Sport in Transition: Emerging Trends on Culture Change in the Anthropology of Sport

Abstract

Historically, within anthropology, sport has been perceived as an inconsequential form of entertainment spectacle, seemingly at variance with, and secondary to, broader political and social discourses. An analysis of these four works, however, provides an opportunity to explore shifting representations surrounding issues of culture change and identity production within the anthropology of sport, with an emphasis on three inter-related themes:1. theories and methodologies for representing the intersections between culture change and sport; 2. historical shifts in modes of representation and writing within anthropological sports studies, and 3. representations of identities within sport.

Olympic Effort

“…Contemporary athletics, though often in less blatant terms, still operate as sites of racial, gender, and ability construction that empower one type of person over another. The growth of organized sport around the world, in terms of participation, coverage, and popularity makes sport one of the most prominent, pervasive, and important cultural institutions (McGarry, 2010). Advertising endorsements and multimedia platforms amplify the athlete even outside the sporting arena that provides normative markers well beyond athletics (Mocarski & Billings, 2014).…”

‘I'd rather wear out than rust out’: autobiologies of ageing equestriennes

“…In its broadest sense, the anthropology of sport involves the application of the perspectives of anthropology to the study of sport (Blanchard 2002; Sands 1999). 2 Although sport occupies a rather tenuous position in anthropology (Bolin and Granskog 2003 a ; Dyck 2004; King 2004; McGarry 2010; Sands 1999), sport may be viewed as a window into culture (Blanchard 2002: 149), a mirror of society (Dyck and Archetti 2003: 3, 18), a blueprint for valued behaviours (Sands 1999: 3), as well as a situated, distinctive, ubiquitous presence on everyday life (Dyck and Archetti 2003: 3) or feature of culture (Blanchard 2002: 145; Harris and Park 1983) of interest in its own right (Lithman 2004). Sport is of interest in terms of meaning systems (Palmer 2002), identity negotiation – as in the formation or fashioning of individual and collective selves (Dyck and Archetti 2003; McGarry 2010) – and as a form of physical exertion (Blanchard 2002), as embodiment or techniques and aesthetics of the body (Bolin and Granskog 2003 a ; Dyck and Archetti 2003; Eichberg 1995; Lithman 2004).…”

“…Sport is of interest in terms of meaning systems (Palmer 2002), identity negotiation – as in the formation or fashioning of individual and collective selves (Dyck and Archetti 2003; McGarry 2010) – and as a form of physical exertion (Blanchard 2002), as embodiment or techniques and aesthetics of the body (Bolin and Granskog 2003 a ; Dyck and Archetti 2003; Eichberg 1995; Lithman 2004). Not only is sport implicated in culture change (Giuliannotti and Robertson 2007) and the reworking of national, class, ethnic, gender and personal identities (Dyck and Archetti 2003), but it is also amenable to the study of shifts in modes of representation on behalf of both populations studied (McGarry 2010) and those studying them (Dyck 2010; Lithman 2004; Palmer 2001).…”

“…In this paper we focus on ‘autobiologies’ of ageing experienced and expressed among a sample of women who participate in different types of equestrian sports. Our presentation features an analysis of narrative data as situated within and informed by a combination of literature that includes the anthropology of sport (Blanchard 2002; Bourdieu 1978; Dyck 2004; Dyck and Archetti 2003; McGarry 2010; Palmer 2002), and the more sociological literatures on women and sports (Larsson 2013; McDermott 1996), as well as ageing and sports participation (Dionigi 2006; Grant 2001; Partington et al . 2005; Pfister 2012; Phoenix and Sparkes 2007; Tulle 2008; Vertinsky and Cousins 2007).…”

Introduction

“…Thus, there are a host of academic studies published on the topic of sport in its different forms. Usually, such accounts take a sociological perspective (Hargreaves & McDonald, 2000;Guilianotti, 2005;Spaaij, 2011) or an anthropological one (Blanchard & Cheska, 1985;Sands, 2002;McGarry, 2010;Besnier et al, 2018), but there are also a fair share of studies focusing on linguistic issues, e.g. Ferguson (1983), Seagrave et al 2006 A similar development can be noted within the realm of adventure tourism.…”