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Sport spectacle, globalisation and nation : a case study of South Korean women's narratives of the 2004 Olympic Games and the 2006 FIFA World Cup

This research interrogates South Korean women’s gender, ethnic and national identity construction revealed through sport spectacle. Two phases of the interviews were conducted for the research: focus group interviews during the 2004 Athens Olympics and individual interviews between March and April 2005, the period of the final qualifying stage for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Newspaper extracts on the Olympics and the football matches were presented in the interviews. The analysis of the women’s identity construction was contextualized in relation to South Korea’s socio-cultural, historical and political networks. Globalisation provides the overall framework for the research. Globalisation has dramatically transformed the way people construct their relations to themselves, others and their nation. The research explored how the interviewed women produced and reproduced the meanings and values of the sport events and sport games in search for a sense of security and certainty in the ever-shifting global context. Their struggles to ‘live’ in the new social milieu, a process of reterritorialisation, were also analysed. Moreover, the women’s relationships with North Korea were examined based on the concepts of the ethnic identity and also of the nation as a historical community with shared culture, tradition and history. Although infamously labeled internationally as part of the ‘axis of evil’, North Korea provided a source of ambiguous identity to the interviewees. The women’s perceptions of Japan, South Korea’s old enemy, were also investigated around the themes of postcolonial identities. In addition, the research demonstrated the women’s gendered perceptions of sportswomen and sportsmen and an idea of nationhood represented by them.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:558241
Date January 2007
CreatorsOh, Miyoung
ContributorsKennedy, Eileen; Pussard, Helen; Thornton, Andrew
PublisherUniversity of Roehampton
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttps://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/portal/en/studentthesis/sport-spectacle-globalisation-and-nation(4b4ae300-25c7-4fc1-8841-e50938b6431d).html

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