European body cultures and the making of the modern world: Zones of prestige and established–outsider relations

abstract: This paper seeks to outline aspects of the relations, interactions and contradictions of European body cultures. On this basis, I focus on the global diffusion of one of these European body cultures, modern sport. This diffusion is viewed as a critical case study that provides clues to the making of the modern world. A process sociological perspective informs this analysis and, in so doing, I hope to show how such an approach can help make sense of broader questions concerning globalisation and inter-civilisational relations. That is, the study of sport can cast light on the character of and transformations wrought by global processes more generally.

keywords: globalisation, established and outsider, ludic cultures

In 1936, the German scholar Agnes Bain Stiven remarked that

These observations reinforce the consensus that England, or more correctly Britain, is the ‘cradle’ of modern sport. Bain Stiven was also correct to point out that the lingua franca of modern sport is English. Indeed, an aristocratic compatriot of hers remarked that in Germany the English word ‘“Sport” is as untranslatable as “gentleman”’. Thus, the naming of specific sports and also the technical terms associated with a range of sports that spread across the globe were imprinted by an unmistakeable British-English habitus (see also Hirn, 1936). People in different societies thus proved to be remarkably receptive to ‘British English’ customs and pastimes – the dynamics of which are linked to civilising processes and zones of prestige, emulation and resistance and which form the focus of this paper.

Several qualifications must be made to this argument. These qualifications relate both to the relations, interactions and contradictions between the European body cultures of gymnastics, German Turnen and British sports, and to the differential diffusion of non-western ludic cultures, and to the indigenisation and recycling of sport from these ‘outsider’ cultures to the ‘established’ west. First, it is important to note the broader ‘European’ influence on the development of ‘English’ sports. That is, the development of golf, for example, was strongly influenced by events in the Netherlands and Scotland. In addition, the role of the French in the development of forms of and the technical terms associated with lawn tennis, and the fact that folk games of football existed across the European landmass, cannot be underestimated. Secondly, while it is correct to observe that the ‘constitutive’ rules of sport became commonly accepted across the globe, and are now form part of a global idiom, the rules and codes that regulate the ‘playing’ of a sport vary considerably in different parts of the world. Bain Stiven tended to overlook how a process of indigenisation was at work in the diffusion of these sport forms, that global sport was characterised by an increasing variety of styles of play, and that non-western cultures diffused re-stylised sport forms to the west. Thirdly, other body cultures were both in competition with and yet also helped to contour and shape the emergence and initial diffusion of modern sport, and vice versa. That is, whether we associate the emergence of modern sport with the early or late eighteenth century and its initial diffusion with the mid or late nineteenth century, the body culture traditions of gymnastics and Turnen competed with its advocates for social prestige, for ludic space and for practitioners, both in Europe, and elsewhere. Fourthly, this diffusion of sport, and gymnastics, was not as homogenous as suggested by Bain Stiven and, indeed, was contested in several respects by non-western cultures. In tracing the global diffusion of the body cultures of gymnastics, Turnen, and modern sport concepts such as dominant, emergent and residual cultures, and increasing varieties/diminishing contrasts[1] within and between cultures need to inform detailed empirical enquiry.

Here, then, I intend to initially outline aspects of the relations, interactions and contradictions of European body cultures. On this basis, I focus on the global diffusion of one of these European body cultures, namely modern sport. I view this diffusion as a critical case study that provides important clues to the making of the modern world, and a process-sociological perspective informs how we can understand the dynamics involved. In so doing, I hope to show how such an approach can help make sense of broader questions concerning globalisation and inter-civilisational relations. That is, the study of sport can cast light on the character of and transformations wrought by global processes more generally. In this connection, several questions arise. Does sport assist in building friendship between people and nations? In doing so, as part of broader global civilising processes, does it extend some degree of emotional identification between members of different societies and civilisations? With the flow of athletic talent across the globe and with the holding of worldwide contests played out in front of people from different nations, and watched by billions via the media sport complex, has an array of more cosmopolitan emotions developed within and between the peoples of different nations? Or, conversely, have globalisation processes been accompanied by a more powerful decivilising counter thrust, in which groups, within and between societies and civilisations, have reacted aggressively to the encroachment of alien values, artifacts and cultural products, of which modern sport is an example par excellence? If that be so, then the nationalism and violence and the desire to have ‘one of our own’ representing the nation may be symptomatic of the sense of insecurity people feel in an increasingly globalised world and their rejection of more cosmopolitan values.

European body cultures: the state of play

Viewing the developments in European body cultures in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, an interweaving of relations, interactions and contradictions in the development of different forms of gymnastics and the emergence and diffusion of modern sport is evident. For example, Danish forms of gymnastics pioneered by Franz Nachtegall in the early part of the nineteenth century drew on the ideas and practices of Pestalozzi, Johann Bernhardt Basedow and Johann Christoph GutsMuths that were developed in the latter part of the eighteenth century. A clue to the globalising of the ideas of GutsMuths is that his book Gymnastik fur die Jugend (1793) was translated into many languages. McIntosh (1973) argued that Nachtegall, who died in 1847, was ‘no great innovator and followed where GutsMuth led’. The influence of Nachtegall on Swedish gymnastics, and in particular Pehr Henrik Ling, is also debated. What is more certain is that these developments also related to broader processes – in the case of Nachtegall to notions of patriotism and national defence and, with Ling, to the Romantic movement. Ling sought to rekindle notions of Nordic mythology, but two additional points are of interest. First, the activities he promoted included fencing, swimming, climbing, wrestling, balance exercises and GutsMuths’s gymnastic activities. Gymnastics for Ling embraced games and sports, though after his death a more restricted view of gymnastics prevailed in Sweden. Secondly, Ling also focused on using medical gymnastics for the relief of physical disability. While any possible connections with the development of mountaineering and swimming in England are unclear, what is evident is that as early as the 1840s medical practitioners in England began to use Ling’s ideas to treat illness and injury. Indeed, Ling argued that medical and physical educators must be allies and that theoretical knowledge and practical ability must be interconnected.

