Us and Them U.S. Ambivalence Toward the World Cup and American Nationalism
National Identity and sport
This section of the article discusses the ways in which people feel connected to each other and build and maintain their national identities. The author claims that national identity is built through having similar reactions to different events in their lives, that national communities are strengthened by their past and traditions, as people of the same nation continue to experience similar experiences in life they begin to further identify themselves as part of a nation.
“What binds the representation of teams and fans together is the tendency to present style as a characteristic of that nation more generally. In this sense, collective performance and shared understandings of sport become framed as indicative, or “indexical”. (137)
I pulled this quote out because it makes the reader think about how different groups of people come together to celebrate one goal. I didn’t limit this idea to soccer or different nations either it could be something as simple as a student body coming together in support of a JV basketball team. It’s still a shared experience that unties the fans with their respective team; the fans are still trying to present a certain image of how they believed their school should be perceived. The same could be said on a bigger stage on an international level. Continue reading
