Global sport, nationalism and national identity construction: the case of naturalised Chinese table tennis players in South Korea

The purpose of this research is to analyse the process of South Korean nationalism and national identity construction through studying Chinese table tennis players that have become naturalised citizens of South Korea. Based on an Eliasian theoretical and methodological prospective, this research employs three different methods of analysis. First, it employs archival analysis in the historical context chapter to determine the origins of table tennis and its spread to Northeast Asia, the political and societal role of table tennis in China and South Korea, and the appearance of the first naturalised player in South Korea. Second, this study employs newspaper text analysis to investigate newspaper reports of the South Korean and Chinese table tennis matches from the 1988 Seoul Olympics Games to the 2012 Games in London. This section first examines the flow of Korean nationalism through the table tennis matches between Korea and China, and then explores how the newspaper reports expressed nationalism in regard to the Korean players and naturalised players. Third, this study employs an interview method to gather data from 17 interviewees who have been associated directly or indirectly associated with the Chinese naturalised table tennis players in order to further examine the process of the formation of South Korean national identity. The first analysis regarding historical findings identifies that table tennis has evolved precisely alongside Elias s sportisation theory. In South Korea and China, table tennis has played the role of a national sport. Especially in South Korea, table tennis was a nationalistic sport that opposed anti-colonialism and anti-communism. It was in table tennis that the first naturalised athlete in the history of South Korean sport was selected for the Olympics. In the second analysis, through examining news reports of the Olympic table tennis matches between China and South Korea, this research identifies that South Korean newspapers continue to generate a strong image of nationalism. Moreover, the newspaper reports do not use the same nationalistic sentiments and personal pronouns for South Korean players and naturalised players. Finally, the interview analysis investigates the formation of South Korean identity through the naturalised table tennis players in South Korea. Three national identities groups have arisen in South Korea in response to the emergence of naturalised athletes. The first group approves of globalisation and naturalisation. The second group opposes globalisation and naturalisation. The third group, which comprises the media, has no specific interest in globalisation and naturalisation, but has an identity that changes based on the interests of the media company. In other words, the evidence from the interviews carried out for this thesis shows that South Korean national identity in regard to naturalised athletes remains diversified and not unified

Cultural Orientations of sport managers

Various interpretations of sport management are cultural constructs underpinned by core assumptions and values held by members of professional communities. Sport managers world wide share common problems, but differ in how they resolve them. These universal differences emerge from the relationships they form with other people, and their attitude to time, activities and the natural environment. This paper examines the role of sport managers’ cultural orientations in the interpretation and practice of sport management. Using a multiple dimension model (Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars, 2000) it sketches the cultural profiles of fifteen sport managers from seven countries. A combination of methods was employed including questionnaires, interviews and participant observation. It is contended that the culture of sport management concerns a social process by which managers get involved in reconciling seven fundamental cultural dilemmas in order to perform tasks and achieve certain ends. Thus, a knowledge of the cultural meaning of sport management in a particular country would equip sport managers with a valuable tool in managing both the cultural diversity of their own work forces and in developing appropriate cross-cultural skills needed for running international events, marketing campaigns, sponsorship deals and joint ventures

Academic Institutions and the Olympic Movement

This paper was presented in the V Forum on Sport, Education and Culture Forum by the IOC undertaken in Beijing, in October, 2006. This aim of this paper is to explore the potential of the relations between the Olympic Movement and academic institutions, and in particular the role of universities.Este texto fue presentado en el V Fórum de Deporte, Educación y Cultura del CIO que tuvo lugar en Beijing, en Octubre de 2006. La ponencia trata de explorar la potencialidad de las relaciones entre el Movimiento Olímpico y las instituciones académicas, considerando especialmente el papel de la universidades.Aquest text fou presentat al V Fòrum d'Esport, Educació i Cultura del CIO que va tenir lloc a Beijing, en Octubre de 2006. La ponència tracta d'explorar la potencialitat de les relacions entre el Moviment Olímpic i les institucions acadèmiques, tot considerant especialment el paper de les universitats

Spartan Daily October 21, 2010

Volume 135, Issue 29https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/1192/thumbnail.jp

Beyond the island story? the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games as public history

This paper evaluates the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games as an exercise in public history. Public events have been widely identified within the study of nationalism as festivals that attempt to reinforce national identity and belonging. Contemporary Olympic Games figure in this literature as a specific form of event where the nature and content of a host state's identity is displayed for the global gaze of other nations. While opening ceremonies perform a rich display of national identity in any case, London 2012 is particularly significant for taking place at a time of major political contestation in the United Kingdom and has frequently been interpreted as an expression of radical patriotism. Traces of such patriotic thought associated particularly with England can be found in the opening ceremony's historical pageant and overall concept, showing resonances with the work of Raphael Samuel, who argued for a radical patriotism grounded in a multiplicity of accounts of the national past from many social positions. Depicting the nation through a multiplicity of biographical narratives produces a ‘mosaic' mode of representation which can be seen in other documentary and public history projects and in the political context of British public multiculturalism in the 2000s. This responds to the need for any national narrative to be composed through compressing the lives of millions of people into one coherent story, but complicates attempts to read a text such as the opening ceremony for what they ‘really' mean. A model for understanding narratives of the past as being produced in interaction between their initial creator(s) and their reader(s) is necessary for understanding not only the London 2012 opening ceremony in particular but public history and narratives of the national past in general