The influence of Swedish gymnastics was certainly evident in the latter part of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century in the training of women physical educators in England – British people would visit Sweden in the early twentieth century to observe and report back on teacher education. The training of male physical educators came later, in places like Carnegie and Loughborough in the 1930s but, significantly, the curricula followed the Danish model of gymnastics. What also prevailed was a medical definition of the subject. Tracking the interconnections between these forms of gymnastics and sport is not easy. However, the processes of impact were never one-way, and indeed could have unintended outcomes. Tracing the development of sport in Sweden, for example, McIntosh notes that this led to a renaissance in gymnastics (1973: 103). Here, as in Denmark, there is evidence for innovations, unanticipated responses and regenerative practices emerging (1973: 105). For example, while Colonel Victor G Balck would bring his Swedish gymnastic squads to Turnfesten in Brussels and Paris in the latter part of the nineteenth century, he also visited England in 1880 and became an advocate of British sports. The development of Turnen reflected not only the innovations of its main practitioners but also the broader socio-political climate in Prussia and ‘Germany’ as a whole. In contrast to the more rigidly controlled and planned Turnen, the development of the sports movement in Germany was less pre-planned – involving British consular staff, businessmen and workers and students resident in Germany and those Germans who had visited the UK. This diffusion of sport to Germany prompted not just condemnation as being unpatriotic, just as with Danish and Swedish gymnastics, but also in the early twentieth century to changes to Turnen that would include games and sports into the programme. Despite this, throughout the nineteenth century high status public [that is, private] schools had a very different set of body culture practices from state schools. That is, the formal and informal curricula of public schools embraced the games cult and muscular Christianity. The future captains of sport, industry, the military and clergy were learning their lessons on the sports field. There was little or no room for gymnastics. Where gymnastics of the Danish variety were taught this was in the context of state primary schools. Yet, European ludic culture could have been different, and its subsequent globalisation could have taken on a different form and character.

The work of GutMuths, Gymnastics for Youth, had been translated as early as 1800. Likewise, Johann Jahn’s work Deutches Volkstum, received a ready audience. For Dixon (1973), although Jahn had the greater impact, the role of GutsMuths was underestimated. Dixon observed: ‘Though Jahn plucked the fruit, it was Gutsmuths who ripened it. His books were translated into many languages, and had a widespread influence abroad’. The diffusion to the UK occurred piecemeal. Jeremy Bentham supported Carl Voelke in developing a Turnplatz near Regents Park in London in 1825. In 1858 Archibald MacLaren opened a gymnasium in Oxford, and he subsequently played a leading role in the development of gymnastics in the army. While some gymnasia were established in public schools, sports and games remained of much higher status. Indeed, because the gymnastics that was taught in the army was performed by non-commissioned officers – that is, by social inferiors – the officer class frowned upon the activity.

Despite this, in 1865, Edward Gruning designed Die Turnhalle, the German Gymnasium, the first purpose built gymnasium in Britain and the home of the German Gymnastics Society. Here, again, the relations, interactions and contradictions between the European body cultures of gymnastics, Turnen and sports, are evident. In conjunction with William Penny Brookes of the Wenlock Olympian Society and John Hulley of the Liverpool gymnasium, Ernst Ravenstein, founder of the German Gymnastics Society, developed the National Olympic Association in 1865. Die Turnhalle hosted the indoor events of the inaugural National Olympic Games in 1866, 30 years before the Athens Olympic Games of 1896. Behind a new facade, and no longer using its original German title, the German Gymnasium still has some original features including arched roof beams and the hooks which suspended ropes and gymnastic equipment from the beams. It also contains copies of prints of what the interior looked like in its prime. It is now used as a marketing suite for the Kings Cross station development, located adjacent to St Pancras station from where trains will depart from central London to Olympic Park and the 2012 Olympic Games. Little attention is given to it. And why? Some people get to invent the past – given the role of the British in the emergence and diffusion of sport at the height of their imperial greatness, this is no surprise. Penny Brookes is remembered, just. But much less so are John Hulley or Ernest Ravenstein and the German Gymnastics Society. In the diffusion of European body cultures, modern sports were more dominant and, in this regard, the role of the British and their sports was crucial. While I focus on this aspect here, the wider study of the diffusion of European body cultures would further contribute to our understanding of the making of the modern world.

Globalisation, power, and established-outsider relations

Over the past three decades attention has been paid to globalisation and, increasingly, to inter-civilisational relations (Albrow 1996; Beynon and Dunkerley 2000; Held 2000; Hoogvelt 2001; Therborn 2000). This interest has been matched in the connections researchers have made between globalisation and sport. Just as with the study of globalisation more generally, the study of sport and globalisation is characterised by a diversity of perspectives and competing concepts and ideas. However, some degree of consensus has been reached with regard to the fact that globalisation has in some respects undoubtedly changed the relationship between time and space, with the consequence that the globe has come to be experienced as a more compressed space. In addition, there appears to be greater agreement that terms and concepts like interdependence, networks, multi-causality, multi-directionality, and ‘glocality’ enhance the ability of researchers to grasp the dynamics of globalisation. Indeed, Held et al. go so far as to conclude that: ‘contemporary globalisation is not reducible to a single, causal process, but involves a complex configuration of causal logics’ (1999: 11). Such a view finds support in some work on sport (Maguire et al., 2002), while other work focuses more exclusively on the role of capital (Miller et al., 2001). Less consensus is evident in assessments regarding the consequences and trajectories of global sport processes. Opinion is as divided in this connection as it is with regard to cultural globalisation more generally.

On the one hand, global sport is viewed as a progressive and liberating phenomenon that opens up the potential for greater human contact, dialogue and friendship. Global sports events, such as the 2008 Beijing Olympics, with the slogan ‘One World, One Dream’, were said to promote the spread of human rights and democracy, improve inter-cultural understanding, and thus – in International Olympic Committee (IOC) marketing speak – to ‘Celebrate Humanity’ (Maguire et al., 2008). For London, the theme is ‘International Inspiration’. More recently, at the Sport for Peace and Development Forum held in Geneva in May 2011, IOC President Rogge declared, after a meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, that: ‘As a global sports organisation, the IOC has the moral duty to place sport at the service of humanity’. In similar vein, and echoing the language of his predecessor, Kofi Annan, Ban Ki Moon observed:

It should be noted that the IOC have been conducting extensive marketing research in conjunction with their ‘The Olympic Partner’ (TOP) sponsors and potential media outlets, focusing on what consumers know, and several themes associated with Olympism – hope, dreams and aspirations, friendship and fair play, and, joy in effort have been identified. Some or all of these themes were co-opted by corporate concerns and underpinned the global/local advertising campaigns of TOP sponsors in the build-up to the Beijing Games.

