Global Understanding of Race and Sport Symposium
Indigenous Sport in an Age of Globalization: Possibilities and Challenges
In this session, we focus on sport as a racialized space, globalization and the competitive sport model and its implication for Indigenous peoples in sport in Canada and the United States: The first paper identifies racialized practices that shape the many ways that Aboriginal peoples are involved in sport – whether they participate in the all-Aboriginal or the mainstream sport system. The double helix and the strengths perspective are used as an analytic framework for this discussion. The second paper considers the impact that the performance sports model has exerted on Indigenous traditional identity positions as they are produced and reproduced within the space of Indigenous traditional games practices; with a focus on the Indigenous cultures of northern Canada and Alaska. The commentary further explores racialized sporting spaces, the performance model’s fit with traditional games, and the potential impact of these and other developments on indigenous peoples more broadly.
Aboriginal Racialized Sporting Spaces: The Double Helix
Victoria Paraschak, University of Windsor
The ‘double helix’ is a concept used by the National Aboriginal Sport Circle to describe the Aboriginal sport structure in Canada. One strand of the double helix is the all-Aboriginal sport system, while the second strand is the mainstream sport system. Rungs connect these two systems at particular points. I explore various ways that both the all-Aboriginal and the mainstream sport systems are shaped by racialized practices which both strengthen aboriginal identity and problematize it. Examples of these include government definitions of ‘Status Indian’ which determine who plays in the all-Aboriginal system, Aboriginal pride generated through the North American Indigenous Games, racist mascots in the mainstream sport system, and a 2005 Canadian federal policy specifically addressing Aboriginal participation in sport. The rungs that join these two systems focus on ‘promising practices’ – ways that aboriginal athletes can more fully enjoy enhanced mainstream opportunities for sport from the grassroots to the elite levels, and ways that non-Aboriginal athletes can benefit from Aboriginal approaches to sport. I draw on the ‘strengths perspective’ as a framework for identifying these promising practices.
Traditional Aboriginal Sports and the ‘Performance Principle’
Michael Heine, University of Manitoba
The traditional sporting practices of the Eskimo (Inuit) and Indian (Athapaskan/Dene) peoples of northern Canada and Alaska are at present predominantly reproduced within the context of competitive games and sports meets based on the model of the Olympic Games. The most notable of these is the biennial 'Arctic Winter Games', which involve Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants from across the circumpolar regions. The pre-eminence of events such as the Arctic Winter Games indicates that the extension of the sports 'performance principle', even into the remote small communities of the Arctic and sub-Arctic, is by and large complete. The organizational structure and the elements of signification emanating from these events are not necessarily congruent with the elements of Indigenous identity expressed and reproduced through Indigenous games practices in their historical-traditional contexts. In particular, the outcome-oriented organizational format of contemporary sports festivals creates an emphasis on the symbolic significance of competitive, disequilibrial outcomes that is often at variance with Indigenous games practices that tended to emphasize communal participation and co-operation. The traditional forms, consequently, have come to be positioned at the interface of several contradictory modes of involvement. The competitive, outcome-oriented focus of an Anglo-American sports meet is not necessarily commensurate with the focus of Indigenous traditional practices that often emphasize communal involvement and which often are process-oriented rather than outcome- and results-focused. This serves to produce constraining as well as enabling conditions for the vitality of the Indigenous traditional practices. The pressures and conflicts that these developments bring to bear on Indigenous games forms as a means to reproduce traditional identity positions within the context of the Arctic Winter Games will be examined in detail.
Commentary: Aboriginal Sporting Practices, Race and Globalization
Janice Forsyth, University of Manitoba
In this commentary, I assess the value of the double helix model and the strengths perspective as effective frameworks for empowering Aboriginal sport participants and organizers. I also outline how this analytic framework might have applicability for Indigenous peoples in other areas of the world. The value of traditional sport and games practices, and their ‘fit’ with the competitive sports model, will be discussed in relation to unequal power relations that privilege the competitive model over other approaches to physical activity. Finally, I address ways that globalization has opened up possibilities for aboriginal peoples throughout the world to learn from each other, through sharing promising practices and connecting to a pan-indigenous community and identity rather than primarily experiencing marginalization and racism within their national mainstream sport system.
