Indigenous Sport and Nation-Building

Front matter

Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society

Eivind A. Skille

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Contents

Preface with Acknowledgements ix List of abbreviations xi 1 Indigenous Sport and Nation-Building: Setting the Scene 1

2 Nation-Building and Indigenous Sport: A Global Phenomenon 18

3 Contextualization of Research Field and Positioning of the

Chapter 2 A Global Phenomenon

In 2014, the journal National Identities published a special issue entitled Sporting Identities in Nations Without States (MacLean & Field, 2014) because it was a neglected research field. However, several relevant studies into sport and nation take many forms: for example, sport and national identity (Jackson, 1994, 1998, 2004), sport and nationalism (Bairner, 2001, 2008, 2015), and sport and nation-building. As indicated in Chapter 1, the pivotal point is that modern sport and nation states are children of the same time — often referred to as modernity (Goks@yr, 1998). According to MacLean and Field: ‘This nation state-sport nexus emerged in a growing discursive field of nationhood and modernity that intensified throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century’ (2014, p. 283). Sport concretized the nation because ‘the imagined but abstract community needed a material form’ (MacLean & Field, 2014, p. 283). Indeed, the abstract nation shared by millions of people became more real, with 11 named players on a football pitch or recognizable faces on a ski team (Goksgyr, 1998; Kolstad, 2002; MacLean & Field, 2014). This chapter provides general information about Indigenous sport and nation-building and is divided into two parts. First, I present literature on Indigenous sport and nation-building globally. Second, I link sport and nation-building literature with the empirical context under scrutiny later in this book: namely, nation states that Sápmi crosses, particularly Norwegian and Sámi sport.

Sport, Indigenous Peoples, and Nation-Building

The multifaceted literature on sport and nation-building includes two broad variants of studies. The first focuses on how new states utilize specific sport disciplines to create a national identity (often after liberation from an empire and other occasions to demonstrate independence). The second focuses on how the relationships between nations — and concrete meetings of peoples — occur. In other words, specific sport disciplines generate different meanings in different contexts — among various peoples and nations (Falcous, 2017), even though such activities may look similar for the uninitiated. Falcous (2017) illustrated this with the differences between rugby union and rugby league regarding belonging to ‘Englishness’. In a Sámi context, reindeer racing likewise creates different meanings across countries of Sápmi, for example, due to different laws regarding ownership of reindeer in Finland and Norway (Ministry of Agriculture & Food, 2016). Thus, this chapter does not provide an exhaustive list but rather provides examples to show the complexity of the phenomenon. It continues with subsections into how specific (and sometimes unique) sport disciplines can work for nation-building, how global sport can achieve this, and why this translates into the challenge some athletes face in choosing a nation to represent. The first part of this chapter ends with a small subsection on Indigenous sport versus mainstream sport.

Unique Sport Disciplines and Nation-Building

As a valuable exception to the then small research field (Hallinan & Judd, 2013), Beacom (1998) wrote about the relationship between Indigenous sport and nation-building over two decades ago. One example was how Italian authorities in the interwar era rewrote the rules of football to create their own game, aiming at utilizing it as a marker for the sovereignty of the regime. The regime intended a process ‘of developing a spirit of patriotism’, hereunder ‘an attempt to direct the use of leisure time and recreational activities in such a way as to enhance support for the regime’ (Beacom, 1998, p. 61). When the organization for Olympic issues came into fascist hands, several attempts were exerted to make a popular sport for the regime; for example, replacing the word ‘soccer’ with ‘the Latin term ‘Calcio’ in an effort to link it to Italian culture and tradition — with little or no effect. Then, the regime invented its own football version, called ‘Volata’. However, ‘a newly “manufactured” game’ without anchoring in the people needed a ‘considerable “top-down” organizational input’ (Beacom, 1998, p. 63) — referring to symbolic and economic support from the government. When Italy simultaneously did very well in international football (ordinary soccer), the underlying problems with Volata came to light; a game only played within Italy could never gain any international success to benefit the global image of the regime. Most specifically, when Italy won the World Cup in 1934, a positive display of the regime was one outcome and: ‘The rationale for promoting an Indigenous form of football which had been conceived of as an activity which could replace soccer ... simply no longer existed’ (Beacom, 1998, p. 64).