On the other hand, and in contrast to the rhetoric of members of the Trans-National Capitalist Class (TNCC), the attempt by Joseph (Sepp) Blatter to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the advertising campaigns such as Celebrate Humanity and mega event slogans more generally, the structure of global sport can also be seen as symptomatic of a new, consumer-dominated phase of western capitalism. The spread of western civilisation – of which the diffusion of modern sport was a part – led not only to the destruction of habitats but also to ludic diversity. Global consumer sport continues a process that leads to the spread of western culture to communities across the globe. Yet, in the establishing of western zones of prestige, there has been evidence for both emulation of and resistance to sport. In addition, new varieties of body culture have emerged and aspects of ludic diversity (along with dance and musical forms) have survived and also, to a degree, become globalised. Despite this, one consequence of this process has been the reduction in cultural differences: the West dominates – for now – the economic, technological, political and knowledge resources and controls the levers of power in global sport. The global sports industrial complex (SIC) is thus tied to the opening up of new markets and the commodification of cultures. Such processes are vividly at work in the developments that have taken place in Formula One motor racing. Here, traditional venues for motor racing, such as France, are jettisoned in favour of new locations such as in Bahrain, Singapore and Shanghai, which allow for the opening up of new markets for manufacturers, sponsors and the media.

In contrast to the rhetoric of such advertising campaigns and mega-event slogans, the present structure of global sport can also be seen as symptomatic of a new, consumer-dominated phase of western capitalism. This involves the purveyors of global consumer sport imposing their cultural products on vulnerable communities across the globe. One consequence of this imposition is the eradication of cultural difference: western groups dominate the economic, technological, political and knowledge resources and control the levers of power of global sport. The global sport industrial complex is thus tied to the opening up of new markets and the commodification of cultures – its consumption is a hallmark of the contemporary world (Maguire, 2008).

These competing interpretations of global sport raise several questions regarding the origins, dynamics and characteristics of globalisation. These interpretations are not as contradictory as they seem, and the tendencies they describe may well, in a seemingly paradoxical manner, be part of the same overall process. Cultural globalisation, of which global sport is a part, can thus be viewed as unifying, universalising, progressive and liberating, or as divisive, fragmenting, constraining and destructive, of local cultures. There appears to be evidence for both. On the one hand, a world market for capital, commodities, labour, and communications has developed, which is dominated by – and differentially favours – developed countries in general and the civilisation of the west in particular. Materially, people, at an everyday level, and nations, at a geopolitical level, are bound up in the matrix of global financial transactions (FIFA’s World Cup and UEFA’s Champions League being good examples); culturally, the purveyors of global brands structure the availability of and meanings associated with products consumed at a local level (consider the association football products provided by Adidas and Nike); as individuals, the media supplies us with images of far-off places and superstars who act as cultural icons, thereby sensitising people to the need to be globally aware and to think globally (the hosting of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa in 2010 and the celebrity status of soccer stars being indicative of this).

What is also clear is that people, nations, and civilisations appear adept at reacting differently to similar mediated experiences of the global and of global sport. Globalisation has sparked anti-globalisation movements whose members not only wish to resist the processes described, but also seek to promote, reinvigorate and/or establish local organisations with roots in the community and based on notions of autonomy and democracy. Indeed, as part of this broader globalisation process, the diffusion of ludic and body cultures involved, as noted, not just British or English sports, along with various European gymnastic forms, but was also marked by a range of countervailing tendencies. That is, in the last 50 years, north-east Asian martial arts have globalised and, even at the height of European empires, the development of sports such as polo were characterised by non-British, non-European actors, actions and values (Maguire, 1999, 2005).

While globalisation may involve the development of transnational groupings, such as the EU, such centripetal forces have also, simultaneously, been matched by the acceleration of centrifugal forces, as witnessed by a surge in demands for self-government and autonomy for regions and nations. The position of the EU and the UK and the demands of the Celtic fringe provide a very good example of these processes at work, and such tensions also surface in a sporting context – the singing of The Soldier’s Song (the national anthem of the Republic of Ireland) or the Flower of Scotland at rugby union matches are cases in point. Finally, while still highly asymmetrical, the current phase of globalisation is less dominated by the west – a changing balance of power is evident in this new global order. The power shift in badminton to Asia and cricket to the Indian sub-continent are illustrative of change, though the ongoing control of global rugby by the old white Commonwealth is not. The IOC may contain more non-westerners, but they too are drawn from the TNCC or the SIC. If we set aside dichotomous thinking and emphasise a formulation that captures the twin processes of diminishing contrasts and increasing varieties, these tendencies are not as mutually exclusive as some of their more ardent exponents claim. This conclusion holds true for studies of sport (Maguire 1999, 2005), and for assessments regarding cultural globalisation more generally (Waters 1995: 40).

Observations of this kind raise questions regarding theoretical stances, the timing and development of globalisation, and the power relations that govern such processes (Held 2000). Debates focus on three key issues:

1. the extent to which globalisation has led to the elimination of local culture and the concomitant growth of a global Americanised culture (see Andrews 1997);
2. the notion that globalisation is a myth, or has had only a superficial impact on the global, and that nations are where the action is (see Rowe 2003); and
3. that globalisation is leading to unique cultural networks and hybridity.

Whatever the merits of these positions, an equally contentious debate has surfaced regarding the timing and development of globalisation. The work of Held (2000) and the insights provided by Göran Therborn (2000) shed important light on the processes involved. Held’s work highlights the need to consider questions of global governance – see also McGrew (2000) and how issues of governance connect to a critical analysis of the SIC (Maguire 2005). Therborn (2000) identifies a series of historical waves that began with the spread of world religions and predate Robertson’s (1990) timing of globalisation, thus enhancing our understanding of the complexity of long-term global processes. It is worth restating that the emergence of modern sport in the context of British-English society in the early eighteenth century was also part of a longer-term inter-civilisational sequence; that its emergence was part of a deeper Eurasian process and body culture tradition; that its diffusion was part of wider European body culture developments; and that, in the broad sweep of global processes, other non-European body cultures would also diffuse during the course of the past two centuries (Maguire, 2005).

