The History of Athletics and Anthropology

Welcome back to Athletic Anthropology! In today's segment of our journey, I would like to discuss the history of anthropological study in relation to sports. Although sports have existed for tens of thousands of years, it was only in the last 70 or so years that anthropologists began to truly conduct large scale research efforts. So without further adieu, let's dive in!

Since it was not until the 19th century that many sports gained global popularity, attempts to study sports are relatively new. Anthropologists and sociologists conducted a majority of early studies on sports. Social scientists aim to study foreign places and people. Early anthropologists attempted to understand cultures unfamiliar to western countries by living within foreign societies. Anthropology and sociology aim to determine the relationship between culture and the environment around the natives. The field grew in popularity as western civilizations became increasingly interested in foreign places. Western elites could have used the information to assess whether colonization would have been beneficial, while those who could read used the information for entertainment. One goal of early anthropologists was to determine if some societies were superior to others. Philosopher G.H. Spencer popularized the theory of social Darwinism in the late 19th century. Social Darwinism was the idea that Darwinism applied to societies, and that the fittest will overpower and conquer the inferior societies. Anthropologists used the field of phrenology, which is the study of physical dimensions of the skull and other body parts, to try and prove the superiority of western cultures. Many early anthropologists used Social Darwinism to study sports and competitions. When comparing western sports to native sports, many anthropologists deduced that native sports across the globe were not as complex as their western counterparts due to bias. These sentiments changed when an anthropologist named Franz Boas developed a new school of thought within the field of ethnology (the study and analysis of people) and ethnography (the creation of theory from said analysis). Boas developed and advocated for the use of cultural relativism: where outsiders understand a foreign group from the perspective of the group itself. Therefore, the norms of one culture should not be evaluated or compared to the norms of another because each society is unique. Boas felt that if one were to compare cultures, then the biases from their own culture would lead them to misinterpret the customs and rituals of another society. Practicing cultural relativism when doing ethnography allows anthropologists to understand a group of people from their perspective as they contextualize their own behavior. Boas helped to change how athletics were studied and valued. Anthropologists no longer wished to assess how 'complex' a society was by examining its customs. Studying the uniqueness of each culture reveals valuable information about the inner workings of societies. The work of Boas and others helped to remove some of the Eurocentrism from the field and produced more accurate knowledge.

I hope you have enjoyed our exploration into the early anthropological study of sports and the people who helped to shape the field. It is only through further research that we can fully unpack the diverse fabric and of society so that all people can be equitably treated.

Thank you for reading this segment! Feel free to leave a question or comment below!