A contradictive example is a sport discipline played internally in only one country, which seems to survive. Gaelic football unites the population of Ireland and works as external resistance. When it comes to possibilities for internationalization, it is as limited as the Italian Volata, but ‘the number of Gaelic foot ball teams now in existence in Irish communities outside Ireland is noteworthy’ (Beacom, 1998, p. 68; see also Holmes & Storey, 2004; Murray & Hassan, 2018). Moreover, some international games are conducted through compromising the rules of two games and nations; or the ‘integration of two football codes; namely, Australian Rules football and Gaelic football’ (Beacom, 1998, pp. 64—65). Volata and Gaelic football reveal different stories about games with several similarities; it is ‘an attempt to create games ... distinctively different from soccer’, rules that were supposed to require little equipment, where the ‘focus was on the “ideal” citizen through stress of teamwork’, and with ‘an important link between the terminology of the game and native language’ (Beacom, 1998, p. 65). An important difference is that Volata in Italy was a top-down project initiated by the authorities, while Gaelic football is founded at the grassroots of the population and continues ‘to reflect the primary pre-occupation of Irish identity’ (Beacom, 1998, p. 66).

In another study focusing on specific sport disciplines and nation-building, Petrov (2014) showed how different wrestling styles represent ethnicities and nationalities within the former Soviet Union. Each wrestling style was developed to represent one nation. Focusing on Uzbekistan, Petrov identified a problem because when each nation has its own rules, it limits the possibility for competitions with other nations (to display success and superiority; cf. Becomon, 1998, on Volata). Nevertheless, the development of five national wrestling styles paralleled the development of five nation states.! ‘Each one was declared to be a traditional and unique practice of that particular nation’ (Petrov, 2014, p. 406). Petrov, leaning on Jarvie (1991), preferred to call them ‘selected traditions’ because specific wrestling styles were deliberately chosen among a spectre of available local variants; thereafter, the selected style was organized as a sport and underwent typical sportification processes: standardization, bureaucratization, rationalization, and secularization (cf. Guttmann, 1978). Since the selection and development of a wrestling style as a national symbol depends on political and economic priorities, the government of Uzbekistan was a significant supporter and subsidizer. Thus, ‘wrestling style transformations occur as responses to transformations in society’, as ‘select Indigenous local styles were transformed into national styles while undergoing simultaneous sportification’, and they ‘were instrumentalised for the purpose of nation-building’ (Petrov, 2014, p. 416). A fundamental point here is that the chosen sport discipline must provide meaning within the nation and appear meaningful outside the nation.

Another example of a specific discipline for nation-building is chinlone in Burma/Myanmar (Aung-Thwin, 2012). The story follows a classic trajectory. As colonizers, the Brits considered the Burmese underdeveloped and in need of ‘civilization’, which was undertaken through sport, school, and missionizing. After the country’s liberation (in 1948): ‘Establishing a national culture meant identifying elements that could be extended to all citizens of the nation’ (Aung-Thwin, 2012, p. 1347), such as food, clothes, anthem, art — and sport. Chinlone was similar to games played with a football, like ‘no-bounce’ or football tennis; an object similar to a football — the chinlone — is intended to be kept in the air only using the feet (or all body parts except hands). The highest authority within sport, the National Fitness Council (a successor of Burma Athletic Association), commissioned a person to write up the rules for chinlone, resulting in a rule and instruction book with ‘images seemingly taken directly from colonial physical education manuals’ (Aung-Thwin, 2012, pp. 1347-1348). In other words, chinlone was developed as a modern sport discipline and displayed as Ancient Burmese, simultaneously: ‘the

Nation-Building and Indigenous Sport 2l game was Indigenous to ancient Burma and was played exclusively by the Burmans’ (p. 1348), and it is this which distinguishes the Burmese chinlone story from other liberated colonies that often choose the colonizer’s sport as their national sport. ‘The “making” of chinlone into a sport ... borrowed both the notion of sport and its vicissitudes from colonial models’ and ‘nation-builders wanted to assert their cultural independence by choosing an activity that could be seen as truly Burmese’ (p. 1349).

