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Sport and Society
Global Games
Why is soccer the sport of choice in South America while baseball soared to popularity in the Caribbean? How did cricket become India's national sport? Why is China a stronghold of table tennis? Maarten Van Bottenburg asserts that a hidden competition of social and international relations, rather than the particular qualities of a given sport, explains who plays what sport and why. Looking at Britain, Germany, the United States, and Japan, Van Bottenburg discusses how individual sports developed, what institutions and groups spread them to other nations, and why certain sports and not others found an international audience. As he shows, the nature of the relationship between the country of origin and the adopting country help determine how successfully a sport takes hold and to what degree new practitioners modify it. Other key factors include which groups dominated and promoted the various sports in their countries of origin, which groups appropriated them elsewhere, and the latter's positions within their society's class structure.
296 pages, Hardcover
First published August 15, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 16, 2014
Maarten van Bottenburg’s work Global Games is predicated on the notion that any analysis of the diffusion of international sport must be founded on an examination of the social relationships involved with each particular sport, as well as its culturally constructed context. The author argues that, in general, our sports preferences are not a product of individual will or personal tastes, but “of people’s experiences in certain social conditions and relations within social groups whose history stretches back for many generations”. In other words, individuals do not choose particular sports, but instead makes decisions (consciously or otherwise) about the types of people that they want to be with and gravitate towards the associated sports.
Bottenburg begins with a chapter laying out definitions that borrow Allen Guttmann’s theories on the modernization of sport, but focus on the element of “standardization” as being the driving force. Accepting the idea of modern sport as emerging in 19th century Britain, the author sees standardization as deriving from an upper-class English desire for organization and sports associations, one that quickly travels abroad with its hosts. Upper-class individuals in international societies, seeking to emulate the British way of life and benefit from modernization, absorb the qualities of English leisure activities as well. International organizations are born from the need to determine records and champions, which is only possible when sports are standardized.
The second chapter begins with a discussion of the methodological problems in describing the abstract notion of the “popularity” of a sport in any given place. After outlining his methods, Bottenburg examines a large variety of explanations that have been conjectured previously, and dismisses them all as insufficient or erroneous. He then introduces his own theory wherein a sport’s social context is the most important factor in individual (and, by extension, national) preferences. As a nation’s population becomes better-off as a whole, sports of a higher social status are pursued by ever-greater numbers of individuals and, as a consequence, eventually decline in social status. At this point, the upper-class seeks sports that are more exclusive. From this, the author lists the factors of any sport’s popularity in a particular nation as being: the adherent’s social background and their relationship to other social groups, the relations between adherent’s country and those that adopt it, and the social background and relationships of those in the adopting country.
Bottenburg argues sports originated in key metropoles and spread into the periphery as these centers began to influence other nations over the course of modernization. Beginning in the third chapter, his argument is that most of the “global sports” of today originate from four countries: Britain, Germany, the United States, and Japan. In the remainder of his work, the author explains how particular sports emerged in each of these countries, and with what social connotations, and how these patterns were repeated in peripheral nations based on the level of influence they had and the overall relationship between the metropole and the periphery.
Bottenburg’s theory does not claim the ability to explain the popularity of any particular sport in a given country on its social perception alone and, indeed, most of his examples introduce other variables that help explain developments in personal leisure. The author insists that any analysis must be supplemented with other considerations and that his intent is to “identify certain pivotal issues and generate crucial questions” rather than provide detailed explanations of any culture. This sometimes leads his work to read more like an eclectic collection of explanations rather than a coherent and broadly applicable theory, but the analysis is always founded, to some degree, in an examination of the sport’s social construction and relationship to both the diffusor and the recipient. The scope of Bottenburg’s work is broad, which on occasion leads to generalizations and concerns that are too easily and conveniently swept under the rug. For example, his focus on modern sports forces him to consider certain activities such as wrestling, chess, and even motor sports as being of unclear origins, and removing them from his study makes his four major “origin” nations seem to stand out even more. It leaves one wondering whether a more rigorous study of their beginnings would have affected his four nation model, or even the conception of modern sport having emanated from Britain. It also explicitly removes human agency from the picture, arguing that individual decisions are always informed, at some level, by the sport’s social context (although it should be noted that his definition of “sport” only refers to modern, organized varieties). Nonetheless, Global Games stands out as a rare example of a work that provides a coherent structure for explaining the diffusion of international sport and, as such, is essentially reading for any serious scholar of sport.
Bottenburg begins with a chapter laying out definitions that borrow Allen Guttmann’s theories on the modernization of sport, but focus on the element of “standardization” as being the driving force. Accepting the idea of modern sport as emerging in 19th century Britain, the author sees standardization as deriving from an upper-class English desire for organization and sports associations, one that quickly travels abroad with its hosts. Upper-class individuals in international societies, seeking to emulate the British way of life and benefit from modernization, absorb the qualities of English leisure activities as well. International organizations are born from the need to determine records and champions, which is only possible when sports are standardized.
The second chapter begins with a discussion of the methodological problems in describing the abstract notion of the “popularity” of a sport in any given place. After outlining his methods, Bottenburg examines a large variety of explanations that have been conjectured previously, and dismisses them all as insufficient or erroneous. He then introduces his own theory wherein a sport’s social context is the most important factor in individual (and, by extension, national) preferences. As a nation’s population becomes better-off as a whole, sports of a higher social status are pursued by ever-greater numbers of individuals and, as a consequence, eventually decline in social status. At this point, the upper-class seeks sports that are more exclusive. From this, the author lists the factors of any sport’s popularity in a particular nation as being: the adherent’s social background and their relationship to other social groups, the relations between adherent’s country and those that adopt it, and the social background and relationships of those in the adopting country.
Bottenburg argues sports originated in key metropoles and spread into the periphery as these centers began to influence other nations over the course of modernization. Beginning in the third chapter, his argument is that most of the “global sports” of today originate from four countries: Britain, Germany, the United States, and Japan. In the remainder of his work, the author explains how particular sports emerged in each of these countries, and with what social connotations, and how these patterns were repeated in peripheral nations based on the level of influence they had and the overall relationship between the metropole and the periphery.
Bottenburg’s theory does not claim the ability to explain the popularity of any particular sport in a given country on its social perception alone and, indeed, most of his examples introduce other variables that help explain developments in personal leisure. The author insists that any analysis must be supplemented with other considerations and that his intent is to “identify certain pivotal issues and generate crucial questions” rather than provide detailed explanations of any culture. This sometimes leads his work to read more like an eclectic collection of explanations rather than a coherent and broadly applicable theory, but the analysis is always founded, to some degree, in an examination of the sport’s social construction and relationship to both the diffusor and the recipient. The scope of Bottenburg’s work is broad, which on occasion leads to generalizations and concerns that are too easily and conveniently swept under the rug. For example, his focus on modern sports forces him to consider certain activities such as wrestling, chess, and even motor sports as being of unclear origins, and removing them from his study makes his four major “origin” nations seem to stand out even more. It leaves one wondering whether a more rigorous study of their beginnings would have affected his four nation model, or even the conception of modern sport having emanated from Britain. It also explicitly removes human agency from the picture, arguing that individual decisions are always informed, at some level, by the sport’s social context (although it should be noted that his definition of “sport” only refers to modern, organized varieties). Nonetheless, Global Games stands out as a rare example of a work that provides a coherent structure for explaining the diffusion of international sport and, as such, is essentially reading for any serious scholar of sport.
July 22, 2011
Good book written from a heavily European vantage.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews