‘From there to here’: narratives of transition, migration and national identity in Irish media representations of rugby union in the professional era

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-225
Author(s):  
Marcus Free
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Rugby Union ◽  
Media Representations

scholarly journals “There'll Always Be an England”: Representations of Colonial Wars and Immigration, 1948–1968

2001 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 557-584 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy Webster
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Racial Difference ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Common Theme ◽  
National Belonging ◽  
Daily Mail ◽  
National Community ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The 1950S

“In Malaya,” theDaily Mailnoted in 1953, “three and a half years of danger have given the planters time to convert their previously pleasant homes into miniature fortresses, with sandbag parapets, wire entanglements, and searchlights.” The image of the home as fortress and a juxtaposition of the domestic with menace and terror were central to British media representations of colonial wars in Malaya and Kenya in the 1950s. The repertoire of imagery deployed in theDaily Mailfor the “miniature fortress” in Malaya was extended to Kenya, where the newspaper noted wire over domestic windows, guns beside wine glasses, the charming hostess in her black silk dress with “an automatic pistol hanging at her hip.” Such images of English domesticity threatened by an alien other were also central to immigration discourse in the 1950s and 1960s. In the context of the decline of British colonial rule after 1945, representations of the empire and its legacy—resistance to colonial rule in empire and “immigrants” in the metropolis—increasingly converged on a common theme: the violation of domestic sanctuaries.Colonial wars of the late 1940s and 1950s have received little attention in literatures on national identity in early postwar Britain, but the articulation of racial difference through immigration discourse, and its significance in redefining the postimperial British national community has been widely recognized. As Chris Waters has suggested in his work on discourses of race and nation between 1947 and 1963, these years saw questions of race become central to questions of national belonging.

scholarly journals Three Lions on Her Shirt: Hot and Banal Nationalism for England’s Sportswomen

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 531-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Bowes ◽  
Alan Bairner
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Rugby Union ◽  
Association Football ◽  
National Symbols ◽  
The Relationship

It has long been claimed that sport plays an important role in the formulation of national identity. Key to understanding this relationship is Michael Billig’s concept of banal nationalism, which is used in this article to examine national symbols that act as daily reminders of the nation. Specifically, the article discusses the relationship between Englishness and sport by drawing upon data from interviews with representative English sportswomen in association football, cricket, netball, and rugby union. The article demonstrates the important role that (men’s) sport plays in developing a sense of national identity in England and, in particular, one that is distinct from Britishness. Furthermore, the significance of national symbols is evidenced as banal reminders of national identity for England’s sportswomen.

scholarly journals England’s proxy warriors? Women, war and sport

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Bowes ◽  
Alan Bairner
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Female Athletes ◽  
Rugby Union ◽  
Interview Data ◽  
Popular Press ◽  
Gendered Identity ◽  
Association Football ◽  
English National Identity ◽  
The One

It has been claimed that the one place Englishness exists is on the sports field, and usually it is men’s sport that appears central to creating a sense of English national identity. However, in light of England’s sporting success across multiple women’s sports (namely cricket, netball, association football and rugby union), there warrants a need to begin to question the place of these female athletes in discussions of the nation. Drawing on extensive interview data with women who have represented England at sport, this paper seeks to ‘give a voice’ to these women whose experiences have often been ignored by both the popular press and academics alike. This research discusses the way in which English women represent their nation, both on the field of play and more broadly, and sheds light on the complexity of the intersections of gender and national identity. Attention is also paid to the role of women as warriors in the conventional sense. It is argued that, through playing international, representative sport, the women actively embody the nation, with national identity often overriding gendered identity in these instances. In this sense, they become proxy warriors for the nation.

The First Metrosexual Rugby Star: Rugby Union, Masculinity, and Celebrity in Contemporary Wales

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Harris ◽  
Ben Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Rugby Union ◽  
Feminist Perspective ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Rugby Player ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
Feminist Theories ◽  
Media Discourses ◽  
Modern Era

This paper examines media representations of Welsh rugby player Gavin Henson, arguing that through analysis of media discourses we can trace shifting shapes of masculinities in the (post)modern era of sport. Contradiction and inconsistencies are prevalent in the narratives that accompany the equally conflicting images of Henson, who both conforms to and challenges traditional rugby playing masculinities. The paper examines articles from Welsh and British newspapers from a critical (pro)feminist perspective, arguing that Henson transcends boundaries in a way that no rugby player has ever done before and analyzes his place as the first metrosexual rugby star. The study also examines the somewhat problematic concept of metrosexuality within critical (pro)feminist theories of sport and attempts to conceptualize the position and significance of the term. This work brings images of the continual, dialectic process of the (re)defining of gender identities to the study of masculinities, and sport masculinities in particular.

La Joven Moderna in Interwar Argentina

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Tossounian
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
General Interest ◽  
Sociocultural Change ◽  
Pulp Fiction ◽  
Daily Newspapers ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Media

This book reconstructs different images of modern femininities and their evolution during the 1920s and 1930s, showing that women were at the center of a public debate about modernity and its consequences on the emergence of an Argentine national identity. With a focus on competing media representations of womanhood, mainly proposed by male contemporaries, but also with attention to young women’s descriptions of their experiences, the book explores different images of modern femininities and what they reveal about how Argentines imagined themselves and their country during decades of cultural and social renewal. Based on an analysis of a wide range of consumer culture sources—including women’s and general interest magazines and daily newspapers, pulp fiction, advertising, popular music, and films—this book shows that the multifaceted figure of the modern girl embodied the hopes, tensions and anxieties associated with sociocultural transformations, while becoming the bearer of diverse assessments about the Argentine nation. While the young modern woman was sometimes invoked to symbolize fears of the country’s moral decadence and cultural loss, at other times she stood for an “advanced” nation in the media, and her image was a demonstration of national progress and civilization. By reconstructing the emergence and evolution of new female images and their connection to the conformation of different versions of Argentina’s national identity, this book not only unveils the dynamics of sociocultural change but also explores its gendered and nationalistic dimension.

Tracing tears and triple axels: Media representations of Japan’s women figure skaters

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 620-635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle H. S. Ho
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Figure Skating ◽  
Figure Skaters ◽  
Feminist Theories ◽  
Heuristic Device ◽  
National Boundaries

Anticipating the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, this article uses the triple axel jump, one of the most challenging moves in women’s figure skating, as a heuristic device to track representations of Japanese skaters Ito Midori and Asada Mao in the New York Times and Asahi Shimbun. Ito and Asada are two of only six women to have landed triple axels at international figure skating competitions. Employing affect and feminist theories, I argue that constructions of the skaters’ bodies are not just gendered and heteronormative, but also sexed, raced, and affective. Using discourse analysis, I trace how media representations of Ito and Asada redraw global color lines and national boundaries in sport and negotiate different femininities, underscoring excessive feelings and physical appearance. Contributing to feminist sport studies and transnational feminist cultural studies, this comparative analysis offers new perspectives on women’s sports in Japan and athleticism’s relation to race, femininities, and national identity.

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