of ascetic view of the world has been accused by certain segments of Brazil’s black movements as being insufficient to overcome the supposedly irresolvable inequalities that exist between Brazil’s black and white populations. Pelé, however, has not changed his position regarding anti-black discrimination, choosing to continue to emphasize professionalism and discipline as the two most formidable tools in the fight against racial discrimination and inequality.     

Breaking bounds: Alice Profé, radical and emancipationist

Alice Prof was the first female sport physician in Germany and she influenced ideas on female bodies and female sports for more than 40 years. Her dream to become a doctor could be realized only in Switzerland because women were not admitted to universities in Prussia before 1908. After her examination and her PhD she established herself as one of the first female doctors in Berlin in 1905 and she worked there until her death in 1946 as general practitioner and medical specialist for pediatrics and sport medicine. As an expert on the female body she was active in many committees and organizations. Alice Prof worked her whole life for the improvement of the situation of girls and women. The focus of her work was physical education and sport and she was always active in different types of sports herself. Her first article on this topic was published in 1906. In the following years over and over again she 'took the floor' criticizing traditional stereotypes of women and the female body, demanding resources for the education of girls and women. Her efforts also helped to reduce anxieties about women in sport and to encourage women to participate in sport. In her articles and in her lectures she encouraged women to decide for themselves about their involvement in sport. She rejected all attempts to patronize female athletes and refused to accept their exclusion from many sports. Prof propagated ideas which were not popular and she never swam with the tide. In one obituary it is stated: 'you never changed your ideas about life for material rewards or professional advancement. You stayed yourself'. Her ideas are relevant even today.     

A ménage à trois: the eye, the hand and on-line processing

This review summarizes research conducted in our laboratories over the past 5 years aimed at determining the temporal and spatial relationships between eye and hand movements and the amount of central processing that must occur before performing a manual aiming movement, relative to the amount of processing that is done online. All of our research to date points to a two-component model of speed-accuracy control in manual aiming. Several studies have shown that eye and hand movements in manual aiming are inextricably linked both temporally and spatially. Typically, the eye arrives in the vicinity of the target first; this coincides with peak acceleration of the finger during the initial impulse phase of a movement. There is also significant temporal and spatial coupling of the finger, elbow and shoulder in aiming, and movements appear to evolve in a proximal-to-distal fashion. Movements are endpoint driven and variability is reduced with distal approximation to the target. This movement control strategy means that visual information is not only available for use in modifying responses, but there is sufficient time available for its use. In sequential complex aiming movements, the use of visual feedback and on-line processing become even more important. Practice does not diminish the need for on-line processing; rather, its use appears to ensure greater movement efficiency.     

A ménage À trois: the eye,the hand and on-line processing

This review summarizes research conducted in our laboratories over the past 5 years aimed at determining the temporal and spatial relationships between eye and hand movements and the amount of central processing that must occur before performing a manual aiming movement, relative to the amount of processing that is done online. All of our research to date points to a two-component model of speed-accuracy control in manual aiming. Several studies have shown that eye and hand movements in manual aiming are inextricably linked both temporally and spatially. Typically, the eye arrives in the vicinity of the target first; this coincides with peak acceleration of the finger during the initial impulse phase of a movement. There is also significant temporal and spatial coupling of the finger, elbow and shoulder in aiming, and movements appear to evolve in a proximal-to-distal fashion. Movements are endpoint driven and variability is reduced with distal approximation to the target. This movement control strategy means that visual information is not only available for use in modifying responses, but there is sufficient time available for its use. In sequential complex aiming movements, the use of visual feedback and on-line processing become even more important. Practice does not diminish the need for on-line processing; rather, its use appears to ensure greater movement efficiency.     

Legacy and legitimacy: historical ethnography of a judo dojo in Montréal,Canada

Through fieldwork in a judo dojo (gym) in Montréal, Canada, the author found that assuming the members’ practice as embodiment of identity does not resonate with the actual practice they are producing. Instead of framing the practice as identity politics, this study focuses on the practice itself to highlight agency and practice within the social conditions in transformation. By adapting a historical ethnographic approach, this paper describes how the past is connected to the present as ‘actant’ to produce present practice. The paper discusses that there is little momentum of the people pursuing ‘distinction’, and their emphasis is on the continuity of their practice. Drawing on the pragmatic sociological approach, this study further discusses how legacy and legitimacy are constructed to produce their practice.     

Rivalries: China,Japan and South Korea – Memory,Modernity, Politics,Geopolitics – and Sport

Sport is an effective modern means for revealing a country's political preoccupations and geopolitical concerns. For China, Japan and South Korea, the pre-eminent countries in the recent Asian Games, sport has become a sharp tool for promoting nationalism and national identity. There is a history of bitter rivalry between these countries, not least, due to Japan's occupation of Korea and the Second Sino-Japanese War, the largest Asian war in the twentieth century. Consequently, a prominent characteristic of Korean and Chinese nationalism is anti-Japanese antipathy. This essay examines China–Japan–Korea rivalry through global sports events hosted in Asia during the past decade cumulating in the Guangzhou Asian Games. Here, the focus is on the use of these events as manifestations of resentment and revenge arising out of historic rivalries. This use may well grow in intensity as these nations grow in wealth, confidence and power as the EAST ASIAN EPOCH comes closer. This essay is the first to draw attention to the tripartite politics of sport as confrontation in the region's past, present and future.     

