Suchergebnisse

Examines baseball as a political-cultural ideology as well as a vehicle for analyzing US-Dominican relations.

In examining baseball's cultural and ideological role in the Dominican Republic, it is important to consider the relations to the United States, not only because of the US domination of the country and of the sport's North American origins but because the present and future of baseball increasingly rely on Latin American, particularly Dominican talent. The author carried out fieldwork in the Dominican Republic between 1987 and 1990, during which time he ethnographically observed the sport at levels from amateur to professional, conducted a range of interviews and oral histories of players past and present, and gathered archival material. (Lat Am Perspect/DÜI)

This paper looks at one historical paradigm in the study of sport. Using social traits reflective of feudalism and capitalism, big time bodybuilding developed a set of seemingly contradictory institutions and values. Atavistic social and political relations were fused with a modern capitalist economic base. Two important traits in bodybuilding's ideology - dependency and individualism - are examined as reflective of these different epochs. It is shown that feudal ideology and social traits at times function to obscure capitalist relations and vice versa. The consequence of such interplay is to reinforce existing political and economic configurations by preventing competition and retarding cohesion within bodybuilding's rank and file.