In what way is sport and national identity linked?
Introduction
Nowadays, national identity has been highlighted through a significant part of culture, namely, sport (Bairner, 2008). According to Oxford Dictionaries, national identity is ‘A sense of a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture and language’. Particularly, it is a sense of belonging to a nation or state (Bairner, 2003) although there are controversial arguments on the concept. As Edensor (2007) point out, national performance produced in modern sport may be the most influential one.
There is an increasing number of literature on the relationship between sport and national identity. Kersting (2007) argues that both positive and negative nationalism could be influenced by sport events, including competitions as well as rituals. However, limited attention so far has been paid to the specific ways in which sport and nationalism is associated with each other. So, the purpose of this study is to explore and explain how sport is linked to national identity rest on documentary analysis.
The paper is structured as follows. The first section presents main factors contributing to the combination between sport and nationalism. The second part focuses on an analysis of five …show more content…
An overview of the reason why sport and nationalism are connected with each other has been provided first. Advanced technology (e.g. transportation, media, Internet) and the role of the government have a significant influence on this phenomenon. Then five ways of the link are explained one by one with examples. To put it briefly, sport helps to promote a ‘fee-good’ factor and bind the whole country together. In addition, national cultures and characteristics may benefit from sport rituals and sport teams respectively. The final point to stress is that certain sports are always associated with specific
Introduction
Nowadays, national identity has been highlighted through a significant part of culture, namely, sport (Bairner, 2008). According to Oxford Dictionaries, national identity is ‘A sense of a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture and language’. Particularly, it is a sense of belonging to a nation or state (Bairner, 2003) although there are controversial arguments on the concept. As Edensor (2007) point out, national performance produced in modern sport may be the most influential one.
There is an increasing number of literature on the relationship between sport and national identity. Kersting (2007) argues that both positive and negative nationalism could be influenced by sport events, including competitions as well as rituals. However, limited attention so far has been paid to the specific ways in which sport and nationalism is associated with each other. So, the purpose of this study is to explore and explain how sport is linked to national identity rest on documentary analysis.
The paper is structured as follows. The first section presents main factors contributing to the combination between sport and nationalism. The second part focuses on an analysis of five …show more content…
An overview of the reason why sport and nationalism are connected with each other has been provided first. Advanced technology (e.g. transportation, media, Internet) and the role of the government have a significant influence on this phenomenon. Then five ways of the link are explained one by one with examples. To put it briefly, sport helps to promote a ‘fee-good’ factor and bind the whole country together. In addition, national cultures and characteristics may benefit from sport rituals and sport teams respectively. The final point to stress is that certain sports are always associated with specific