ABSTRACT
A study of the evolution of Australian sport in the imperial and post-imperial context raises a host of empirical and theoretical issues about the notion of postcolonialism, and this chapter explores some of them. Postcolonial theory has arisen as an umbrella term for a range of perspectives on the social processes of decolonization and its aftermath. In the twentieth century the focus of sporting activity changed from Britain to wider international competitions, sometimes, as with the Empire and later Commonwealth Games, the Davis Cup, and hockey and netball tournaments, within a recognizably British orbit, but often outside that in the case of the Olympic Games, where Australia was an accidental but early and consistent participant. A pivotal moment in what seems to be a post-modern and postcolonial reconstruction of Australian sporting history was the recent erection of monument to Thomas Wills at Moyston in western Victoria, with its stress on the aboriginal origins of Australian Rules Football.