Power, culture and global interchanges

In these discussions regarding globalisation, questions of power repeatedly surface. How best, then, to make sense of power, sport, and global relations? Here, the question of power and the link to questions of established–outsider relations (a term derived from Elias and Scotson, 2008 [1965]) are more fully examined with reference to the dynamics at work in inter-civilisational relations and global processes. Whereas in some accounts of sport, such as the work of Brohm (1978), economics plays a causal role, more recent work by Silk and Andrews (2001) tends to soften this line and places greater emphasis on the role of local culture, along with economics, in global sport. Despite this more nuanced approach, Andrews felt able to claim that global popular culture ‘has largely, but by no means exclusively, been influenced by the interconnected technological, capital and media flows emanating from the United States’ (1997: 79–80). More recently, Miller et al., concluded: ‘What began as a cultural exchange based on empire has turned into one based on capital’ (2001: 10). There is much of worth in these positions, but the analysis of power and global sport proposed here takes a different tack.

Process sociology[2] sees power as an essential feature of the networks of interdependency that people form with each other. The types and forms of interdependency are contoured by power relations – these are the capillaries of power to which Foucault also refers. Elias (1978) used what he called game models as didactic devices to capture the pervasive effects of interdependence and power. This approach can examine the exercise of power at the level of social interaction, but also in far more complex, multifaceted organisational structures such as the IOC, or in relations within and between nation states regarding sport and domestic or foreign policy objectives (Maguire, 2008; Falcous and Maguire, 2005). These game models seek to capture the ways in which the numbers of players and the extent of structural complexity increase, and power differentials within contests decrease. The more power relations become relatively equal among large numbers of groups, the more likely is it that the outcome will be somewhat different to what any single person or group has planned or anticipated. These figurations that people form with each other are always governed by a dynamic operation of power. Power, then, is a structural process and an inherent characteristic of figurations in flux.

Two related ideas also assist in making sense of these power relations and thereby of global processes: functional democratisation and the monopoly mechanism. The former relates to the process through which, as noted, the more relatively equal become the power ratios among people and groups, the more likely is it that the outcome will be something that no single person or group planned or intended. In terms of cycles of violence, for example, double bind processes trap people in a position of mutual fear and distrust or cumulative weakening or reciprocal destruction – the more we lack control over social processes the greater our fear will be and thus we are more likely to resort to fantasy thinking or emotion laden decisions. Only rarely are cycles of violence resolved in a condition of compromise without absolute victors or absolute vanquished (Elias and Dunning, 2008: 40). The monopoly mechanism came to operate, according to Elias, at a time when the power chances of the rising bourgeoisie and the declining aristocracy were equal. The term can allow for the study of the structured processes that are at work over time and place as social differentiation and integration among increasingly larger groups become dominant, and greater concentrations of power occur. As chains of interdependency grow longer – at a national and at a global level – the monopoly mechanism can take effect. The emergence and global consolidation of the IOC is a case in point.

Crucially, this monopoly mechanism was not and is not confined to the sphere of economics. Rather, in a multi-causal and multidirectional way, it was and is a question of power chances that occur in the area of military struggle, political domination, cultural relations and economic activity. These processes were a major feature of state formation, but such questions of power also govern small scale social interaction and community relations. In order to make sense of social relations within and between communities, Elias developed a model that focused on the power balances between established and outsider groups. Its significance for the study of global sport has not been fully recognised (Maguire, 1999, 2005), but Martin Albrow views Elias’s work on established–outsider relations as ‘a prescient forerunner of globalisation research’ (1997: 42).

This model can be applied to a range of stratification phenomena, including relations at a global level. Established–outsider studies avoid giving primacy to economic and class relations, yet acknowledge the fundamental importance of power differentials in society. Such differentiation is multidimensional in character and finds expression in people’s self-esteem and images of others. Status, prestige, power, and control underpin established–outsider relations. Power differentials of this kind generate contrasts between group charisma and group stigmatisation and disgrace – established groups enjoy the former, while outsiders suffer the latter. Established groups are better able to organise, within specific zones of prestige, their high status public image while at the same time constructing a negative image of outsider groups. This uneven balance of power – at local, national, and global levels – is the decisive condition for any effective stigmatisation of an outsider group. The stigma of collective disgrace can thus be made to stick. It is difficult, though not impossible, for outsider groups to resist internalising the negative characteristics attributed to them by established groups.

One strategy in these zones of prestige is to emulate the established group; another is to resist and react with hostility. I shall return to these issues of prestige, emulation and resistance when I consider civilisational relations more generally. If such images are internalised, outsiders may well come to experience their power inferiority as a sign of inferiority as humans. Thus, the sense of stigma is developed at the level of culture and group dynamics, and individuals internalise this sense of disgrace into their habitus. While such processes remain a feature of day-to-day relations, they are, nevertheless, deeply embedded within the shared histories and collective memories of individuals and the communities or nations they compose. Such processes are always contested and involve the exercise of a range of power resources. Here, we may note the linkage to issues of habitus, on which Elias focused in his study of The Germans (1996). Ideas of this kind also surface in the work of Bourdieu (1984), though he did not probe questions of cultural power in global civilisational terms. Use of the concept of habitus, inspired by Elias and Bourdieu, has also surfaced in the study of global sport and identity politics (Maguire, et al., 1999).

When the balance of power shifts in the direction of the outsiders, however, the power to stigmatise diminishes and the former outsider groups tend to retaliate. Such retaliation may well be directed at the former masters or other groups, who, though themselves outsiders, were formerly closer to the established group. The history of Indian cricket, and the relations between representatives of Britain, the former colonial power and the different communities that compose the nation state, vividly highlight these processes at work (Guha, 2002). Crucially, however, whichever way the balance of power tips, at the level of the nation state, and civilisational relations more broadly, established groups almost invariably experience and present themselves as more civilised, while constructing outsiders as more barbaric. This is vividly evident in the geo-identity politics following the events of what has become known as 9/11, the series of four coordinated suicide attacks led by members of the al-Qaeda Islamist militant group upon the United States in New York City and the Washington, D.C., area on 11 September 2001. The ongoing development of established–outsider relations and the zones of prestige, emulation and resistance that accompany them are built into the characteristics of group relations – at community, national, and global levels. It should also not be a surprise to discover that the established–outsider relations that contour such zones play a crucial role in the identity politics of cultural globalisation, and in the dynamics underpinning the longer-term and contemporary aspects of global sport.

