Ninth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

Many studies have examined how sport can affect national identity (Ward 2009, Bairnier 2014). There is little consensus on such research, beyond the fact that they agree that sport has important symbolic power to shape national identity and, in the modern, highly globalized era, its role is being magnified in an era when these identities are seen as quite fluid (Taylor, 1996). Likewise, research on the role of war and conflict in shaping identities is well-established. Such conflicts can contribute to a national “memory” in the country’s discourse (in some cases, conversely, it can destroy collective memory). While it is debateable whether conflict shapes societal identity or whether identity leads to conflict, the two are clearly closely intertwined (Smith, 1986). My study will examine how one sport, namely soccer, interacts with conflicts to shape identity. While this is not a definitive work, my preliminary work suggests that sport can play both a unifying or dividing role in conflict, and can have beneficial as well as harmful results. The goal of the research is to identify patterns of interaction between sport and conflict that may help us to identify when they make a dangerous combination and when they can work together in positive ways.