First, if you are one of those anthropologists who do not watch television then this is not the blog for you. Second, if you are one of those anthropologists who doesn’t appreciate sport, particularly the beautiful game, then this is definitely not the blog for you. Lastly, if the 2010 FIFA World Cup has you a little giddy and waking up at odd hours or arranging your work schedule to watch 32 teams battle for global glory then read on and hopefully enjoy some of the thoughts I have had as a soccer fan and anthropologist about this event, particularly over the past 6 years since South Africa won the bid for this year’s tournament. Over the next couple of weeks the Savage Minds consortium has been kind enough to let me blog on the event. I will have a few scattershot comments below but in the next few posts I will address some threads of possible interest to anthropologists. So far, the games have been entertaining one week in and will become more intense deeper into the tournament.
The World Cup is THE global sporting event despite claims in the United States to a ‘world series’ or a ‘super bowl’, nothing compares to the unifying aspects of 32 nation states vying for the championship every four years. As one commentary noted this past week, nothing speaks to the belief in American exceptionalism and unilateralism more than the mass ignorance toward the global impact of soccer. Work stops in many parts of the world during games, particularly in those countries playing at that moment, except for the United States. The ongoing debate in the United States media is whether or not one should or should not like soccer. The debate is over.
Thankfully, there are more children in the United States playing soccer now than football so in 12 years the US national team will be in the top tier of FIFA consistently and a threat at that particular world cup. (Yes, I’m calling it now) I was one of those kids who ended up in the sport via my first team as a child in El Paso, Texas known as the Sand Sharks. Growing up in Texas you play football…the American version. If you have not reveled in the guilty pleasure of Varsity Blues or read the excellent book Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger, then this may be another aspect of culture and sport not well known. One plays football until they are no longer large enough to not get the wind knocked out of them every other play, not that I’m speaking from personal experience necessarily. So, the fact that soccer is not the standby sport but is primary now for many youth speaks to the opportunity for a more global connection.
Still, in many different media outlets from print, to web to television the story line has been one of fascination with the fervor of fans from different countries, and then pondering why there is not the same fan base in the United States. The good and the bad: the National Public Radio blog ‘show me your cleats’ and their general coverage has been more complex than most. Other news outlets relish in the bewilderment of why so many people pay attention to the games throughout the world. Unfortunately, almost all media coverage has bought into criticisms of the vuvuzela horn, the principal fan device of South African soccer fans. When I lived in Durban about one mile from the stadium complex you could hear the buzzing wafting up the hillsides from games. I grew to love its deafening noise and the festive environment of club soccer in South Africa as well. It also showed one of many windows into racialization processes in the country.
When one attended games at the old stadium in Durban where soccer was played that was next door to the state of the art facility where the local rugby team played, it brought home the racial politics of sport in South Africa. Through the built environment one could sense the hangovers of apartheid. Rugby is the white sport and soccer is the black sport. The movie Invictus and ESPN commercials about soccer and Robben Island prisoners have demonstrated that dichotomy. There is a chance now that soccer will have equal standing in South Africa right beside rugby and cricket, the game that marks former colonies more than any other.
The ramp up to the world cup presented much speculation about South Africa as well. There was an ongoing discussion that FIFA would pull the tournament because the stadiums would not be completed. Many discussed the fear of crime and the possible consequences of attending matches in South Africa. Many of my colleagues have been studying the impact of the World Cup on housing and other economic issues in the country. While one can celebrate as a fan, one must also realize how the World Cup elides many socioeconomic issues in South Africa as elsewhere. And, there has been constant speculation as to whether or not South Africa would be able to pull it off. One week in and things are going quite smoothly, and I do not recall in all of my years of watching soccer any of the same discussions about other World Cup venues. It is not a coincidence that these dilemmas only take place when considering this is the first global sporting event of this magnitude on the African continent.
