Sociology of Sport Journal, 1990,7,399-402

Sport in Asia and Africa: Americanization or Mundialization?

Eric A. Wagner Ohio University

Rather than an Americanization, it is argued that there is a mundialization of sports over time. Similarities in sports activities in various countries are becoming greater than the differences. Cultural diffusion is leading to a trading of sports interests in all directions, and is likely to lead to a global sports culture-modified in varying and often substantial ways by diverse colonial legacies, historical backgrounds, and value contexts. Thus the long- term trend is toward greater homogenization in world sports culture.

A number of trends are occurring simultaneously in international sport. First, there is a globalization of sport whereby all major sports are spreading throughout the globe. Thus American football is coming to Great Britain and Europe, soccer is growing in the United States, baseball is becoming an Olympic sport, Asian martial arts are seen everywhere, and basketball and volleyball are now the most ubiquitous of all team sports, after soccer.

Second, international sports competitions are generating worldwide inter- est in and encouragement to be part of it all, even in places such as Yemen and Botswana, which are only now beginning to be involved in international sport. These include the Olympics, the Goodwill Games, and the Commonwealth Games; regional sports competitions such as the Pan American Games, the Afri- can Games, the Central African Games, the Asian Games, the Southeast Asian Games, and the Mediterranean Games; and the almost endless international sports competitions in individual sports.

Third, the rise and power of the mass media throughout the world, which in recent decades has had a substantial impact on sport in many Third World areas, has generated excitement and interest in various heretofore quiet sports areas of Asia and Africa. Examples are the televised world championship boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire in 1973, the "thrilla in Manila" boxing match in the Philippines, the widely broadcast inter- national successes of Malaysian swimmer Nurul Huda Abdullah, and the great feats of the East and North African runners from Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Tunisia, Morocco, and Tanzania, written about and photographed in newspapers

Note. This article comments on the issue of Americanization raised by J. Maguire in SSJ Vol. 7(3).

Eric A. Wagner is with the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701-2979.

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all over the world. In addition, consider the international soccer successes of Cameroon, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates, the holding of the Olympics in South Korea, and the hundreds of millions of Chinese clustered around televi- sion sets watching the recent Mundials. All of these forces have combined to vastly increase sports interest and excitement in Asia and Africa. This excite- ment, I would suggest, is heavily a product of the last two decades. From about 1970 on, we see a burgeoning of sport as an important part of social life in Asia and Africa.

Fourth, there is a growing awareness of the political importance of sport, both externally and internally. Externally, sport has been used by South Korea to gain recognition both diplomatically and as a rising economic power. It has been used by Indonesia to support its claim as a leader among newly emerging nations, and it is used by many countries to enhance their international standing and prestige. Saudi Arabia ran a number of advertisements m leading newspapers around the world, boasting of their efforts to boost Saudi soccer prowess. Inter- nally, among other things sport is used to foster national pride, to bring various ethnic and religious groups together on the playing field, to enhance health and vigor, and as a vehicle of internal and occasionally external social mobility.

All of these trends are occurring in Asia and Africa. Americanization is part of these trends but it is only one part of much broader processes; it is not by itself the key process. While in specific instances and places this may be the case (e.g., bringing American football to England, as Maguire beautifully demonstrates), what i s happening in the world of sport appears to be a much larger process. What we are seeing around the world, and this is perhaps most evident now in Asia and Africa, is a blending of many sport traditions. Both modem and traditional sports exist in these areas of the world, and both are strong in their own right. But any global view that looks over an extended period of time covering perhaps several decades can only conclude that there is a blend- ing and a melding together of many sport traditions-American aspects, Euro- pean approaches, and traditional sports among them-and that what we have is a homogenization of world sports. This does not mean that traditional sports are dying or that sports everywhere are becoming Americanized, but instead that the perspective of time shows us that similarities in sports activities in various coun- tries are becoming greater than the differences. Certainly national sports pro- grams will not become identical in the foreseeable future (and, I hope, never), but we are moving gently in that direction.

Some examples of blending sport traditions and aspects of Americanization will help demonstrate my thesis of increasing sport similarity over time. Martial arts have a long and honorable history among the nations of East Asia. Although there are several local varieties of these sports (judo, karate, and tae kwon do being the best known), all seem to involve traditions of great respect-indeed often reverence-for one's peers, superiors, and opponents. Just as the ethos of honor and sportsmanship has sometimes come with the dissemination of modem sports from-~ngland, so have the traditions of honor and respect come around the world with the techniques of these martial arts. American media and sports organizations are now encouraging the development of these sports internation- ally, but so are the countries of East Asia. Rather than Americanization of the martial arts, there is an internationalization, a joining of like interests, with sport culture flowing in all directions.

