A Critical Appraisal of Narrative in Sport History: Reading the Surf Lifesaving Debate

All debates in history—who started the Cold War, how successful were the Chartists in achieving their aims, to what extent was the recession of the American frontier culturally significant in American history— are debates between competing narrative interpretations. Moreover, because the historical imagination itself exists intertextually within our own social and political environment, the past is never discovered set aside from everyday life. History is designed and composed in the here and now.

Deconstructing sport history: The postmodern challenge

The crisis in the historical profession today is both conceptual and political, both methodological and practical. To the crises of the decline of great narrative history for the popular audience, the multiculturalist challenge to Eurocentric history, and the loss of faith in grand themes of progress and liberation that provided moral and political guidance through history’s lessons, must be added the crisis created by the implications of literary and rhetorical theory for the very practice of history itself.

Remembering sport history: Narrative, social memory and the origins of the rugby league in Australia

This study examines the historiography of the origins of rugby league in Australia. By accepting the inclusive nature of representation of the past as found in social memory theory, a wide range of sources ranging from histories written by academics to annuals, yearbooks and newspaper books are consulted. These sources reveal that there are several competing and conflicting accounts of the emergence of rugby league in Australia. These divergent accounts are used to facilitate a discussion of the role of narrative in sport history This article argues that narrative is an integral, not optional, feature of the production of history and that the historography of the origins of rugby league highlight the problematic nature of objectivity in history and the unavoidable, impositionalist role of the historian.

Girls and tea ladies: involvement of Australian female athletes and administrators in the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games

This article focuses on the 1956 Olympic Games in order to consider and ascertain the role and place of women in Australian society, generally, and, more specifically, in Australian 'sport' as both athletes and sporting administrators.

O Grêmio da Paulista e o lazer do ferroviário rio-clarense

This article turns to the memory of a not too distant past, to investigate the cultural leisure evidence and its development in the city of Rio Claro which has been shown by the Recreation Club Employee of the Companhia Paulista de Estradas de Ferro (GRECPEF), identifying the leisure activities and the relation of these railway employee with the club. For the claims of the research an exploratory investigative model had been used focusing the relationship of GRECPEF with the social history of the city of Rio Claro. Data had been collected through literature review and semi-structured interviews with railway retire employee, who are part of the partner board of the Recreation Club. Within this context one can see that this club is a reference to the leisure activities of the railway employee, and has significant importance and influence on the setting up of a leisure culture in the city.

O skate na cultura corporal de movimento: aspectos evolutivos e sociais

Skateboarding gets practitioners and followers all over the world and it's still growing. Thus performing a detailed analysis of its tracks becomes exciting. This study has a purpose of investigation about the evolution of the skateboard as a leisure activity and as a sport, supported by historical and social factors analysis that influenced their growth. Furthermore to understand the sport history and its influence in the socialization process, and also in the insertion of individuals in a social context within the body movement culture. The methodology used in this study was based on a literature review, analyzing articles, books, documents, websites and reports of the genre. It was concluded that the practice of skateboarding is unique and it's promoted to be and to have self identity and it is directly related to an activity that is characterized as free and creative without any molded identity. And also promote the insertion of this kind of skateboarding as a universal phenomenon about the body movement seeking social interactions in different educational views through a sharing attitude

'The bloke with a stroke' - Alick Wickham, the 'crawl' and social memory

Solomon Islander swimmer Alick Wickham is a celebrated figure in Australian, Solomon Islander and international sport history. His iconic status is inextricably linked to the myth that he introduced the crawl stroke, commonly known as freestyle, to Australia and hence the wider world. The focus of this paper is not the mythic qualities of Wickham's contribution to the crawl stroke, but rather how this myth has been enmeshed in a range of discourses. Through the lens of postcolonialism and by focusing on the creation of social memory - in literature, postage stamps and documentaries Wickham's contribution to the crawl stroke has been represented in three dominant ways: as a racial discourse centring on the social construction of the 'nimble savage', as part of Australian nationalism in terms of the nation's contribution to world swimming, and as a discernible dimension in the construction of Solomon Islander identity after independence.