In his book Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003), Niall Ferguson reflected on his childhood and observed: ‘I grew up ... relishing all the quintessentially imperial sporting clashes – best of all the rugby tours by the ‘British Lions’ to Australia, New Zealand and (until they were regrettably interrupted) South Africa’ (2003: xvi). Despite this recognition, and a brief additional discussion, in his most recent work, Civilization: the West and the Rest (2011), Ferguson makes no mention of the role that sport played and plays. And yet, in his conclusion he notes that: ‘A growing number of Resterners [non-westerners] are sleeping, showering, dressing, playing, eating, drinking and travelling like Westerners’ (2011: 323). This is an interesting aside, but its significance may not have been fully recognised by Ferguson, who appears to have overlooked the work of an earlier historian, R. C. K. Ensor when he noted in 1936, ‘the development of organised games ... may rank among England’s [sic] leading contributions to world culture’ (1936: 164). Let me examine this issue a little more closely.

In the diffusion of sport throughout the empire, the British, whatever their own ethnic origin, acted as the established group dealing with a range of outsider groups. The degree to which they viewed the local culture as barbarian may well have varied, but they were convinced of their own civilised status. Their sports confirmed they were gentleman – for it was men who comprised the established group within the imperial elite. The clubs and playing fields acted as zones of prestige, which helped to stratify relations, not only among the British themselves, but also in their dealings with the ‘natives’. These zones of prestige thus conferred distinction, and allowed gentlemen to embody the qualities of honour, chivalry and fair play. Access to prestigious clubs and playing fields, could be regulated – only chosen outsiders would be allowed to emulate their imperial masters and become, through the adoption of their sports, more ‘British’ than the British. Such individuals, acting as players, teachers and administrators, could thus spread British sports, and with it British influence, more widely and deeply within a colony (Cashman, 1988; Mangan, 1986; 1988; Stoddart, 1988).

Such established–outsider relations were always contested, even though the manner and form of resistance would vary from ‘white’ to ‘non-white’ colonies. And the British themselves were to experience a double bind that can be traced to the processes associated with functional democratisation – try as they might to maintain their own ‘civilised’ status, gradually the cultural markers of power and prestige seeped out from beneath their exclusive control, and, in the case of sport, the imperial masters began to be beaten at their own games. Questions of power, culture and control are thus at the heart of global sport processes (see Maguire, 1999: 47–56). In writing about these civilisational zones of prestige, emulation and resistance, questions concerning civilisational analysis more broadly are raised. It is to these that my attention will now be turned.

Civilisational encounters and global processes

Until relatively recently, use of the term ‘civilisation’ had fallen out of favour in cultural anthropology, history, and sociology. In globalisation research, little attention had been given to the idea of global civilising processes (Linklater, 2004). It became fashionable to view such terms as a product of the Enlightenment, and thus containing a built-in value judgement that emphasised the superiority of the West. In contrast, in post-colonial thinking, what matters is the decentring of the west and the proclaiming of voices on the margins. This approach has much merit. Indeed, given that globalisation processes are marked by double-bind processes such as functional democratisation, little wonder that the waning of the west may already be underway. In addition, demographic changes are decentring the west from within, that is, the sons and daughters of the colonies of the old European Empires and people making up the more recent migration trends, are redefining what it is to be a citizen of a country from that continent. Further, national and regional economies and political structures are being reconfigured in the context of a quickening globalisation spurt. Debunking western-based world-views has thus proved a powerful corrective in making sense of the longer-term and contemporary aspects of globalisation.

Yet such an approach also brings with it certain conceptual blind spots. For example, the social roots of the term ‘civilisation’ are far more complex than the debunking motif would suggest (Sanderson, 1995, Tiryakian, 2001). Use of the terms ‘civilisation’, ‘civilising processes’, and ‘global civilising processes’ can also cast important light on both the development of globalisation and contemporary globalisation processes. Examination of sportisation processes, for example, can provide a powerful paradigmatic study of broader global phenomena. If the terms ‘civilisation’ and ‘global civilising processes’ are shorn of the assumptions associated with claims of western superiority, the task remains to develop further the vocabulary, concepts and evidence concerning inter-civilisational encounters on a global level, it is first of all necessary in this connection to outline a number of key assumptions and give consideration to the internal structures of civilisations. In addition, an examination of the forms, dimensions, and contexts of inter-civilisational encounters is required.

The term civilisation can be understood both in a singular and a plural sense. It is possible to equate the term solely with modernity, and to link it with the emergence of a globalised techno-scientific civilisation. In this sense, one civilisation is emerging, or has emerged, but many cultures remain (Schäfer, 2001). The products of techno-scientific civilisation can also be embraced, while the products and ideas of specific cultures can be resisted or rejected. Considered in this light, global civilisation has no fixed territoriality. Its structure is made up of a worldwide matrix of techno-scientific networks – the media sport complex can be understood in such terms (Schäfer, 2001). Such an approach fruitfully alerts us to the globalised nature of techno-science. In addition, its very spread enables us to grasp the dynamics at work. World music (along with dance) may have the potentiality for people to embrace global and local forms, but the diversity of musical forms, as with ludic culture more generally, is also under threat. Such sentiments return us to questions that show that the primary effect of globalisation is to extend, or contract, emotional identification between the members of different societies.

Considered in this light, the task for studies of global sport should include an assessment of whether sport assists in the building of friendship between people and nations, and in so doing and as part of broader global civilising processes such studies should generate some degree of emotional identification between members of different societies and civilisations. Global sport may well also fuel decivilising counter thrusts. The world problem of football hooliganism provides a good example. Another example would include how and in what ways brutal body contact sports such as American football, ice hockey and different codes of rugby are played and reported. One of the tasks in examining global sport is to gauge its effects in a detailed cross-cultural fashion – exploring established and outsider groups and nations in the global civilisational hierarchy. That task remains to be done. Then again, perhaps world music and dance have a greater potentiality to sow the seeds for more intense global identifications? They are not, that is to say, concerned with competition at their roots.

