The possessive logic of settler‐invader nations in Olympic ceremonies

Staging Olympic Games offers hosts a unique opportunity to showcase their nation as a tourist destination. This opportunity is particularly exploited in the opening and closing ceremonies that are able to attract unparalleled international television audiences. Over the first 11 decades or so of the modern Olympic movement, as the ceremonies have become more complex and spectacular, they have developed their own generic conventions of national storytelling. Therefore, it is possible to compare prevailing national ideologies in these ceremonies and ascertain how and where shifts and changes in them are taking place. In this paper, I analyse the opening and closing ceremonies of the 13 Summer and Winter Olympic Games that have been hosted in nations that were formerly part of the British Empire (the USA, Australia and Canada). I analyse the similarities and differences of these ceremonies in order to better understand the discursive construction of settler‐invader national stories that is going on within them. I focus on three aspects: who has the right to welcome visitors, how a discourse of ‘unity in diversity’ is mobilised and how the historical fact of violent dispossession is managed. Informed by the work of Aileen Moreton-Robinson, I propose that these ceremonies can be read as manifestations of the possessive logic of patriarchal white sovereignty and, as such, that the changes that occur from one to the next tell us a great deal about how settler‐invader nations successfully manage Indigenous challenges to the legitimacy of their national stories

'You don't have to be black skinned to be black': Indigenous young people's bodily practices

In contemporary Western societies, disciplinary and normalising technologies function to create a sense of moral obligation within each individual to monitor and regulate the body in terms of health, including diet and exercise. The settler/Aboriginal experience in Australia provides an example of the ways in which biopolitics has operated at a population level for all Australians and in specific ways for Indigenous bodies. This study sought to explore the perceptions of a group of urban Indigenous young people regarding their views of their bodies in the context of health and physical activity. Using the lens of biopolitics, complemented by post-colonial theory, this paper will draw attention to the ways in which historical and current discourses around Indigenous health might illustrate biopolitical technologies of power whilst also highlighting the ways in which Indigenous young people have navigated both disciplinary and normalising regimes. Fourteen participants (six male and eight female) were interviewed seven times over two and a half years using mapping, photos and drawing as stimuli. Data were analysed both thematically and through a process of discourse analysis with a view to explore the ways in which participants negotiated discursive constructions of the body, particularly notions of self-governance. It appeared that the young people engaged with, were ambivalent to, contested and resisted discourses around proper’ bodily appearance, the obligation to ‘work’ on their bodies, their perceptions of an ideal body, their negotiation of an authentic ‘black’ body and the ways in which they used their bodies to perform or achieve. The voices of the young people illustrate these themes. This research contributes significantly to the modest body of physical education and health literature from the perspectives of Indigenous young people. It raises questions about the impact of normalising discourses on Indigenous young people and in particular the ways in which those who resist them might be positioned

Physical activity of remote indigenous Australian women: A postcolonial analysis of lifestyle

In the context of rising chronic diseases amongst Indigenous peoples, there are calls for the adoption of more healthy "lifestyles." In this context, this paper explores thoughts about physical activity from 21 Indigenous families through the voices of women and girls living in remote rural communities in the Torres Strait and Northern Peninsula Area, Australia. Speaking back to physical activity as a lifestyle "choice," three consistent themes emerged: shame, gendered positioning, and welfarism. In conclusion, the perspectives of Torres Strait islanders and Northern Peninsula Area communities suggest that there are deeply embedded ways of thinking about the body, familial obligations, and the provision of and access to being active that are not consistent with Western health policies predicated upon individuals shouldering responsibility for "taking exercise."