Traditional Sports and Games: Intercultural Dialog, Sustainability, and Empowerment

Abstract

From Traditional Sports and Games (TSG) we have not only learned different ways of living time as well as inhabit space and a particular mode of practicing sports and games from distinct cultures, but also promoting universal dialog among people. TSG presents sustainable and ecological references for living needed even before the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nowadays, environmentally friendly policies and production methods must be taken more seriously. TSG may reveal a path to sustainable development, considering our corporeality and cultural diversity. TSG are expressions of human groups that historically reproduce their way of life-based on modes of social cooperation and specific forms of relationship with nature, traditionally characterized by sustained environmental management. The purpose of this article is to discuss how TSG promotes intercultural dialog with a focus on sustainability, and how it empowers people and creates equality among its players. We understand that TSG can break socio-cultural barriers. For this study, we considered data from a Brazilian experience of TSG’s Festival held at a public school in the city of São Paulo (Brazil), organized in collaboration with our study group. Data consists of observations recorded in pictures and films during the processes of organization, preparation, implementation, and evaluation of a TSG Festival, held in a public school in São Paulo, Brazil from the years of 2017 and 2018, with the participation of 800 students from the first to the ninth grade of elementary school, aged between 7 and 17 years. The first step in our analysis is taken from a dynamic called “Talking Circles,” where researchers registered dialog about experiences and used specific literature about TSG, from a philosophical perspective. The team and students from our study group that organized these events were invited to participate in four different Talking Circles. Approximately 20 people participated in each one of these meetings. Recurrences that emerged from these Talking Circles are presented in the results and explored afterward. What does this experience–from bodies in movement, artistic or sporting, or both–teach about intercultural dialog and empowerment? Such gestures indicate a cultural heritage and corporeal wisdom that allows humans to face new encounters and understanding in peace, recognizing humanity common to all of us, regardless of our origins. Ethical and aesthetical results of such dialog reveal possibilities to be explored in our relationship with different cultures and the environment, providing points of sustainable development through TSG.

After-school sports programmes and social inclusion processes in culturally diverse contexts: Results of an international multicase study

“…In the same direction, the literature suggests that negative acculturation processes sometimes take place from the dominant culture ( Berry, 2017 ), particularly when subordinate relations are established with minority groups, affecting the development and conservation of their cultures ( Banks, 2016 ); this could explain the weakening of the Mapuche-Huilliche culture and its ancestral language ( Williamson et al, 2012 ). For this reason, it is positive that SCSP programs examined in this study used TSG linked with all cultural identities in classes and meetings, since different authors ( Dubnewick et al, 2018 ; Berti and Lapiccirella, 2019 ; Luchoro-Parrilla et al, 2021 ; Saura and Zimmermann, 2021 ) have pointed out the need to promote the development of cultural identities through immaterial aspects such as TSG. Moreover, it is a learning opportunity for all students and positively valued by both native and cultural minority students.…”

“…However, the incorporation of TSG linked to the cultures present in each context proved to be an effective strategy to favor rapprochement and relations between students. According to Saura and Zimmermann (2021) , this can be explained because incorporate TSG of all identities is synonymous to recognize each culture and members of them, also an opportunity to promote rapprochement, dialogue, learning, and socially inclusive climates. However, it is always important to critically analyze these inclusive alleges properties of sport, as in many cases specific skills are required to take part in them, as well TSG are gender-stereotyped also.…”

How natural environments influence traditional sports and games: A mixed methods study from China

“…The findings reveal that Chinese TSGs are formed and developed in certain natural environments where different races or ethnic groups conduct long-term practice activities. When people adopt different production methods in different natural environments, different social organisations occur, and beliefs and attitudes are formed based on different survival values; this eventually ‘produces’ TSGs with distinctive regional characteristics (Saura and Zimmermann, 2021). The results suggest that TSGs are not completely determined by natural environment, but are derived from a combination of factors such as survival values, beliefs, attitudes, and the natural environment, which verifies the human-land relationship theory (Li et al, 2017).…”

“…Rapid changes in people's lifestyles and production methods make the existing traditional cultural customs in different regions vulnerable to shocks. TSGs, which represent the national spirit, are gradually fading from mainstream sports culture (Saura and Zimmermann, 2021). Simultaneously, TSGs' characteristics of intangibility, vulnerability, and the word-of-mouth inheritance are accelerating their deterioration; thus, many projects have disappeared or stayed on the verge of being critically endangered.…”

Galhofa: the Portuguese wrestling between tradition and survival

“…They have recently been disappearing due to urbanization processes, the growth of digital media and the globalization of more institutionalized practices. Moreover, Saura and Zimmermann (2021) argue that the scope of TSG (Traditional Sports and Games) can be understood as a way of living time and inhabiting space through a particular mode of practicing. This comprehensive via is anchored not only in a phenomenological approach but also in sustainable actions for promoting dialog among people, considering our corporeality and cultural diversity.…”