So, beyond being simply a fan of soccer and the media spectacle and marketing of ethnicity and nationalism that occurs alongside it, why should anthropologists care about the World Cup? It is a way to talk about globalization. There are a slew of books out there that do a fairly decent job of this including How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer and Globalization and Football by Richard Giullanotti and Roland Robertson. Both books add a popular culture approach to discussions of globalization and serve as good counterpoints and/or accompaniments to any discussion of globalization and anthropology. Whereas the primary way that globalization is usually discussed is through a fascination with speed, commerce and other macro movements, soccer enables a focus on the articulation between the global and the local and other cultural aspects that serve as excellent fodder for the classroom. As media anthropologists the possibilities of analysis are endless. One thing is true across the board as commented on by David Brooks, watching soccer is simply agony and every fan knows this no matter where they are located in the world so you may feel my personal strife which goes with how the US and Mexico fare. Favorite game so far: Serbia vs. Germany.
Next post I will talk about the World Cup pulling on Global Shadows by James Ferguson and Ethnicity, Inc. by Jean and John Comaroff. In the meantime, if you have the chance, check out the spectacle that is the Budweiser United nationalist play on Big Brother via YouTube. It takes Benedict Anderson to another level. And, no place exposes bias more than the several Twitter feeds on the tournament where passion, nationalism and ethnicity expose themselves. I will be talking about this and other commercials and marketing from an anthropological vantage too. And, of course, I will have to have some further commentary on the sweet sounds of the vuvuzela and what makes the World Cup in 2010 a uniquely African experience.
Nice kick-off, Matthew. I look forward to reading future instalments.
Do you have any thoughts on why Americans, for the most part, just don’t seem to get into soccer? I was listening to the radio and one commentator was talking about this. He was an Englishman living in the US, and talked about how much it drove Brits crazy when we used terms like soccer, field, coach, and the like. He said that his father hated basketball, because it seemed to be the anti-soccer. The fact that every few seconds a point could be scored was a savage way to play a game. For me, it’s the opposite. I feel like any game that can take an hour before a point is scored is crazy.
Do you have any ideas on how this is an expression of the wider cultures involved?
“Football” or “soccer”?
Americans may not be into football (soccer) but according to ticket sales there are more Americans here than any other nation. Meanwhile, went to watch the Ghana/Australia game yesterday and in true S’african fashion I have to bash those Aussies for throwing beer bottles onto the field! Not madly into the beautiful game but have been gripped by soccer fever…despite Fifa! Here’s to hoping that Bafana Bafana can beat France 6-0, our only chance to progress to the next round…maybe the next post should be about wildly optimistic South African supporters.
On the more serious side, I found myself in London in the months preceding kick-off…according to both tabloid and mainstream media, coming to SA would mean that you would be raped, murdered and pillaged as soon as you step onto our soil, you would be in imminent danger of an earthquake and stories in this ilk. And then of course for those watching at home in the UK the vuvuzela is the new pet hate, since SA haven’t screwed up anything too badly… Of course sitting in the game yesterday the Aussies were blowing into the vuvuzela as often and as loudly as the rest of the stadium…
Excellent post–and I rarely watch television (pretty much only the Daily Show) and I am a sports illiterate. But anthropologists enjoy learning about the cultural connections of anything and everything. So keep bringing it on!
I have been watching the World Cup with my girlfriend this week and during the set up for a corner kick I was saying to her that one thing Americans tend to miss about football is that opportunities are exciting/nerve-wracking in and of themselves. Her hypothesis was that Americans just don’t appreciate process very much.
If I may snark, English hooliganism provides a window into class issues and as displays of passion go it puts those noise makers to shame. The limits of relativism are decided on an individual basis, I suppose…
I find the culture talk swirling around the vuvuzela pretty interesting. There seems to be quite an effort to impute an indigenous origin to it and to give the tradition as much time depth as possible. As a Southerner it kind of reminds me of bluegrass, which people listen to when they want to experience the timeless and the essential. All despite the fact that there was no such thing as bluegrass music prior to the late 1930s at the very earliest.
“Her hypothesis was that Americans just don’t appreciate process very much.”
