Anthropology › Section P · Art, music, and sport › Topic P.3
Sport through time
From rubber-ball courts in ancient Mesoamerica to cricket matches in the Trobriand Islands, people everywhere play competitive games with rules. Anthropologists study sport as cultural performance: a stage where bodies are trained, status is tested, nations are imagined and borrowed games are remade.
In this topic
- What makes a game a sport?
- Bodies are trained by culture
- The Mesoamerican ballgame
- The ancient and modern Olympics
- The Creator's Game
- Worked example: Trobriand cricket
- Deep play
- Worked example: reading Geertz's argument
- Sport, nation and colonialism
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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