Learning from the World: Good Practices in Navigating Cultural Diversity. Bertelsmann Stiftung Study 2018

The Reinhard Mohn Prize 2018 “Living Diversity – Shaping Society” focuses on diversity in German society, that is the plurality of cultural, religious and linguistic identities found among the people who live in the country. With this focus, the RMP 2018 highlights a variety of successful strategies for living peacefully in diversity. In historical terms, cultural diversity is nothing new or unique for Germany. In fact, though we are often unaware of it, cultural diversity has been a feature of our daily life for a long time. Indeed, religious differences have shaped German society since the Reformation. And Judaism has always been present in the area we now call Germany

Reviewing research evidence and the case of participation in sport and physical recreation by black and minority ethnic communities

The paper addresses the implications of using the process of systematic review in the many areas of leisure where there is a dearth of material that would be admitted into conventional Cochrane Reviews. This raises important questions about what constitutes legitimate knowledge, questions that are of critical import not just to leisure scholars, but to the formulation of policy. The search for certainty in an area that lacks conceptual consensus results in an epistemological imperialism that takes a geocentric form. While clearly, there is a need for good research design whatever the style of research, we contend that the wholesale rejection of insightful research is profligate and foolhardy. A mechanism has to be found to capitalise on good quality research of whatever form. In that search, we draw upon our experience of conducting a review of the material available on participation in sport and physical recreation by people from Black and minority ethnic groups. The paper concludes with a proposal for a more productive review process that makes better use of the full panoply of good quality research available. © 2012 © 2012 Taylor & Francis

Olympic sport and the local community: a sociological study of Stratford, London

London 2012 was the 30th Olympiad, and the third time that London had hosted an Olympic Games. The rationale for hosting the Games was to undertake a large-scale regeneration of Stratford and the East London region. The research explored the experiences of community representatives who live and/or work in East London. The research was inductive and focused on the empirical findings of the research via a sociological lens. Three overarching research themes (urban regeneration, socioculturalism, governance and economics). The original contribution to knowledge relates to the limited amount of research previously conducted which take into account all three of these overarching themes. 19 semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed alongside official documents and newspapers using narrative thematic analysis and critical discourse analysis. Two main findings emerged from the analysis; Marginal Gains and the Ripple Effect. It is recognised that the positivity found throughout the presented narratives may have been present due to the time period in which the research was undertaken. Future research should focus on whether the time period has an influence on the experiences of community representatives and whether similar (economic and governance) is experienced by future host cities

More than Sport: A Case Study on Sport Diplomacy Within the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics

Throughout society’s history and into today, sport continues to be at the forefront of leisure activities and the media. Those in the sports industry understand this constant attraction and therefore try to promote unity in terms of diplomatic, social and political relations. The purpose of this study was to examine the strategies implemented by Russia during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics to promote sport diplomacy among athletes and fans. The researcher designed a case study examining the programs, marketing, and soft power strategies used by Russia during the Sochi Winter Olympics. The results indicate that Russia failed to capitalize on promoting sport diplomacy during the Sochi Winter Olympics. When hosting an Olympics, it is recommended to accept all cultural differences by providing programs to all participating countries and promoting positive change through sport

〈Research Note〉Representing Japanese Hospitality: Takigawa Christelʼs Speech for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics

Up until recently, Japan has been widely regarded as a mono-cultural/mono-racial country, populated by a single ethnic group (tan\u27itsu minzoku). Minority groups were made invisible in public discourse until as recently as the 1990s, where discourses about multiculturalism (tabunka kyōsei) started to surface (Willis and Murphy-Shigematsu, 2008). Yet, in 2013, the biracial announcer Takigawa Christel was chosen as an ambassador for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The speech she delivered in front of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) was widely reported on Japanese media, becoming one of the most popular news items of the year and spawning the buzzword omotenashi. Throughout this paper I will analyze the politics behind Takigawa\u27s apparition in front of the IOC. By analyzing her speech, I will argue that her hāfu body served as the perfect vessel for an ideological stance that Japanese institutions have been trying to propagate domestically and abroad. Through the intersection of familiar discourses such as "Cool Japan," multiculturalism and nihonjinron-style cultural nationalism, the announcer\u27s speech recreates a (self)-orientalistic (Iwabuchi, 1994) image meant to captivate the hearts of the global public. Japan as embodied by the biracial body of Takigawa Christel is a nation whose driving force is a tension between the "old" and the "new", the "oriental traditions" and "newfangled modernity". It is a nation of hybridity, much like the speaker herself. It is my intention to show the ways in which the announcer became the vessel for a new type of nationalism, one that is incredibly well matched with the desire for consumption of national images in an incredibly globalized world