In the above examples, ‘the activity will clearly reinforce the feeling of uniqueness and “otherness” but struggle to ‘provide a medium through which national prestige may be promoted on the international stage’ (Beacom, 1998, p. 66). A tension, therefore, is that the sport discipline in question should both ‘protect and promote ... as symbolic to resist the cultural imperialism’ but can never be developed into an ‘Olympic sport as a vehicle for demonstrating the progressive and dynamic nature’ (p. 66) of the focal culture, ethnicity, or indigeneity. On the contrary, many liberated colonies keep the sport of the colonizers and aim at utilizing it to build a new or revitalized nation. Two typical sports in that regard, one originating in North America and the other on the British Islands and exported to many parts of the world, are baseball and football. For example, regarding baseball in Taiwan, Chiu et al. (2014) analyzed the relationship between Taiwanese and Chinese nationalism and how the Indigenous people of Taiwan are defined as subordinates. The Indigenous people’s contribution to nation-building has depended upon, first, Japanese colonialism, then, Chinese nationalism; today, it depends on Taiwanese nationalism that is largely defined by Japanese and Chinese successors. In this manner, ‘various dominant groups have appropriated the baseball achievements of Austronesian aborigines’ (p. 347); the Indigenous people’s subordination is reproduced through politics, economy, and social order — as well as sport (cf. Yu & Bairner, 2010).

Global Sport Disciplines and Nation-Building

On keeping the colonizer’s sport, Yu and Bairner (2010) showed how Aboriginal baseball players are used in the debate about national identity in Taiwan and discussed the state’s role in schooling the Indigenous players to exploit them in Taiwanese nation-building. Although baseball can be a source of fame and money for individual players, the practice with Aboriginal players might be considered an exploitation of an ethnic minority. Yu and Bairner (2010) identified two camps of perspectives on the tension between individual fame and Indigenous suppression. The oppositional camp focuses on race discrimination and how Western institutions and politics control the Aboriginals (cf. Hallinan & Judd, 2014). On the contrary, the revolutionary side focuses upon Aboriginal agency and that sport can be utilized for resistance, liberation, and as an instrument for independence. Yu and Bairner (2010) nuanced this dichotomization by presenting how Aboriginals in Taiwan play different roles in baseball along imperial stereotypes of Aboriginals’ physical features, attitude, and intellect. Although there is a higher proportion of Aboriginal players within the baseball teams compared to the rest of the population, there are close to no Aboriginal coaches or leaders. This is in line with the stereotype of Aboriginals as physically strong but intellectually weak, which is systematically reproduced and includes stories about Aboriginal players who were excluded from teams because their parents wanted more focus on education than the coach wanted. Moreover, the suppression of Aboriginals has existed throughout various historical eras with different regimes in power (Japan, China, and Taiwanese self-governance); ‘Aboriginal players in Taiwan have now played for a variety of “nations”, none of them their own’ (Yu & Bairner, 2010, p. 79).

Just as Yu and Bairner held that resistance through baseball is possible but difficult — owing to unchanging conditions in the former colonies — Darby (2007) revealed similar patterns regarding African countries and football. With former colonies as his point of departure, Darby discussed Africa’s place in international football (Darby, 2000a, 2000b) and African football players’ migration to Europe (Darby, 2007). He analyzed how the local sporting legacy in Africa is either removed, undermined, or suppressed. Former colonies will always carry the burden of the colonial impact. European sport transferred by school teachers and Christian missionaries has to large degrees informed and formed African understandings of sport, nation, and self-image. All these are signs of the ‘pervasiveness and strength of the cultural imperialism which permeated the colonial period and beyond’ (Darby, 2000a, p. 44). Thus, the international football federation (FIFA) can be considered a neo-imperialist organization, where African actors depend on Western organizations of power. In short, ‘the relationship between FIFA’s metropolis and Africa clearly reflect imperialism, dependency and world system theory’ (Darby, 2000a, p. 55). The global relationship is usually unidirectional, with hegemonic power in the north and the west. Nevertheless, there are nuances; African voices have the opportunity to be heard in the international football community through memberships in FIFA.

