REGIONAL SPORTS: NAVIGATING THE WINDS OF SOCIAL CHANGE FOR FEMALE ELITE ATHLETES IN ASIA

Asia, the largest continent in the world, has more than half of the world’s population comprising multi nations, religions, beliefs and political ideas. Many countries in Asia were colonies under Western rule in the past (Mangan, 2003). Said (1989) argued that “the body ” was a central trope of colonial discourses that constructed differences between the West and the non-West. He also emphasised that non western bodies were portrayed as weak, barbarous, unclean, diseased or infantile which were the opposite to the idealised bodies of the west that is strong, ordered, hygienic, healthy and mature. Sport, however, is one of the main ways in which people of colonised countries demonstrate the strengths of their ‘bodies’, identity and competencies (Nanayakkara, 2008). Being involved in sports activities enables colonised Asian countries to demonstrate to others that they are equal in strength and ability (Nanayakkara, 2008). According to Mangan (2003), the emergence of sport promoted nationalism by elevating the status and image of the nations in Asia and, followed by the post imperial period, reduced the certainties of European imperialistic impacts on Asian politics and their nations. The nexus of contemporary sport and Asia demonstrates that in 1913 The Empir