Sport, Identity and Ethnicity

by Jeremy MacClancy (Editor)

Sport is now a major industry -- and one of increasing importance throughout both the developed and developing world -- but, until now, it has received little serious attention from anthropologists. In this first general book on the anthropology of sport, the contributors look at how different sports are used by a wide variety of peoples to express, manipulate and negotiate their identities, and to challenge the way they are defined by others.Chapters the role played by football teams in colonial Zimbabwe to express locals' autonomy from their British rulers; - the evolution of one of Venice's central festive occasions -- its regatta -- from a ritual of state to a sport of the people; modern and postmodern transformations of polo in Pakistan, its original home- the resolution of problematic aspects of social life in Turkey through wrestling; - the manner by which Catalan nationalists successfully exploited the Barcelona Olympics for their own political ends; and- the controversy between anglers and anti-anglers in Britain. This pioneering volume will be of interest to anthropologists, sociologists, sport historians and all those interested in this popular subject.

203 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996