Within an overarching one-directional and asymmetrical relationship between Europe and Africa, there are huge variations that can be explained by the post-colonized countries’ relationships with the post-colonists. Traditionally, sport was applied to implement the empire’s culture and replace the ‘lower’ culture of the Indigenous peoples in the colonies. Eventually, however, it was discovered that football could be applied to resist and protest the colony power. For example, in North Africa, ‘many soccer clubs acted as centres of anti-colonial sentiment and the promotion of naturalist tradition’ (Darby, 2000b, p. 71). The establishment of an African Football Federation (in 1957) demonstrates how sport relates to broader societal issues, such as suppression, and processes of resistance and liberation. Darby (2000b) concludes that Indigenous peoples do not reintroduce old Indigenous sport activities with decolonization, but the people of a decolonized country continue to play the colonizer’s sport football. This observation reveals a ‘considerable tension of paradox in the use of Western sport forms for the articulation of non-Western nationalist expression’ (Darby, 2000b, p. 83) and shows how pervasive imperialism functions and confirms what postcolonial theory predicts. The relevant point here is that colonization impacts people long after the definition of an independent state is introduced.

Darby’s (2007) study of African football players’ migration to Europe (Darby focuses on Portugal) touches on a difficult sociological feature involving an individual level versus a group level of analysis (similar to Yu and Bairner’s [2010] point from Taiwanese baseball). Many African football players travel to Europe, gain success, and become famous and wealthy. These achievements are beneficial to them on an individual level; however, it can also be seen as a recolonization because European agents and football clubs trade African players as any other market resource that is cheap in Africa and expensive in Europe. Due to a short-term perspective with immediate economic profit, European actors exploit the African market, including local communities and individuals. Darby even claims that: ‘The loss of its football resources to the Portuguese market is one of the greatest challenges confronting football’ in several countries that used to be colonies (Darby, 2007, p. 505). Therefore, the concept of a sporting nation can come to resemble a resource-rich nation state suitable for ‘mining’ rather than an autonomous Indigenous nation. Similar points about the impact or legacy of colonialism are elaborated on in Chapters 4 and 5.

Another related issue is how one nation can be created by several peoples, or — dependent on definition — how one country is created by several nations. For example, Keech (2004) held that: ‘The clear attraction of sport as vehicle for nation-building has meant that governments have assumed control of sport, particularly in Africa’ (p. 106). Most specifically, Nelson Mandela employed the predominantly white sport of rugby for nation-building during the country’s reconciliation process post-apartheid. Nelson wanted to build the rainbow nation with the sport as a symbol of unity that can gain success; it probably helped that South Africa won the Rugby World Cup in 1995 (after Nelson entered office in 1994 as the first black and first post-apartheid president).

Another example of how rugby as a former colonizer’s sport unites peoples of a country and actively applies Indigenous elements is found in New Zealand. For one thing, rugby is considered the national sport of New Zealand among the Indigenous people (Māori) and the successors of the colonizers (Pakeha). The national team, the All Blacks, comprises the best players with a New Zealand passport regardless of their ethnicity and creates pride for all with their achievements. For another, the All Blacks always perform a traditional Maori dance haka before an international match and, thus, signal a united team — based on Indigenous tradition; though it is also highlighted how global commercial enterprises exploit culture when buying the rights to, for example, the All Blacks (Jackson & Hokowhitu, 2002; Scherer & Jackson, 2008). I will return to similar investigations of Sámi athletes in Norwegian national teams in Chapter 5 (see more on New

Zealand and All Blacks in Chapter 6).