Stress also needs to be placed on the plurality of civilisations, noting the nature and extent of their interdependence, while also establishing their distinctive and formative features. Understood in this way, civilisations are total phenomena: they entail economics, politics, and culture, which in various combinational syntheses move civilisations and their contacts with others in different directions. The study of these civilising processes, at local, national, and global levels facilitates the generation and testing of hypotheses regarding comparative and historical aspects of human development. The study of play, games and sports provides a context in which work of this kind could be undertaken (Galtung 1982; Huizinga 1949).

Before considering the dynamics, nodal points, and power relations of these inter-civilisational exchanges, it remains necessary to map out the internal structures of civilisations. In ideal-typical terms, Arnason (2001) identifies several civilisational blocs: Chinese, East Asian, Indian, Islamic, Byzantine and Western Christian; however, this does not exhaust the possible range. The cultural codes of these civilisations have both overlapping features as well as distinctive elements. Arnason is less concerned with the specifics, and focuses more on providing a provisional model of the common properties of civilisations. Arnason’s work, in conjunction with insights drawn from Randall Collins and Elias, provides the basis of the schemata presented here. Participants in different civilisations, then, have distinctive cultural orientations and interpretations of the world. Galtung (1982), studying sport as a carrier of deep culture and structure, was on the right lines when he concluded that western sports serve as fully fledged carriers of the socio-cultural codes ‘typical of expansionist occidental cosmology’ (1991: 150); yet, this insight remained disconnected from broader civilisational analysis. In addition to such cultural codes, the institutional constellations of civilisations – the frameworks of political and economic life – need examination. Civilisations also express representative ideologies in texts, and in the embodied strategies and self-images of elites. The study of play, games, and sports can highlight these embodied strategies – the high status habitus of British gentlemen was clearly evident in their games and pastimes played on the fields of empire. Studies of the diffusion to and differential adoption of polo and rugby union in places like Argentina and Japan provide important clues to the processes at work and, in some instances, highlight countervailing trends at work.

Civilisational complexes can encompass whole families of societies (Arnason 2001). Such complexes clearly have long-term temporal dimensions, stretching across successive generations and societal formations. It would be wrong, however, to think that the application of this approach is confined to the study of long-term processes. Contemporary globalisation and inter-civilisational relations can be understood in the same terms. It is also important to note that, within these overall complexes, regional figurations arise and relatively distinctive patterns, and countervailing tendencies have and do emerge. Though the British had an empire on which the sun was said never to set, its various outposts were forging quite distinct cultural codes, institutional arrangements, and ideologies. The developments in Australian and Indian sporting cultures are examples of these dynamics at work.

While these features help in understanding the internal structures of civilisations, it is also necessary to highlight the characteristics of what has been termed the civilisation of modernity and the modernity of civilisations (Tiryakian, 2001). Eisenstadt (2001), for example, detects several characteristics, including: the use of advanced technologies that compress distance and alleviate traditional diseases of humankind; the expression of a wide variety of lifestyles and patterns of individuation; decentred zones of prestige; and extensive contacts and interactions, virtual and physical, that occur between and within regions. While it is not clear what values underpin this global civilisation of modernity, it is no longer the exclusive domain of the west, or even of westerners experiencing the civilisation of the other. Despite this, the west may still be said to have triumphed because so much – but not all – of its civilisation moved beyond its British, European or Western homelands and became established as an integral part of the civilisation of modernity. Though the Beijing Olympics witnessed the triumph of China, their success occurred in a context of modern Western sports.

Examination of the internal structures of civilisations provides a necessary but not sufficient analysis of global civilisational processes. This must be interwoven with the study of inter-civilisational encounters. Unidirectional, mono-causal explanations, focusing on the role of capital or Americanisation, do not do full justice to the heterogeneity of these inter-civilisational encounters. In making sense of encounters of this kind, as with global consumer culture more generally, the analysis has to deal with questions of production and consumption. The dynamics of inter-civilisational encounters are characterised, as Elias’s research and theories should lead one to expect, by both a diminishing of contrasts and an increase of varieties.

The relative hegemony of the West has ensured that the production of its civilisational wares have globalised over the past two centuries and more. As a result of the colonisation strategies of the established (designed to impose their culture or co-opt that of the other), and the emulation and imitation of actions by outsiders (seeking to close the status gap), there has been a tendency towards civilisations overlapping. That is, the contrasts between them have become more muted. Such processes are at work between western and non-Western civilisations; they are also present in relations between outsider civilisations. Inter-civilisational encounters are multi-dimensional; a global mosaic of power struggles, within and between established-outsider groups, at local, regional and global levels is at work. These crossovers and fusions involve the co-adoption of similar skills and techniques, the development of ever-denser communication networks, and structures of consciousness, at practical and discursive levels (Arnason, 2001). The diffusion of western ludic body culture and the sporting habitus can be understood in such terms.

This diminishing of contrasts is only one side of the coin. There has also occurred an increase in the varieties of identities, styles, products and practices. Such a process is again underpinned by a complex power geometry involving established-outsider relations. That is, the representatives of more powerful civilisations wish not only to colonise other cultures, but also ensure that their own styles and practices are distinctive enough to reaffirm their group charisma and sense of civilised high status and taste. Power struggles within established groups also prompt the incorporation of aspects of other cultures and civilisations into the established civilisational form. By contrast, the representatives of less powerful civilisations seek to resist colonisation and the civilisational assumptions, styles and practices of others. In doing so, they, too, restyle their own behaviour, customs and ideas, and reaffirm outsider civilisational traditions in a more intense way.

There are, however, other dynamics at work in the production and consumption of new varieties. A process of crossover, fusion and creolisation of cultures and civilisations is taking place. Writing about this in more general terms, Elias noted: ‘In accordance with the balance of power, the product of interpenetration was dominated first by models derived from the situation of the upper class, then by the pattern of conduct of the lower, rising classes, until finally an amalgam emerged, a new style of unique character.’ (2000: 386) Although western civilisation, at this stage in human development, can be regarded as the established group in global terms, its history suggests that it too is part of a specific multi-civilisational sequence. In making this case, my analysis returns to a point previously made; civilisations are not fixed, closed, or isolated entities – they have a long-term history as well as contemporary features.