Physical Education Students’ Ownership,Empowerment, and Satisfaction With PE and Physical Activity

Individuals experiencing a highly caring, task-involving, and low ego-involving exercise climate have reported greater ownership in exercise class and empowerment to exercise in general. Purpose: This study examined the relationship between ownership and empowerment in exercise, with 2 context-specific outcomes, satisfaction with physical education (PE) and physical activity, respectively. Given the mission of PE to foster individuals’ lifelong physical activity habit, the perceptions of high school students were collected for this study. Ownership in exercise was hypothesized to be significantly, positively correlated with students reporting satisfaction in PE more than their satisfaction in physical activity, whereas empowerment in exercise was hypothesized to be more strongly, positively correlated with students’ physical activity satisfaction. A second purpose of this study was to test the measurement quality of the updated Empowerment in Exercise Scale (EES; now 13 items). Method: High school students (N = 502, 43% female) in a Midwestern U.S. school district completed a survey. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis supported the internal measurement structure of the EES (λ = .62–.91; McDonald’s omega = .89) across student gender (strong invariance). Additionally, the structural equation modeling analysis revealed only 1 parameter moderated by the students’ gender (latent mean of ownership). The hypotheses were supported, such that ownership in exercise was more strongly correlated with PE satisfaction (r = .87) and empowerment in exercise had a stronger correlation with physical activity satisfaction (r = .92). Conclusion: These results support the beneficial effect a satisfying experience in PE can have on students’ satisfaction with physical activity outside of school.     

Cultural Imperialism,Nationalism, and the Modernization of Physical Education and Sport in China, 1840–1949

Abstract

This paper examines how missionary educational institutions and Young Men’s Christian Association physical education and sport programmes, in conjunction with the nation-building project of the Nationalist government, transformed and modernized physical education and sport in China from 1840 to 1937. The concepts of cultural imperialism and nationalism are central to this study, to understand how the two interacted in the process of the development of modern physical education and sports in China. This paper argues that the cultural imperialism model is ineffective for an understanding of the impact of missionaries on Chinese society and the subsequent transformation and indigenization of physical education and sport in modern China. More precisely, the way in which Chinese nationalism played an active role in resisting, selecting, and reshaping the cultural products (modern physical education and sport) evidences a process that was an active negotiation, rather than a passive consumption, of Western culture. This said, Christian physical education and sport programmes had long-lasting effects on how physical education and sports became the way to define ‘modern’ bodies as they were incorporated into the wider education programme of modernizing China under the Nationalist government.     

Chinese Desires? Olympism and Dominance,Guangzhou and Missed Opportunity,Major Leagues and Isolation on the Pacific Rim

Understanding the situation of China's self-promotion via Olympism requires us to connect two patterns. China is successful at Guangzhou and in Beijing Games at sponsoring and competing in Olympic-style sports festivals, but also surrounded by highly popular professional team sport leagues in baseball, rugby and cricket from Japan to India. China is successful in the promotion of its new capitalist economy but is critically short of energy sources and its aggressive diplomacy in pursuit of energy by land and sea has led to confrontations from Japan to Burma and even to the US ‘pivot’ to Asia. Review of theories of situation demonstrates that while a Debord-style spectacle theory might seem to explain the sporting spectacles and a realism in the tradition of Clausewitz might seem suited to the military situation, in fact approaches to situation combining realist and constructivist elements are stronger; a Deleuzian emphasis on will to power needs to be supplemented by Weberian attention to ends and ideas. Neither pattern explains the other; they connect. China makes history and its internal debates over state and middle class values can be tracked observing promotion of professional team sport in urban China and the scale of state sponsorship of Olympic-style games.     

Young people’s knowledge and understanding of health,fitness and physical activity: issues,divides and dilemmas

Critical discourse analysis was used to explore and discuss data on young people’s knowledge and understanding of health, fitness and physical activity, selected from a wider study which focused on the role of secondary schools in effectively promoting physical activity. A mixed methods approach was utilised, involving an online survey to teachers in all state secondary schools in the UK (n?=?603 responding schools) and case studies centred on eight randomly selected state secondary schools from nine Government regions across England. Within each case study school, teacher interviews and pupil focus groups were conducted involving 17 teachers and 132 children aged 12–15 years, respectively. The healthism discourse was evident in the way young people talked about health, fitness and physical activity and two key themes emerged, these being: (i) issues with young people’s knowledge and understanding of health, fitness and physical activity in the form of reductive, limited and limiting conceptions; conceptual confusion; a preoccupation with appearance, weight, fat, shape and size; limited progression in learning; and complexities in understandings; and (ii) divides between young people’s health knowledge and health behaviour, and dilemmas underpinning these divides. Improved understanding of issues with young people’s knowledge and understanding of health, fitness and physical activity and of divides and dilemmas regarding associated behaviours should assist in developing critical pedagogies which challenge the dominance and stability of the healthism discourse and more effectively promote healthy, active lifestyles amongst young people.     