Being Selected and Choosing to Represent

The term ‘national team’ implies that being selected for the team requires that someone considers you as an appropriate representative for the nation in question and choosing to partake demands that the athlete himself or herself feels worthy to represent the nation. This two-sided process can take several routes. I will try to establish the point by turning to two historical elements that are difficult to avoid in the review of sport and nation-building: one is the history of Great Britain because many modern and global sports originate there, and the other is the Olympics, as it is the largest global sport event that applies to national participation. Sometimes, they intertwine. The history of Great Britain concerns both the empire, including postcolonial countries (cf. Darby, 2000a, 2000b), and involves the complexity of nations and the internal relationships of the countries on the British Islands. The British sport complex is especially interesting for the analysis of Indigenous sport and nation-building because the criteria for representation and, thus, the understanding of indigeneity vary on different occasions. When participating in the Olympic Games, the British team equals the United Kingdom, gathers athletes from four different countries (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), and represents Great Britain under one British flag. In the football World Cup, the same countries represent themselves individually: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The Republic of Ireland is autonomous and participates with its team and under its flag both in the Olympic Games and football. In rugby, however, Ireland and Northern Ireland go together into one team and represent the Irish nation. Thus, the complexity has created issues both historically and in more recent times (Holmes & Storey, 2004; Lewellyn, 2011; Murray & Hassan, 2018).

For example, Lewellyn (2011) revealed that the three Irishmen going to the Athens Games in 1906 were shocked when they — at arrival — understood that they were on the list of the British team. The shock was reasonable since they were sent along with Irish financing. At the time, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had unclear criteria for independent nations that wanted full representation rights. Some ‘relatively independent’ nations received representation rights, such as Finland (that was joined to Russia as an autonomous Grand Duchy) and Czechia (today’s Czech Republic) that was sorted under Austria, while Ireland did not. Lewellyn explains Ireland’s lack of representation rights in the Olympic Games simply by identifying who the IOC members were and especially who the IOC president was friends with at the time (p. 654). If Irishmen, Scotts, and Welshmen ‘promoted their own distinct national and ethnic heritages’ (Llewellyn, 2011, p. 658), with England as the dominating part of Great Britain, it is difficult to imagine a shared nation-building. An opposite and fascinating case in this regard is that Puerto Rico is a member of the IOC but not of the United Nations (Sotomayor, 2016). Participation in the Olympic Games is, thus, for Puerto Rico ‘a way to demonstrate that they are in fact a nation’ (p. 4).

The example shows how a country can be considered a nation by an international sport organization (IOC) although not being acknowledged by the archetype of an international community (UN). Nevertheless, in sport competitions between Puerto Rico and the United States, it is possible that ‘the U.S. team was defeated by other U.S. citizens’ (Sotomayor, 2016, p. 3).

More recent examples of the complexity of nations on the British Islands include debates about representation on national football teams, where elite athletes ‘are often forced to make a very public “choice” of national identity’ (Holmes & Storey, 2004, p. 89). Most specifically, ‘the Republic of Ireland’s soccer team ... has included a significant number of players born outside Ireland’ (p. 89). Holmes and Storey (2004) showed how players display their national declaration differently, from growing up as Irish in Ireland to fitting into the joke that you are Irish if you have been in Dublin or had a pint of Guinness. Many players selected for Ireland and chose to play for Ireland are somewhere between these outliers. Hence, several processes may be at play, such as the ‘snowball effect’ when ‘an increasing number of players “declared” for Ireland, it became easier for others’ (p. 95) and ‘it seems highly likely that family background may be an issue here’ (p. 97). Nevertheless, ‘it is difficult not to conclude that there is an element of retrospective justification’ (p. 98) in some comments from players who have joined the Irish team and had a ‘doubted identity’ (a point I touch upon in Chapter 5 and the section ‘Sámis for Norway’). Holmes and Storey (2004), as do Murray and Hassan (2018), explicated that there is also a balance exercise: weighing up national identity against the possibility for personal career development.