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Unlike the d a l arts, which have made their way from Asia to Europe, North America, and the rest of the world, basketball is sometimes seen as the quintessential American sport. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, it spread rapidly from the U.S. to the rest of the world, and today it is one of the four or five sports (along with soccer, volleyball, swimming, and running) in which people most actively participate. It is played in most countries of the world.

The spread of basketball and its subsequent acceptance by people nearly everywhere has generally not been studied. However, Mulling (1989), in a study of sport in Korea, notes the enormous impact that the YMCA and early Christian missionaries had in spreading the game of basketball (and to some extent, volley- ball). Certainly Americans were the primary actors in this process, even though the YMCA originated in England. In this instance there certainly is a strong case for the Americanization of this sport around the world, but the total world sports heritage and the diffusion of that heritage is vastly more complex and is character- ized by diffusion in all directions.

Another kind of sport, not well known, involves stick and/or knife fighting and has ancient origins in both Africa and Asia. Stick fighting has been known in Egypt and Angola, and the Philippine sport of kali uses a large bladed weapon. The Angolan version of stick fighting made its way to Brazil, where it is known as capoeira; it has recently made inroads into the U.S., primarily on the West Coast, though it has appeared in the Midwest as well. This might suggest, admit- tedly to a limited degree, the Africanization of sport rather than the Americaniza- tion.

Or what about cockfighting, a sport that has been around for many centuries and probably has several independent origins? Brilliantly described by Geertz (1972) in the context of Balinese culture, it is also found in the Caribbean and throughout the U.S. Although it is generally illegal in the U.S., it is also relatively common, as it is in southern Ohio where I live. I certainly would not want to talk about Americanization in the context of this sport. But a sport such as this does remind us of the diverse and often multiple origins of many sports, and of the tendency of sports in one area to pick up and adopt characteristics of similar sports from other areas.

To be somewhat irreverent and whimsical, if we are to talk about the Americanization of football in England, I suppose we ought to mention the "soc- cerization" of America. Soccer, to be sure, is growing in participation in the U. S., and there are many reasons for this growth. One reason that I have not seen discussed involves the increasing activity of foot and ball activities on college campuses. On my own campus at Ohio University, where we have a substantial number of students from Southeast Asia, emphasis on use of the foot rather than the hand is common. This has spread to the American students, and in dormitory courtyards one now sees more foot games than such things as throwing the football or frisbee. Surely these activities have smoothed the gradual acceptance of soccer. And in southern Ohio, soccer is making rapid inroads. Again, this is certainly not a process of Americanization but of internationalization.

The larger international processes of development and modernization, of which Americanization is but one part, are fundamentally responsible for changes in the world of sport. One could certainly argue that as modem society develops and traditional lifestyles change, many young people look around for things to do to replace traditional ways of living. In Yemen and Nigeria and Kenya and

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Thailand and Botswana and elsewhere, as urban/industrial/town/service jobs re- place traditional rural ones, young men and increasingly young women search for pastimes, and cultural forms coming via the media, such as soccer and basket- ball, may catch their attention.

Sometimes, aspects of American society, such as sport, are emulated. But this is not Americanization so much as it is international modernization, with inputs coming from many areas of the world, and to attribute it to Americaniza- tion is to mistake the early carrier of change for the larger cultural process. The U.S. and England developed first, and thus the process of internationalization may seem to emanate from them, though it is really global in scale.

I think we make too much of cultural dependency in sports when in fact it is the people themselves who generally determine what they do and do not want, and it is the people who modify and adapt the cultural imports, the sports, to fit their own needs and values. Bringing sports into a new cultural context probably serves more as examples available for people to pick up or trade if they wish, rather than any imposed or forced cultural change. This trading of sports interests goes in all directions, and ultimately is likely to lead to a global sports cul- ture-modified in varying and often substantial ways by diverse colonial legacies, historical backgrounds, and value contexts. The long-term trend has to be, I think, toward greater homogenization, and I don't think there is anything bad or imperialistic about this; rather, these sports trends ultimately must reflect the will of the people. Over time, one can hope that this global sports culture will develop in ways that are in harmony with the likes, interests, desires, and values of diverse peoples all over the world.

References

Geertz, C. (1972, Winter). Deep play: Notes on the Balinese cockfight. Daedalus, 101, 1-37.

Mulling, C. (1989). Sport in South Korea: Ssirum, the YMCA, and the Olympic games. In E.A. Wagner (Ed.), Sport in Asia and Afn'ca: A comparative handbook @p. 83-99). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.