Established groups are able to develop both a collective we-image, based on a sense of civilisational superiority and group charisma, as well as a they-image, in which outsiders (and their play and games) are viewed with disdain and mistrust. Outsiders and their civilisation are stigmatised as inferior, and their practices as childlike and unsophisticated – colonial views of Africans and African ludic culture is a case in point (Mangan 1988). With the shift towards greater interdependency, and the decrease of contrasts, however, a functional democratisation process is at work. High-status civilised behaviour seeps out from the zones of prestige. Established groups, despite refining their own behaviour in response, find it more difficult to control outsiders – either those who have successfully emulated their former masters, or those who chose to resist. The making of modern sport, and the role that the British and their empire played in the global diffusion of sports can be understood in these terms (Maguire 1999: 50–5). Here, then, the analysis is extended to a discussion of the role that zones of prestige, emulation and resistance play more generally in such inter-civilisational encounters.

Though Collins (2001) does not use concepts such as established–outsider relations or diminishing contrasts/increasing varieties, his analysis of zones of prestige dovetails with this broader schematic. These zones can be more adequately understood if linked to global civilising processes, which involve phases of colonisation and phases of repulsion (Elias, 2000: 430). Such zones can also prompt decivilising counter thrusts in which groups react aggressively to the promotion and encroachment of alien values (Linklater 2004). The concept of zones of prestige refers to multiple or singular centres where culturally impressive activities are produced, displayed, and consumed. These zones perform three main tasks, which may be connected to sportisation processes. First, they renew and confirm the identities of members of civilisations. London, for example, played this role, but in the context of nineteenth-century sport and games, so too did high-status public schools. In terms of sport and the empire, there were also regional and local zones of prestige – cricket clubs in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore were not only venues were players and officials would meet to play the game, but also spaces in which imperial power was on display and where local elites would conduct aspects of imperial power.

Second, zones of prestige attract sojourners, students, and visitors. Drawn to the civilisational magnetism and cultural charisma of nineteenth century imperial Britain, fellow Europeans and representatives of other civilisations sought to understand the success of the British. For Pierre de Coubertin, his visits confirmed his belief that this success was connected to the play and games of British public schools. He was not alone in such beliefs – a range of students and visitors returned home, established inter-civilisational networks, and brought with them the values and practices of the British, including their sports. Third, these zones of prestige acted, and continue to act today, as networks, where ideas, religious beliefs and social formations could and can be examined, discussed, and, crucially, exchanged. In examining the early making of modern sport Elias and Dunning (1986) pointed to the significant role of private clubs and their relative autonomy which was more pronounced in Britain then elsewhere in Europe. In terms of sports and games, British zones of prestige acted as magnets, but this involved not only the outflow and diffusion of games and sports. The established imperial centre also experienced the inflow of ideas and practices. These included, as noted, attempts to develop Swedish and Danish gymnastics, and German Turnen (McIntosh 1968). In addition, sports such as polo and badminton flowed back from outposts of empire and contained within them the imprint of other civilisational traditions.

Zones of prestige can rise and fall in terms of the civilisational magnetism and cultural charisma they project and contain. The role they play in inter-civilisational encounters is also contoured by the relative distances and modes of communication available in different parts of the globe. In addition, the degree of identification with and loyalty to a specific civilisational tradition also influences whether its impact is short-term and ephemeral, or long-term and more enduring, with the ideas, customs and practices entering the other civilisation’s cultural interpretation of the world, its institutional constellations, representative ideologies, and we-group habitus codes. Zones of prestige can, however, also prompt rejection and hostility on the part of people from outsider civilisations. In phases of colonisation, indifference to or outright rejection of the civilisational practices of the more powerful established group also occur (Elias, 2000: 386). Rejection can also be a feature of long-term antagonism between members of different civilisations – the response by sections of the Islamic world to the ludic body traditions of the west is a case in point (Mazrui 1987). In this regard, it is worth noting that neither geopolitical nor economic hegemony automatically creates a centre of civilisational prestige (Collins 2001). The cultural shift from emulation and imitation to hostility does not, however, always follow from a change in the balance of power between established and outsider groups. The longevity of cricket in the Caribbean and in the Indian sub-continent, long after the imperial masters left their former colonies, are examples of these processes at work (Beckles and Stoddart 1995; Guha, 2002).

This insight leads to a more general observation about sport, civilisational encounters and globalisation. While established–outsider relations are contoured and shaped by an amalgam of political, economic and social processes, a movement for cultural or civilisational autonomy is not a mere reflex of geopolitical or economic relations. Inter-civilisational encounters are also based on dynamics that involve social networks of intellectuals, cultural workers and organisations that provide a base for cultural production and consumption. Attracted to the zone of prestige, sojourners become pupils and followers. On returning home they may become keen advocates of what they have learned and, in so doing, build successful careers – in the case of sport, as players, coaches, teachers, or administrators.

The differential diffusion of Olympism via the Olympic movement may well prove to be a classic example of these dynamics at work, but much more work needs to be done on how this diffusion unfolded in different civilisations. Reinforcing the diffusion of Olympism in general and sport in particular, the centres of prestige have long sent out missionaries and pioneers. Think, for example, of the role that the YMCA played in the diffusion of global sport, and that the Catholic Church played in the development of Kenyan athletics. These missionaries also make their careers as carriers of a civilisational culture eager to proselytise on the periphery (Mangan, 1988). Over time, sports and games became part of the formal policy of the nation-states of different civilisations, directed at citizens in the form of Physical Education teachers and at elite athletes, who became part of the global sports-industrial complex (Maguire, 2004). As such, these strategies, in an unintended manner, reinforce and reflect the geopolitical, economic and cultural established–outsider figuration.

To acknowledge this is not to overlook the role of cultural producers. Rather than seeing such careers as autonomous in relation to issues of geopolitical and economic hegemony, a more adequate portrayal would be in terms of the relative autonomy within specific figurations of production and consumption. Nevertheless, it is important to note that it is factions in the culture-producing networks that have the strongest interests in inter-civilisational imports and exports, in terms of promoting or inhibiting such flows. The dynamics underpinning the global diffusion of sport can also be linked to these processes (Maguire, 1999).