A physiological,time–motion,and technical comparison of youth water polo and Acquagoal

Abstract

The aims of this study were to provide a profile of young water polo players and to compare technical and tactical aspects, movement patterns, and cardiac loads of youth water polo and Acquagoal codes. Ten young (age 12.3 years, s = 0.6) male water polo players underwent anthropometric (stature, body mass, body mass index, chest circumference, hand breadth, and length), strength, and [Vdot]O_2max evaluations. Friendly youth water polo and Acquagoal matches were arranged to evaluate heart rates and swimming patterns (horizontal and vertical, with and without the ball) of players, and technical and tactical aspects of matches (number of actions, passes, player involved in an action, lost possessions, shots, goals, and the origin and types of shot). Independent of code, matches imposed a high cardiac load on players. Vertical swimming occurred more frequently (P < 0.05) in Acquagoal (71%) than youth water polo (45%). Technical and tactical measures also differed (P < 0.05), with players performing more passes and shots inside the penalty area and showing a higher goal-to-shot ratio during youth water polo than during Acquagoal. These results indicate that youth water polo better resembles the swimming patterns of adult water polo and facilitates the technical and tactical aspects of play better than Acquagoal.     

Rattle Running,Dry Wrestling,and Boxing in … Opera,or Regional Sports and Games in the Historical and Cultural Tradition of Eastern Europe

Abstract

The article is a heartfelt plea to both Western and Eastern European sports historians to take full account of the rich sporting history of the eastern part of the continent of Europe. After describing how most of Eastern Europe fell under the domination of foreign empires, and how this lead to a disparaging attitude towards its peoples and cultures, the author specifically details how Western authors of both general cultural histories and sporting histories and encyclopaedias have ignored Eastern Europe to a quite astonishing extent. The author then goes on to argue that Eastern Europe has a sporting tradition which is at least as rich, if not richer than that of the West. To illustrate this, the phenomena of medieval Polish horse racing, Bulgarian dry wrestling, Russian folk pugilism, Polish religious games, and Asian-influenced archery are explained in some detail. It is hoped that these examples will inspire sports historians from all parts of Europe to tap the rich resources of the East, and to treat this part of Europe as central rather than peripheral to European cultural history.     

Native Americans,Puritans and ‘Brahmins’: genesis,practice and evolution of archaic and pre-modern football in Massachusetts

First, this paper will track the origins of archaic and pre-modern football in Massachusetts. It will then analyse the genesis and development of the Boston Game. Finally, it will provide an explanation why the pre-modern Boston Game/Harvard Game was abandoned by the students of Harvard University in favour of modern rugby.     

Experiencing risk,surveillance, and prosumption: health and physical education students’ perceptions of digitised health and physical activity data

ABSTRACT

Digital technologies are now considered important in shaping young people's engagement in and with health and physical activity. Recent discussions show that the use of digital technologies to track health and fitness may over-emphasize the linear understanding of the body and health generally underpinned by Western health ideologies such as healthism. Other studies have shown the increased use of digital technologies in teaching Health and Physical Education (HPE) and as a means to enhance health and increase physical activity. Despite the opportunities and risks apparent in these studies, little is known about how HPE students make choices, negotiate, and resist or embrace the digitalisation of physical activity, exercise, and more broadly health. This study examines HPE students’ meaning making of risk and surveillance associated with the self-digitisation of exercise. The study further investigates how the concept of ‘prosumption’; the production, curation and consumption of self-data within the context of digitised health and physical activity, is understood. Based on the findings, we have constructed a typology of prosumers that can be used as a pedagogical device to illustrate the various kinds of subject positions students take up with digital technology in health and physical activity. This study extends the current understanding of prosumers by identifying the ‘ambivalent prosumer’. The results provide insights that have direct pedagogical implications in HPE teacher education specifically in the areas of knowledge production and consumption of knowledge through digital technology in health and physical activity.     

Rhodesia and the Olympic Games: representations of masculinity,war and Empire, 1965–1980

White-settler-ruled Rhodesia faced isolation from international sporting competition after its unilateral declaration of independence in 1965, including from the Olympic Games. Sport reflected the qualities of white Rhodesian society, including its gendered and racialized norms. Rhodesia inherited its sporting ethic from Great Britain, and the British influence on Rhodesian sport remained indelible even as anti-British sentiment flared in the white community as Britain worked to exclude Rhodesia from international sport. This work highlights the irony that Rhodesia adhered to Imperial British social norms on the playing field while trying to assert an independent and anti-British national identity.