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Sport has been extensively leveraged as an instrument for nation-building all over the world and throughout history. Ancient Greece utilized some sport games that can be interpreted as tools for nation-building (Gren, 1957; Wilcken, 1962). According to Wilcken (1962), four ancient events (Olympic, Pythic, Isthmic, and Nemeic games) became panhellenic national festivals and contributed to the revival of national consciousness. In modern times, international elite sport success is prioritized in government policies; this can be traced back to the interwar period and the East European bloc exemplified by East Germany between 1970 and 1990 (Skille & Chroni, 2018; Skille et al., 2017), among others. For example, during the interwar era, the fascists in Italy utilized sport in the promotion of their regime (Beacom, 1998). Colonizers have likewise imported their sports to the colonies to integrate the local population into the new regime’s culture; by contrast, former colonies have employed sport in their liberation process to create an identity, either by developing their own disciplines (see, for example, Aung-Thwin, 2012) or by keeping the colonizer’s activities (see, for example, Anderson, 2006; Chiu et al., 2014). In these examples, we observe attempts to match cultural boundaries with political boundaries towards the creation of a nation state. A nation state is an ideal in which cultural boundaries match political boundaries, often referred to as a country – that is, a geographical area with both a sense of nation (a cultural entity) and state (a political entity).
The point here is that the relationship between sport and nation is challenging because the latter is often confused with related concepts such as state or country (Seton-Watson, 1977):
A state can exist without a nation, or with several nations among their subjects; and a nation can be coterminous with the population of one state or be included together with other nations within one state, or be divided between several states.
(p. 1)
The concept of nation is disputed (Eriksen, 2004, 2010; Jenkins, 2004; Smith, 1991). We often think of nation and state as the same entity, particularly by the common use of the concept nation state. Hence, we regularly use the terms interchangeably and imprecisely (Aarebrot & Evjen, 2014; Kuokkonen, 2019). Smith (1991) defined nation as a ‘named human population sharing a historic territory, common myths and historical memories, a mass public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for all members’ (p. 43, original italics). A nation state is a construct wherein the regime aims at merging the state as ‘a legal and political organization, with the power to require obedience and loyalty from its citizens’ with a nation that is ‘a community of people, whose members are bound together by a sense of solidarity, a common culture, a national consciousness’ (Seton-Watson, 1977, p. 1). Modern sport and nation states developed at the same time and under similar circumstances; this is often referred to as modernity (see, for example, Goksøyr, 1998). Consequently,
…there is a taken-for-granted association between sport and nation and between nation and state to the extent that much of academic discussion of sport and nation either conflates them as if they are synonyms, otherwise fails to make the distinction between nation and state or accepts that in hegemonic or other dominant discourses the state is the proper political vessel for the nation and, however, problematically in other spheres, represents or stands in for it in discussions of the sport-nation nexus.
(MacLean & Field, 2014, p. 284)
This study aims to challenge the historically developed and taken-for-granted nation state–sport nexus by investigating sport for Indigenous peoples without their own state. More than one nation can exist within a single state. For example, Wales, England, and Scotland are nations within the British state, and Indigenous peoples such as the First Nations in Canada and the Aboriginals in Australia are nations without their own states (Marjoribanks & Farquharson, 2012). This is akin to the Māori in New Zealand, the people in Catalonia in Spain, Brittany in France, and the Taiwanese people and their relationship with China (Jarvie, 2003). Moreover, some Indigenous peoples have nations that cross state borders, such as the American Indians of Canada and the United States (Coates, 2004), Uighurs, Kurds, and Berbers, and the Sámi people. As a particular case of a border-crossing nation, the Sámi are one people and one nation residing in several states of North Calotte (Andresen et al., 2021; Minde, 2002).
This is a sociological study of Indigenous sports and nation-building or, more precisely, it is about sport and nation-building for Indigenous peoples without their own state. It shows how the complex history of colonization provides various impacts in the everyday activity of sport and how this variation in sport participation and organization impacts nation-building. As an empirical case, I focus on the Sámi people and sport in Sápmi. The Sámi is the Indigenous people of the North Calotte, while Sápmi refers to the Sámi nation crossing several nation states, including the north-western part of Russia and large parts of Finland, Sweden, and Norway. Through this case, I propose that an explanation of Indigenous sport can contribute to a more sophisticated understanding of both sport and Indigenous nations, as well as nation states more generally. Thus, I explore specific peoples and their Indigenous nations through the lens of sport. I also discuss the meaning of sport through the lens of nation-building. In so doing, I contribute to sports sociological enquiry by advancing the argument that an understanding of sport as solely mirroring society is an oversimplification, as is the view of sport as an instrument for state authorities. The empirical case that follows instead outlines a discussion of how everyday activity sports are influenced by and affect the global issues of peoples without states, including Indigenous peoples crossing state borders, and Indigenous emancipation.