I don’t know, we’ve got baseball and that consists of a lot of strategic process with periodic moments to amazing teamwork play. And, recently MMA has become very big here yet most of a match involves two guys on the ground putting each other in holds for long periods of time in very strategic ways. I should note that I hate watching both of them. So, perhaps there’s also a personality thing going on, and the fact that until recently we didn’t grow up playing it.
Mind you I love to play soccer (I was the goalie growing up) but I can’t stand to watch it. They need to cut about 1/3 of the field out and put the goals closer to each other.
My wife said that she needed to learn about sports just enough to be able to be included in conversations at work. That’s a brilliant idea that I’ve never been able to do. Perhaps, we should learn enough names and current events in sports to help build rapport.
“Aussies were blowing into the vuvuzela as often and as loudly as the rest of the stadium…”
I do love Aussies, some of my favorite people. I love that when they get drunk they cease speaking English, yet they still understand each other.
“If I may snark, English hooliganism provides a window into class issues and as displays of passion go it puts those noise makers to shame.”
Current TV did a special on English vigilantism recently. People are forming gangs to kill drug dealers and protect their neighborhoods.
Hi Dylan…I’m guessing “Football” or “Soccer” may be a query about what the game should be called? How about this one…I often hear American Football referred to as ‘gridiron’ as opposed to rugby or futbol/soccer.
I definitely agree with that MT…my first Arsenal game vs. Man United was a pretty big window into hooliganism…some great work has been done on hooligans as well. I once saw someone give a paper linking English Hooligans and soccer all the way back to Paul Willis.
Poor Bafana Bafana Ingrid…more like Imfana Imfana recently. They wouldn’t even be in if South Africa was not the host country and I fear they may not make it out of the first round. You hit a very important point that I am going to document a bit next post about all of the media fear over the last few years leading up to the World Cup and how some were using the attention on crime via the World Cup as a way to forward different agendas in South Africa as well. Since there is nothing to complain about as far as the tournament goes perhaps the displacement onto the vuvuzela is a good thing?!?
Rick…I think you make a really good point about basketball vs. soccer, particularly in terms of pace of game. As to your last question…listen to the commentary during the games (if you can watch a whole game of 0-0!), many of the sportscasters will fall back on tendencies of players and teams reflecting a particular national attitude or trend…this is always the case when Brazil plays.
Matt’s a bawler, ferreal….
I think this sometimes slips by casual viewers in the US because the stereotypes don’t necessarily line up with those held in the States, where, for example, English tends to imply ‘refined and/or effete’ rather than ‘physical to the point of borderline dirty.’ The “players from the Americas have good technique, players from Europe are athletic” stereotype is also counter-intuitive to most sports fans in the States.
I’m surprised we haven’t brought in Geertz and Deep Play into the conversation here. I think the concept of Deep Play is likely to be very relevant here. The playing of a sport is one thing, but the vicarious, collective spectating of other playing a sport is quite another.
I never watch soccer, bloody boring to me, but I’ll watch a match between the UK and the US any day. I’ll want to do it with others, and not alone. Sport spectating is a social phenomenon. The World Cup is also important in developing local and national identities.
Rick! Stay tuned. I am bringing Geertz in a couple of posts down the road and relating it to my research in Botswana.
I think it’s still safe to say the majority of professional athletes come from working class and lower middle class backgrounds. Soccer is a poor man’s sport in every country in the world but this one, where like most imports it has snob appeal. A Cypriot cafe manager told me he’d realized the weakness of the American squad: they’re all suburban kids. “Harvard plays soccer.” Desperation can puts a fire under your ass; the old professional/ amateur divide.
But soccer is growing. The latinization of el norte is helping too.
I’ve heard a few references to the second Mexican victory over the French. The first being 1867.
Also the class division between team and individual sports. Country club sports: tennis and golf.
But soccer crosses class lines in its audience. There’s a glamour to it. A lot of European clubs are vanity operations that lose money and have for a long time. But owning a club has cachet.
Hard to imagine in the US.