Lakota basketball and racism: Performance, performativity, and engaged acrimony

Summary Sporting contests between communities actively engaged in societal struggle comprise an event I call “engaged acrimony.” In these sporting contests, ideas of sport as promoting harmony get tested and often give way to demonstrations of vitriol that mirror actual relations. In this article, I...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAnthropology and humanism Vol. 48; no. 2; pp. 299 - 310
Main Author Klein, Alan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Arlington Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.12.2023
Subjects
Basketball
engaged acrimony
Lakota basketball
Native reservations
Performativity
Racism
Teams
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Summary:Summary Sporting contests between communities actively engaged in societal struggle comprise an event I call “engaged acrimony.” In these sporting contests, ideas of sport as promoting harmony get tested and often give way to demonstrations of vitriol that mirror actual relations. In this article, I discuss Lakota basketball teams from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation as they played against neighboring white teams, examining how their responses to racism were safely expressed within and around sporting events. I analyze two of the best‐known instances of engaged acrimony using Turner's sense of performance and Butler's theory of performativity. In doing so, I offer an understanding of how Native communities can fashion an empowering response to racism.
ISSN:1559-9167
1548-1409
DOI:10.1111/anhu.12429