Throughout the rest of this introductory chapter, I will frame the study into global changes influencing our understanding of nation and nation states; provide definitions of ethnicity, indigeneity, and nation-building; and highlight the importance of culture, society, and organizations. This chapter will then conclude with the study’s research questions and some notes on the contributions in and of this book.
Indigenous Sport and Nation-Building in a Changing World
While increased globalization is purported to lead to homogeneity, where national uniqueness and sovereignty all but disappear, the sport social scientist Grant Jarvie (2003) criticized this view and adopted the concept of ‘glocalization’ (from Bairner, 2001), noting that national identity is the flagship in international sport. This ‘has been an extensive debate about the role of sport in the making of nations’ (Jarvie, 2003, p. 539). Jarvie argued that sport and nation-building are intertwined. For example, sport can function in national identity building.1 However, Jarvie was aware of and pinpointed that the formulation (and each formulation in footnote 1) includes a ‘can’. In that respect, he called for ‘caution against any rigid universal form of thinking that perpetually links a particular sport to a particular nation in the sense that the relationship between sport x and nation y becomes fixed in content, time, and space’ (Jarvie, 2003, p. 541, original italics). The phenomenon is more complex. With reference to Hargreaves (2000), Jarvie (2003) pinpointed how, for example, Australian Aboriginal women ‘are part of two worlds of sport and two forms of nation-building’ (p. 542): the Australian mainstream sport built on the empire’s culture and the Indigenous people’s sporting culture as part of the Aboriginal nation.
For some, nation states are no longer the individuals’ primary reference point because identity construction is individualized and personalized compared to a few generations ago (Giddens, 1990, 1991). Giddens (1999) claimed that nation states have become ‘shell institutions’; the external features remain while the content may have disappeared. Individuals relate to the local domain as they have always done and simultaneously increasingly relate to the global domain via processes of de-nationalization (Sassen, 2003). Regarding sport, such processes are already standard. While international sport is typically based on the representation of nation states,2 some international competitions mobilize other representation logics. Bicycling competitions (for example, Tour de France) and motor sport (for example, Formula 1) are usually based on representing commercial teams, as are newer lifestyle sports such as skateboarding and snowboarding. Athletes’ loyalty lies with sponsors instead of with national sport federations,3 a trend also evident in traditional sports such as cross-country skiing (generally organized in national teams of national federations and participation at FIS4 events). Moreover, they are organized in private teams, similar to professional cycling (Hansen, 2014).
Another element that challenges the sport-nation state nexus is the migration of athletes (Agergaard & Engh, 2017). Some athletes have several citizenships and can choose which country to represent in international competitions. This is relatively unproblematic, as the athlete usually has legal and emotional roots in each country from where he or she has a passport. However, what if the athlete changes citizenship to represent a country from which the athlete has no roots? Poli (2007) referred to such processes as ‘de-ethnicization’, which is defined as ‘the progressive disconnection between the geographical origin of sportsmen and the nation states they are supposed to represent according to the traditional conception of the nation as a homogenous ethnic and cultural entity’ (p. 654). This perspective dislocates the understandings of the relationships among nation, state, and citizen. In addition, international issues impact a country’s internal negotiation and decision-making. The foregoing text has provided many hints of how to understand Indigenous sport and nation-building. I will now proceed with contrasting the possible de-ethnicization process posed by Poli (2007) and claim that double ethnicization is another possibility. The point is that Indigenous peoples in modern states live modern lives and often possess dual citizenships and identities. These formal arrangements and individual perceptions are complex and influence sport and the understanding of nations interdependently. In generalized terms:
The contemporary situation for Indigenous peoples around the world is complex, to say the least. In the outback of Australia, young Aborigines wear ‘Air Jordan’ t-shirts, Inuit in northern Canada watch ‘Sex in the City’ on televisions connected to the 100-channel universe, Māori in New Zealand attend the best business schools in the country (Coates, 20...
