Culture is closely aligned with identity. It is a malleable concept that readily changes shape to suit the purposes of a broad range of users. Yet, culture is central to the way we construct our identities and in the way we discuss this construction. This section of the chapter positions sport and tourism as important cultural phenomena in the process of globalization.
The essence of culture
Culture is a nebulous term. While it generates serious debate both in the realms of academia and policy, there is no single definition that is universally accepted or, for that matter, acceptable. In their study of tourism in Scotland, Jack and Phipps (2005:11) expressed their frustration with this state of affairs by stating:
.we are skeptical of the benefits of a continued overuse of the term culture or the essentialising and intercultural modeling of so-called cultural behaviours and national stereotypes. The idea of culture as a concept has indeed become so overweening and overwritten as to have become a problematic term in analytical contexts.
Despite their concerns, Jack and Phipps go on to grudgingly argue the utility of the term due to its common usage and acceptance as a reference to the lives of peoples and the way of life found in nations. Part of their frus- tration might be attributable to the fact that culture is often used to refer to the visual and performing arts. This ‘high culture’ interpretation is common in Europe and is used more broadly in political and public debates on ‘cultural policy’. In this sense, sport is often seen in opposition to culture because of its physical nature, although the boundaries blur in the context of sports such as figure skating and rhythmic gymnastics with their emphasis on the aesthetics of human movement.
For the purposes of this book, culture is seen as a ‘way of life’. It is the system of values, beliefs and behaviors found in the practice of living (Allison, 1982; John Hargreaves, 1982; Henderson, 2003; Robinson & Smith, 2006).
Culture is shared and exchanged in a wide range of forms inclusive of institutional elements that characterize a place and its history but more profoundly, it is found in day-to-day activities including the sporting activi- ties of the people who live there.
Culture and tourism
Cultural tourism encompasses ‘both the cultural nature of, and the role of, tourism as a process and set of practices that revolve around the behavioural pragmatics of societies, and the learning and transmission of meanings through symbols and embodied through objects’ (Robinson & Smith, 2006:1). It includes a broad range of cultural products but is increasingly anchored in perceived differences between the home culture of the visitor and the everyday culture found in the destination.
The Grand Tour which saw English privileged classes travelling to centres of high society throughout continental Europe in the sixteenth century serves as a good example of an early form of cultural tourism, albeit with a ‘high cultural’ flavour. More generally, however, a significant portion of today’s tourists has an interest in different ways of life or different cultures. One reason for this interest was articulated by McCannell (1973, 1976) who suggested that the pressures of modernity were responsible for the emergence of a search for authenticity by tourists. As work and home-based alienation grew, tourists became increasingly interested in finding meaning through
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their travels. By gaining insight into different ways of life or culture, travellers captured a sense of the authenticity they were searching for (see Chapter 8, Authentic experiences).
We do not mean to imply, however, that this search for authenticity is universal. In fact, much of mass tourism is dominated by a hedonistic search for pleasure. Craik (1997) used the term ‘culture-proof’ in reference to tourists who have no interest in cultural differences. A good example of this type of tourists is one who frequents seaside resorts with a focus on the sea, sand, and sun. Such tourists tend to consciously avoid contact with people from the surrounding communities and to remain oblivious to the cultural nuances that may have infiltrated the resort.
Notwithstanding the existence of indifference in some quarters, it is clear that culture is an important dimension of tourism. High culture attractions such as Broadway plays in New York, opera performances in the Sydney Opera House or art exhibits in galleries throughout the world are in great demand. Heritage tourists flock to museums and interpretive centres (Timothy & Boyd, 2003). Indigenous cultures have been the focus of many tourism developments in core and peripheral areas (Butler &
Hinch, 2007). Festivals of all types continue to be promoted as cultural tourism products (Sofield & Sivan, 2003). Cultural icons like the British monarchy and the pyramids of Egypt are prominently featured in tourism promotions. All of these aspects of culture and countless others have been commodified for tourism. They are commonly referred to as ‘products’ in the tourism industry, and while critics of cultural tourism have high- lighted a range of negative impacts associated with their commodification (Greenwood, 1989), they continue to be in demand. For many visitors, they have provided genuine insight into the culture of a destination. While the tourism industry has been guilty of distorting place-based culture in its pursuit of profit, destination communities attempt to highlight the things they find positive about their identities by the way they produce these cultural tourism attractions. Urry (1995) has suggested that tourism is, in fact, an extension of normative culture in that it represents those aspects of the community that tourism producers choose to display to others.
More and more tourists are looking for more than the ‘cultural icons’ and are seeking ‘everyday culture’. Rather than seeing the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, it is the purchase of fish and chips at a local shop that often defines an authentic cultural experience for today’s visitor to England.
