Comments on: Sports and Identity http://savageminds.org/2007/08/07/sports-and-identity/ Notes and Queries in Anthropology — A Group Blog Fri, 25 May 2012 02:33:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Fuji http://savageminds.org/2007/08/07/sports-and-identity/comment-page-1/#comment-110099 Fuji Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:43:31 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/08/07/sports-and-identity/#comment-110099 Thanks Jason Baird Jackson for pointing out the exhibitions; I'll check them out! Kristjan Por, I'm sorry that I'm linguistically challenged; I'll have some friends look at your post from your blog so that I can respond! Re Strong: The issue of working out also started me thinking about doing work in sports issues -- in 1993, in a small northern Guangdong city, I was amazed at seeing "health clubs" surrounded by an environment where people were using their bodies to the breaking point on farms and factories - this said something to me about postsocialist China, and how the market/globalization was impacting society there. Laura Spielvogel has a good ethnography on health clubs - <i>Working Out in Japan</i>, Duke University Press 2003. Yes, Elias does have something to say about games and contests from antiquity - a la Durkheim, he makes a sharp definition break to distinguish "primitive" (my words, not his) from modern. Not sure about the definitional violence going on here, but it helps analytically to distinguish the stuff we call modern sports from games and contests. Definitions are a problem - the question of "what is a sport" is how I start my classes on the subject. Why is race car driving a sport? Tennis is a sport, but is golf? Croquet? Chess and Go? Poker? Competitive eating and spelling bees? Some of my students subscribe to the definition "if it's on ESPN then it's a sport," but they forget the E for entertainment in ESPN. I think the "bodily agonistic competition" definition places good limits, I think. Thanks Jason Baird Jackson for pointing out the exhibitions; I’ll check them out! Kristjan Por, I’m sorry that I’m linguistically challenged; I’ll have some friends look at your post from your blog so that I can respond!
Re Strong: The issue of working out also started me thinking about doing work in sports issues — in 1993, in a small northern Guangdong city, I was amazed at seeing “health clubs” surrounded by an environment where people were using their bodies to the breaking point on farms and factories – this said something to me about postsocialist China, and how the market/globalization was impacting society there. Laura Spielvogel has a good ethnography on health clubs – Working Out in Japan, Duke University Press 2003.
Yes, Elias does have something to say about games and contests from antiquity – a la Durkheim, he makes a sharp definition break to distinguish “primitive” (my words, not his) from modern. Not sure about the definitional violence going on here, but it helps analytically to distinguish the stuff we call modern sports from games and contests. Definitions are a problem – the question of “what is a sport” is how I start my classes on the subject. Why is race car driving a sport? Tennis is a sport, but is golf? Croquet? Chess and Go? Poker? Competitive eating and spelling bees? Some of my students subscribe to the definition “if it’s on ESPN then it’s a sport,” but they forget the E for entertainment in ESPN. I think the “bodily agonistic competition” definition places good limits, I think.

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]]> By: Strong http://savageminds.org/2007/08/07/sports-and-identity/comment-page-1/#comment-110038 Strong Wed, 08 Aug 2007 08:10:27 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/08/07/sports-and-identity/#comment-110038 The argument about modernity and sports is pretty interesting. I often think how bizarre modern society is at the gym, where in great florescently-lit rooms, people slavishly run on treadmills. We have created societies in which people are so alienated from their own bodies (because of machines) that we build machines to (re)connect them to their bodies. Regarding modernity and sport, do we know what Elias says about ancient Greece or the sporting contests of antiquity? They would seem to prefigure modern sports quite explicitly, e.g. the Olympics. The argument about modernity and sports is pretty interesting. I often think how bizarre modern society is at the gym, where in great florescently-lit rooms, people slavishly run on treadmills. We have created societies in which people are so alienated from their own bodies (because of machines) that we build machines to (re)connect them to their bodies.

Regarding modernity and sport, do we know what Elias says about ancient Greece or the sporting contests of antiquity? They would seem to prefigure modern sports quite explicitly, e.g. the Olympics.

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]]> By: Í dag: fótbolti « Kristján Þór http://savageminds.org/2007/08/07/sports-and-identity/comment-page-1/#comment-110004 Í dag: fótbolti « Kristján Þór Wed, 08 Aug 2007 02:59:33 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/08/07/sports-and-identity/#comment-110004 [...] Fór á HM götubolta á Ráðhústorginu. Sá m.a. Portugal vinna Brasílíu, Líberíu vinna Finnland, Mexíkó vinna Tékka og Úkraínu bursta Chíle. Það voru fjórir leikmenn (af báðum kynjum) með markmanni og hvor hálfleikur var korter. Það var stórskemmtilegt að horfa á þetta og var mikil stemming meðal áhorfenda þangað til að skyndilegt skýfall fældi marga í skjól. Írak vann Sádí Araba í úrslitaleiknum um Asíubikarinn og varð allt vitlaust í Írak - á jákvæðan hátt, í smá stund. Á blaðamannafundi eftir leikinn sagði fyrirliði Íraka að hann óskaði þess að Bandaríkjamenn hefði aldrei ráðist ínn í landið og að hann vildi að þeir færu sem fyrst. Pólitík, sjálfsmyndir og fótbolti. [...] [...] Fór á HM götubolta á Ráðhústorginu. Sá m.a. Portugal vinna Brasílíu, Líberíu vinna Finnland, Mexíkó vinna Tékka og Úkraínu bursta Chíle. Það voru fjórir leikmenn (af báðum kynjum) með markmanni og hvor hálfleikur var korter. Það var stórskemmtilegt að horfa á þetta og var mikil stemming meðal áhorfenda þangað til að skyndilegt skýfall fældi marga í skjól. Írak vann Sádí Araba í úrslitaleiknum um Asíubikarinn og varð allt vitlaust í Írak – á jákvæðan hátt, í smá stund. Á blaðamannafundi eftir leikinn sagði fyrirliði Íraka að hann óskaði þess að Bandaríkjamenn hefði aldrei ráðist ínn í landið og að hann vildi að þeir færu sem fyrst. Pólitík, sjálfsmyndir og fótbolti. [...]

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]]> By: Jason Baird Jackson http://savageminds.org/2007/08/07/sports-and-identity/comment-page-1/#comment-109939 Jason Baird Jackson Tue, 07 Aug 2007 17:57:39 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/08/07/sports-and-identity/#comment-109939 FYI: Some recent museum anthropology projects related to the ethnology of sport include last year's football exhibition at the Museum für Völkerkunde in Hamburg ("Fascination Football" (a World Cup tie-in event) and the upcoming exhibition on rugby ("The Scrum of Cultures") at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. A Google search on the later exhibition title will turn up the press materials. The English language version of the catalogue for the Hamburg show can be found in Open WorldCat. FYI: Some recent museum anthropology projects related to the ethnology of sport include last year’s football exhibition at the Museum für Völkerkunde in Hamburg (“Fascination Football” (a World Cup tie-in event) and the upcoming exhibition on rugby (“The Scrum of Cultures”) at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. A Google search on the later exhibition title will turn up the press materials. The English language version of the catalogue for the Hamburg show can be found in Open WorldCat.

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