Conclusion

When the balance of power changes between established and outsider civilisations, the representatives of the latter do not necessarily reject the previous imports from the zone of prestige – here we deal with both transformation and continuity. A related question arises concerning how the former established civilisation retains its prestige and its network centrality after it is eclipsed by the superior military and/or economic power of another world region. Here, a pertinent example is the case of the British, but other European powers such as the Dutch, French and Spanish can be examined in a similar fashion. While having lost economic and military supremacy, London, and some of the cultural wares of the British, retain their prestige. How? Part of the answer lies in the retention of social structures that promote intellectual creativity (Collins 2001: 431). In this connection, the BBC, the British Council and its high-status universities would be examples of British organisations and institutions that encourage innovation and expression, and thus allow for the retention of prestige. Longstanding sporting events, such as Wimbledon, Royal Ascot and the Henley regatta, perform similar functions. Yet this is only part of the explanation. Zones of prestige are also linked to their advocates view themselves. In this regard, the we-image and we-ideal of the British and how sport plays a part in such identity politics needs to be considered. Modelled on an idealised image of themselves in the days of their imperial greatness (in political, economic, military, and sporting terms), their group charisma and we-ideal lingers on for many generations as a model they feel they ought to live up to, but are often unable to do so.

As Elias observed with regard to declining nations and civilisations more generally: ‘Yet, the dream of their special charisma is kept alive in a variety of ways – through the teaching of history, the old buildings, masterpieces of the nation in the time of its glory, or through new achievements which seemingly confirm the greatness of the past’ (2008: 28). The media framing of, and popular reaction to British sporting success at the Beijing Olympics highlights such processes at work. The fantasy shield of their imagined charisma and the retention of specific zones of civilisational prestige gives the British the resources to carry on. But, defeats on and off the playing field undermine that civilisational prestige. What will the reaction be if Great Britain fails to secure sufficient medals at the 2012 London Olympic Games? How will the anticipated increased geo-political rivalry between the USA and China be played out in various cultural and sporting fields? The elimination of Chicago in the first round of voting for the right to host the 2016 summer Olympic Games signals not only the rise of Brazil but also of BRIC countries more generally. Not only did US President Barack Obama feel the need to attend the IOC Congress in Copenhagen in September 2009 to plead the case for Chicago, American influence had diminished within the SIC sufficiently for them to be ranked behind Rio, Madrid and Tokyo.

The rise of Brazil also has to be connected to the changing balance of power indicated by the ‘rise’ of Russia, India and China, (the so-called BRIC countries). In this regard it is significant that each of these nations have been making in-roads into the hosting of global mega-events, indicative of a zone of prestige, that were once the exclusive preserve of the west. Brazil, for example, will host the 2014 FIFA men’s World Cup, and Rio was awarded the 2016 Olympic Games; Russia will host the 2014 winter Olympic Games in Sochi and the 2018 FIFA men’s World Cup, while Indian played host to the 2011 Commonwealth Games and, of course, China was the host to the 2008 Olympic Games). In this light, and with consideration of the British, it is possible to observe that whatever other zones of prestige they maintain, sport may no longer be within their purview, even if, as the historian Ensor noted in 1936, ‘the development of organised games ... may rank among England’s leading contributions to world culture’ (1936: 164).

The study of power, established–outsider relations and inter-civilisational encounters allows us to make a more sober assessment of the globalised nature of sport, and the transformations and continuities within and between civilisations more generally. In these closing observations it is possible to outline, in very preliminary form, what lines of investigation could be followed. Investigation of the continuities and changes involved in the make-up of the global sport power elite that compose part of the SIC is required. Is there evidence of a move away from domination by elite male, able-bodied westerners, and if change has occurred, is there continuity in terms of the influence of alliances (albeit reconfigured) between states and between state representatives and the executives of transnational corporations? In addition, if sport acts as a ‘global idiom’; how does this process occur and how is it understood in different cultures and civilisations? Whose tastes shape the global idiom? Clearly, westerners have tended to be the global winners at their own games both on and off the field. The male members of Western societies acted as an established group on a world level; their tastes and conduct, including their sports, became sanctified as elite cultural activities that acted and act as signs of distinction, prestige, and power, for men and by men. How this process was played out in different societies, along class, gender and ethnic lines, is yet to be fully understood. Furthermore, while the rise of the West was contested and its ‘triumph’ was not inevitable; western culture had long been permeated by non-western cultural forms, people, technologies, and knowledge. In sum, these cultural interchanges stretch back to long before the West achieved relative dominance in global cultural interchange. Yet we know relatively little about these processes from a non-Western perspective and systematic evidence regarding countervailing tendencies is in short supply. More work in this area is crucial.

Notwithstanding this, by focusing on globalisation and sport, we may overlook issues of anti-globalisation, of resistance to Western influence, culture and sport, and identity politics and nationalism more generally. Issues concerning the impact of sport on development, the role and impact of mega-events and the exploitative practices of the SIC require far greater attention from those both within the ‘established’ groups of nations and those who are viewed as ‘outsiders’. Informed by the concept of habitus, the study of globalisation and sport needs to include body culture more generally. Linking questions of body culture to environmentalism, for example, could help in examining the wider issues of globalisation, indigenisation, and disappearing worlds. That is, research could probe the depletion of habitat and also of habitus – of place, space and ludic diversity. Considered in this way the interconnections between globalisation, body cultures and the making of the modern world could begin to be better understood and the local and global quest for exciting significance might then be better appreciated.

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Biography

Joseph Maguire studied as an undergraduate in London and gained a BEd (1st class honours) from the University of London; he completed his PhD in Sociology at the University of Leicester, under the supervision of Eric Dunning. He is a two–term former President of the International Sociology of Sport Association and is the Velux Visiting Professor at the University of Copenhagen. Professor Maguire recently received two major awards: The Distinguished Service Award (2010) of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS); and the International Sociology of Sport Association (ISSA) Honorary Member's Award (2011). Professor Maguire has published extensively in the area of sport, culture and society. Currently his work focuses on the areas of sport and social theory and sport and globalisation. His research on globalisation examines inter-civilisational relations, the Olympics and mega-events, migration, media and national identity and sport and development. Recent publications include: Reflections on Process Sociology and Sport: ‘Walking the Line’ (London: Routledge, 2010); Sport and Migration: Borders, Boundaries and Crossings (with M. Falcous, London: Routledge, 2011); and Power and Global Sport: Zones of Prestige, Emulation and Resistance (London: Routledge, 2005).

Notes

1. See Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process (2000 [1939]), pp. 382–7, ‘Diminishing contrasts, increasing varieties’.

2. ‘Process sociology’ is the term that Elias came to prefer, as a label for the kind of sociology that he advocated, to the more familiar ‘figurational sociology’.