Exploraciones/Explorations The Meaning of Sport in Anthropology: A View from Latin America

In explaining social and cultural processes, the position of critical intellectuals, professional historians and social scientists, with some exceptions, has been a difficult one in relation to the role ofsports (see Arbena 1988 and Mason 1995). Anthropology, my discipline, is no exception. Theory production in anthropol-ogy has been characterized by the absence of sport as a field of analysis for understanding rituals, complex processes of identity construction, rites de pas-sage, and bodily performances. For instance, Mauss ' (1935) exemplary piece on body techniques does not mention sports aren as and performances as privi-leged loci for the development of an anthropology of the body. Several reasons can be advanced as an explanation for the inattention to sport as an important anthropological endeavour. In my opinion, the main explanation lies in the accepted idea that sports and games, because they pro duce an asymmetry of winners and losers, are only expected to flourish in and be a characteristic of highly competitive industrial societies. The re verse should be true in non-mod-ern societies where rituals dominate. In rituals, asymmetry is postulated i