Leaving Great Britain but returning to the Olympics, most stories treat the desire to participate in the Games; however, Bhimani (2016) discussed a relatively recent case, an ethnically and historically founded protest against the Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, in 2014. The Sochi Games were organized on the land of Circassians — an Indigenous people of the North Caucasus — whom the Russians tried to ethnically cleanse in 1864. Many people in the region considered the Olympic Games a violation with grotesque historical undertones. Bhimani (2016) employed ‘the concept of colonial double backing’, which refers to a colonization process with double support: ‘practices of abetting in time and space between global forces of empire, such as transnational mega events and nation states, which produce recursive forms of exile and antagonism for Indigenous peoples’ (p. 399). In this case, a dominating nation state (Russia) and a dominating global organization (the IOC) mutually support each other against an Indigenous minority. In a world full of terror, the potential critical voices from local actors were dismissed as ‘Chechen terrorists’ (p. 402) and never taken seriously in the public debate. Moreover, Great Britain and Canada were conceived as accomplices because they (as predecessors as organizers of Olympic Games) facilitated Sochi propaganda and neglected critics. Nevertheless, despite the failure to prevent the Sochi Games, the ethnic revitalization in the region remains and still sheds light on historical suppression and contemporary power relations.

While this last case presented is an example of a web of relations including a powerful international sport organization, a more common relationship exists between mainstream and Indigenous sport organizations within a country.

Indigenous Sport, Mainstream Sport, and Sport Organization

Here, I will discuss the aforementioned relationship between Indigenous people and mainstream sport by focusing on the organization of Indigenous sport. For example, ‘the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) has, arguably more than any other sport governing body, fostered the historic dividing line that has been the core of sporting bodies in Ireland’ and has an ‘overtly nationalist ethos’ (Murray & Hassan, 2018, p. 41); thus, ‘the organization’s origins and ethos are closely linked to Irish national identity’ (p. 89). Moreover, as the GAA is a sport organization for all of Ireland (UK’s Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland), ‘it effectively ignores the border’ (Holmes & Storey, 2004, p. 89). Nevertheless, the GAA is strictly related to countries and differs from sport organizations for minority Indigenous peoples, such as in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and the North Calotte. The relationships between people, sport, and organization are complex, and it is not my contention (nor ability) to provide an exhaustive overview of the topic. However, it is fair to say that for individual athletes among minority Indigenous peoples, such as the Dene and Inuit in Canada, Māori in New Zealand, and Sami in the Nordic countries, sport participation and organization can take two typical ideal routes: participation in mainstream sport organizations and/or participation in specific Indigenous sport organizations.

In New Zealand, as in other former British colonies and on the British Islands themselves, mainstream sport comprises both school sport and club sport. In school, all children are encouraged to (and most children do) play different sports, independent of their ethnic heritage. In the voluntary sport sector (as in school for that matter), disciplines stemming from European colonization dominate the sector. ‘Historical understandings of Maori sporting endeavours are complex and arguably incomplete’ (Anderson et al., 2014, p. 359), as Maori took up new sports brought in by the Europeans and developed some traditional activities into sports. Among the former are rugby, football, field hockey, and netball; while an example of a traditional and industrial Indigenous activity (e.g. from fishing and whaling) that has developed into a sport discipline is racing with outrigger canoe (waka ama) (Anderson et al., 2014).

Although the current formal status of Maori in New Zealand is that of an integrated and acknowledged people, many Maori perceive the New Zealand sport system as lacking cultural competence, referring to its inability to support the unique way in which Māori engage with sport. Thus, sport organizations have been alternatingly praised for democracy and criticized because there is not necessarily equality when it comes to Māori representation — including the reflection of Maori values and culture — in sport (Hippolite & Bruce, 2013). Maori can also have their specific and exclusive Maori sport organizations, such as the Aotearoa Maori Tennis Association and the NZ Maori Golf Association. The history of Maori tennis is telling for the development of the relationship between Maori and Pakeha. After playing the game since the 1870s, Maori established a separate tennis association in 1926. In an early phase of the country’s history, segregation — rather than integration — was the rule, thus creating a specific Maori sport organization was most likely considered normal to do under these circumstances. Conversely (and lending credence to Anderson’s observation about the complexity of Maori sport), the Maori tennis association has been affiliated with the New Zealand tennis association since its very beginning (AMTA, n.d.).

