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"The Bead of Raw Sweat in a Field of Dainty Perspirers": Nationalism, Whiteness and the Olympic-Class Ordeal of Tonya Harding

This paper examines the interrelations of whiteness, gender, class and nationalism as represented in popular media discourses surrounding the coverage of the assault on Olympic ice skater Nancy Kerrigan and the investigation of her rival, Tonya Harding. As with other recent works that have refocused the issue of "race" on whiteness, this essay seeks to unveil the exclusionary social processes in which boundaries
are set and marked within the "difference" of whiteness. The concepts of habitus and historicity are used to understand how Tonya Harding became marked as "white trash," and the implications of her "flawed" qualifications are explored. Furthermore, this paper identifies ongoing ideological struggles over moral regulation and reproduction of the nation and its subjects.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/110832
Date January 1996
CreatorsKrause, Elizabeth L.
PublisherUniversity of Arizona, Department of Anthropology
Source SetsUniversity of Arizona
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle

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