University of Turku Faculty of Humanities Baltic Sea Region ... - Doria

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played” like rules and regulations, and “the notable exploits of athletes.” 6 It is not until
the end of the devastating epoch of the two consecutive world wars, the contemporary
historians started to pay more attention to the intersection of sports and history, memory,
national identity, politics, economy, and culture. 7
Despite the gradual recognition of the importance of the domain of sports in
different streams of social and political sciences, humanities and cultural studies, the
selection of sports related themes is still primarily made by those scholars, who have also
happened to be great enthusiasts of sports games and other physical culture activities. 8
Certainly, being a self-confessed sports nut will not automatically reduce the academic
significance of research. Yet, the greatest task of any scholar, who works with the less
fashionable topics of social inquiry like sports, is to convince the contemporary academic
community to take sports matters more seriously in their social analysis of change. As
Jeffrey Hill (2003) correctly observed:
“[s]port is perceived as something reflecting or illustrating other historical
processes. But what is lacking in this emphasis is any sense of sports being in
itself something capable of exerting social and cultural influence; of being a
process, a language, a system of meaning through which we know the world.” 9
In fact, sports has the capability to create and renegotiate identities and histories,
convey and transform ideological meanings, cross and expand borders, reproduce and
foster new forms of political, cultural, and economic interactions. Hence, it is with this
acknowledgment and admiration of these important attributes that I am compelled to
further the debate on the role of sports in the age of globalization. Ultimately, I believe
that studying sports is critically important to broadening the range of cross-disciplinary
methods and the theoretical approaches we use in the fields of Contemporary History,
International Relations and Nationalism Studies to achieve a greater understanding of the
ways that people and nations interact and perceive their respective identities and interests.
6 Allen Guttmann, “Sport, Politics and the Engaged Historian.” Journal of Contemporary History. 38.3 (Jul.
2003): 363. Sage Journals. 10 Mar. 2013.
7 Guttmann, Sport, Politics 363.
8 Many notable scholars of the history of sports had long-times careers related to sports. For instance, one of
the most notable historians of Soviet sports James Riordan had a successful career in soccer. While another
important historian of spectator sports in the Soviet Union, Robert Edelman, a self-confessed “sport nut”,
was a professional sports writer for many years to come.
9 Jeffrey Hill, “Introduction: Sport and Politics.” Journal of Contemporary History. 38.3 (Jul. 2003): 361.
Sage journals. Web. 10 Mar. 2013.