With two ideal types, mainstream sport and Indigenous sport, hybrids are possible. As mentioned, the national sport of New Zealand (as for many other countries) and, therefore, probably the most high-profile example of this organizational separation and simultaneous integration are reserved for the All Blacks and the Maori All Blacks (Mulholland, 2009; Scherer & Jackson, 2013). The separation rests on the difference that while the All Blacks refer to the New Zealand national rugby team, representing everyone and recruiting the best New Zealand players based on citizenship regardless of ethnicity, the Maori All Blacks is a specifically Indigenous team that requires confirmed Indigenous genealogy to take part (All Blacks, n.d.). The integration refers to the fact that Maori All Blacks and All Blacks are teams both representing the same national sport governing body: New Zealand Rugby. In similar but different veins, there exists a Sámi national team; it selects Sámi players; it participates in the World Cup for non-FIFA members (Pedersen, 2013) and a Sámi delegation for skiing for participation in the Arctic Winter Games (AWG). The difference (between Sami sport and Maori All Blacks) is that Sámi sport is detached from Norwegian sport organizations; I return to that point in Chapter 6.

A double participation approach is also possible in Canada, where the Dene and Inuit peoples can partake in mainstream sport as well as in specific organizations for Indigenous sport. Nevertheless, there is something with the Indigenous sport context that is attractive for Indigenous peoples because they are ‘often culturally displaced and economically marginalized, participation in these sports offers an opportunity for meaningful physical activity’ (Heine, 2013, p. 160). Sport is not only related to the physical activity element but are thus ‘an important cultural practice, typically viewed positively in both the dominant culture and marginalized Aboriginal communities’ (Heine, 2013, p. 160, italics added). Focusing on sports and games of Indigenous peoples in (Arctic) Canada — Inuit and Dene — they ‘are sometimes practiced in ways that express their own inherent “meaningfulness” and cultural significance, even when they are played in the organizational context of sports competition’ (p. 161). This description is also valid for the specific Sámi sport disciplines (reindeer racing and lassoing); they originate in reindeer husbandry but are conducted and expressed in the form of modern sport competitions. In that respect, the AWG ‘are designed as a sports competition that mirrors the organizational format of the Olympics’

(Heine, 2013, p. 164). The AWG is an event that unites Indigenous peoples from several countries and continents, an element of nation-building that I will return to in Chapter 5 (especially in the section called ‘Sépmi as an international sport actor’) and Chapter 6.

However, within the context of AWG and its promising feature as an Indigenous sport event, Paraschak (2013, p. 106) noted, ‘all games with an Aboriginal origin and where the participants remain primarily Aboriginal [Inuit and Dene games] ... have been located in the cultural program rather than being included in the sporting event’. She further pinpoints that such an approach — devaluing the Indigenous activities to ‘only’ cultural exhibition, may create an assumption that traditional games are not real sport; ‘a position often promoted by mainstream sports officials’ (Paraschak, 2013, p. 106) in the stereotyping of Indigenous peoples and their sports. Moreover, the stereotyping of Indigenous peoples in mainstream sport in Canada, for example, by the presence of Indian mascots, ‘constructed to represent a stereotypical Indian’ (Paraschak, 2013, p. 110) will accordingly reinforce white racial privilege and reinforce the subordination of Indigenous peoples. Continuing with Indigenous sport organization and with reference to state sports policy in Canada, Paraschak held that despite it being formally recognized, ‘the Aboriginal sport system is characterized by being less legitimate than the mainstream sport system’ (2013, p. 113).