The athlete's body and the global condition: Tongan rugby players in Japan

Abstract

The mobility of rugby professionals from Tonga to Japan and points beyond poses new questions about the role of the body as a mediator between the subjective and the objective, which anthropologists and other social scientists have generally examined within the confines of specific societies. Increasingly, mobility across different regimes of valuation offers highly skilled bodies both new possibilities for agency and new constraints on agency. The articulation of athletes’ mobility with economic, social, and ideological dynamics provides a window onto the underexplored aspects of the global condition from the ground up.

Pasifika Diaspora and the Changing Face of Australian Rugby League

“…As also discussed by a number of other contributors to this special issue, Pasifika rugby players (whether league or union) are now globally recognized as "exquisite" athlete products, professional performers, and prime commodities for transfer or purchase (Besnier 2012;Horton 2012). Although this suggests that they are highly valued, Pasifika athletes may also be subject to exploitation and stereotyping, both within and beyond sport (Hokowhitu 2004;Zakus and Horton 2009).…”

“…The Tongan state, for example, views rugby migration as a positive exchange, partly due to the economic benefit accrued by the emigration of sporting talent: value is added to the local economy through professional players providing significant remittances to family back home (Besnier 2012). For athletes, though, the search for greener pastures as well as aspirations for producing collective benefit in line with kinship responsibilities fuel "a politics of hope that rubs shoulders with the reality of disappointment and exploitation" (Besnier 2012, 502).…”

New Mana: Transformations of a Classic Concept in Pacific Languages and Cultures

“…: 2). The prominence of sport and popular culture across all forms of media, and the rise in Pacific Islander and Māori participation within these fields, coupled with the expectations of family and community (Besnier 2012;Uperesa 2014), dramatically increase the pressures on athletes and popular artists to be responsible for not just their own, but everyone's image, everyone's hopes, and everyone's mana. The expectations can be unbearable and coupled with other factors including injury or loss of contract, the suicide or attempted suicide rates of rugby league players are growing at a worrying rate, similar to their football counterparts (Cadzow 2013;Massoud 2013).…”

“…Elite diasporic Polynesian male athletes are not only fetishised and commoditised brown bodies but are also subjects who embody mana. Using discourses of new mana, they stress that their strength, efficacy and economic success can benefit not only themselves as individuals but also their families, churches, villages and countries of origin (see also Besnier 2012Besnier , 2014. They have introduced Christian prayers as part of training and pre-game rituals, and valorise qualities such as humility and respect (compare Rial 2012 on charismatic Brazilian football players).…”

Sensing Athletes: Sensory Dimensions of Recreational Endurance Sports

“…This has been a truism in ethnological studies on sports, particularly with a focus on sports fans and spectators (Herd 2016;Schwell et al 2016). 7 The relationship between sport and social background in its historic dimension and regarding the life worlds of athletes has been analysed in studies on workers' sport (Stiller 1991;Schönberger 1995), on sport and integration (Braun and Nobis 2011), on sport and gender (Brinkel 2008;Besnier 2012;cf. also Anderson 2011;Olive and Thorpe 2011), and on social perceptions of performance, health, fitness and competitiveness (Rigauer 1969;Graf 2013;Groth 2014).…”