Sport as an Anthropological Subject: From Ancient Spectacle to Modern Global Phenomenon
By
Niko Besnier
Hand-rolled, kettle-boiled, baked to perfection. Worth every minute at the bakery.
Summary
This academic encyclopedia entry examines sport through an anthropological lens, tracing its evolution from ancient activities to modern institutions shaped by industrial capitalism, colonialism, and neoliberal globalization. It argues that sport is a rich subject for anthropological analysis using ritual theory, exchange theory, feminist anthropology, and globalization studies, despite being historically neglected in the discipline. The article covers sport's relationship to political power, media technology, neocolonial relations, and structures of inequality.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledAll humans have probably engaged in sport-like activities since time immemorial, and today's sports events and massive infrastructures are simply the latest permutation of a relationship amongst sport, spectacle, and political power that harks back to antiquity.
Sports as we know them today are the product of a modernity that arose from the late eighteenth century at the juncture of civil society, industrial capitalism, muscular Christianity, and the colonial expansion of North Atlantic states.
Despite its neglect as an anthropological subject, sport under all its guises, from its effect on individual bodies to its spectacular manifestations in the rituals of mega-events, is a perfect object for an anthropological analysis.
Today, it is deeply intertwined with neoliberal capital, media technology, and neocolonial relations between the Global South and the Global North, as well as structures of inequality within nation-states in the Global North.
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