ABSTRACT

Olympic sport is not only an arena of symbolic action, but also ‘real’ sport and in this field of activity, the Aboriginal contribution is missing. Social phenomena like Olympic sport are not only entities that can be thought as a system, but also fields of contradiction. In the three cases of ‘sport’ described earlier, there are very different patterns of identification, different ways of ‘we’-building and belonging. The first pattern is characterized by competition and result. The second pattern stresses discipline and fitness for the purpose of an identity of integration. The third pattern centres around festivity and play, leading to some form of popular identity. Olympic sport has gone through different historical stages. These stages can be related to the (im-)balance of power between the three logics of the market, the state and the civil society. On the other side of the spectrum of civil society, ‘non-sports’ as they were observed already in 1984, are expanding.