Robinson and Smith (2006) argue that it is these ‘popular’ everyday expres- sions of culture that are of growing interest to tourists. Sport is one of the most prominent manifestations of this everyday culture.
Culture and sport
Huizinga (1938) was one of the first scholars to highlight the connection between sport and culture with his suggestion that culture is rooted in play.
Contemporary scholars continue to see sport as a manifestation of local and global culture. For example, notwithstanding the issue of (de)territorializa- tion, Jackson (1998b:236) argues that ‘[a]s a popular cultural form and practice, sport has been at the forefront of many nations’ search for a national identity’. Sport features prominently in news and entertainment media including print, traditional broadcast and emerging forms of electronic media. It is at the heart of the culture of consumption given its broad-based appeal and the relative ease with which it can be packaged for consumption.
Sport’s appeal as a form of popular culture is manifold, but important elements include 1) the passion that is engendered by sport competition and active sport pursuits; 2) tensions that accompany uncertain outcomes; 3) sport’s ability to generate vicarious excitement as spectators align themselves with their favorite athletes and teams; 4) the collective experience of sport that goes beyond the confines of the spectators at the competition site to what is usually a much larger broadcast audience and, 5) its unique rituals, drama and symbolism (Hargreaves, 1982).
In addition to being a form of popular culture, sport is a form of deep culture (Galtung, 1982). Given this characteristic of sport, scholars such as Allison (1982:14) have called for further academic enquiry in this realm.
Beyond the immediately recognizable content of the game such as of rules, styles, strategies, and materials which make up the raw data which the social scientist must understand, analyses must try to discern, beyond such content, the implicit pattern, design or deep structure which form the cultural foundation of such behaviour.
Sport serves as an agent for socialization between generations (e.g., Piaget, 1965) and between other types of social groups. For example, Bourdieu (1978) used the term ‘class habitus’ to describe class socialization process.
He suggested that working classes tend to have an instrumental orientation.
Their preferred sports were characterized by strength, endurance and aggression. In contrast, privileged classes preferred sporting activities that were aimed at maintaining and enhancing one’s own health. Interaction between these groups not only provides each with insight into the other’s culture but also results in socialization as each group adopts some of the traits of the other or modifies their own sporting culture.
Sport also serves as a medium for socialization between visitors and hosts in the case of sport tourism. Allison (1982:33) studied a similar dynamic in
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the context of native American Indians in the United States with the conclusion that
.play, games, and sport become one of the media within which cultural messages are communicated and transferred from one individual to another, and in this case from one culture to another.
Thus, play, games, and sport forms are simultaneously the content of culture which is to be transferred, and too, are the media with which such transfer occurs. They are products of culture, yet part of the process of culture transmission as well.
Sport as a cultural tourist attraction
The culture dimension of sport makes it a powerful tourist attraction. Its appeal is found in both the ‘deep cultural’ differences imbedded in local practices and in the more subtle differences associated with the ways that popular global sports are produced and consumed in other places. The physicality of sport is one of its defining characteristics as a tourist attraction.
Regardless of the form (professional/amateur, athletic/gymnastic, cosmopolitan/nationalistic), sporting movements articulated explicit reflexive practices that enabled participants and spectators to learn about themselves individually and collectively. At the core of these reflexive practices were the physical, sensual and ephemeral bodies of athletes and spectators.(Brown, 2001:78–79)
Hargreaves (1982) pointed out that the relationship of the individual to his or her body is a central feature of sport and that it forms a fundamental aspect of the habitus. More recently, Hockey and Collinson (2007) have argued along a similar line in terms of embodiment and sport. This funda- mental relationship between the body and sporting activity is relatively easy to illustrate in the case of active participation whether it is the sensual feel of the water, sun and sand when participating in water sports at a beach or the physical exertion that is required of a cycle tour in the mountains (see Chapter 8,Authentic experiences). It is less explicit in the case of spectator activity but even though the actual physical performance may be vicarious in nature, it encourages reflexive practices that provide unique opportunities to gain insight into the physical culture indigenous to a place, and in turn, it serves to construct the personal narrative of the sport tourist.
Leiper’s (1990) definition of a tourist attraction as the empirical relationship between tourists (people), a nucleus (the site of the tourist experience) and the markers that inform the visitors about the nucleus provides a good framework for understanding sport as a cultural attraction
(Hinch & Higham, 2004). In their search for identity, tourists are able to develop personal narratives based on their cultural experiences of sport and place as played out at the nucleus. A wide array of markers, inclusive of tourism promotions and sport commentaries are available to help the indi- vidual to articulate the relevance of these sport tourism experiences as determinants of personal and collective identity.