Decolonizing Sport
tells the stories of sport colonizing Indigenous Peoples and of
Indigenous Peoples using sport to decolonize. Spanning several lands
-- Turtle Island, the US, Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand and Kenya
-- the authors demonstrate the two sharp edges of sport in the
history of colonialism. Colonizers used sport, their own and
Indigenous recreational activities they appropriated, as part of the
process of dispossession of land and culture. Indigenous mascots and
team names, hockey at residential schools, lacrosse and many other
examples show the subjugating force of sport. Yet, Indigenous Peoples
used sport, playing their own games and those of the colonizers,
including hockey, horse racing and fishing, and subverting colonial
sport rules as liberation from colonialism. This collection stands
apart from recent publications in the area of sport with its focus on
Indigenous Peoples, sport and decolonization, as well as in imagining
a new way forward.
