Embodied nation
Subtitle: sport, masculinity, and the making of modern Laos
By: Simon Creak
Series: Southeast Asia, politics, meaning, and memory; Southeast Asia--politics, meaning, memory
Publisher: University of Hawaiʻi Press
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 327
ISBN-13: 9780824838898; 9780824875121
Copyright date: 2015
Subjects: Sports and state; Masculinity; Physical education and training; History; Nationalism; Sports
Description: This book examines how sport and ideas of physicality have shaped the politics and culture of modern Laos. Viewing the country's extraordinary transitions-from French colonialism to royalist nationalism to revolutionary socialism to the modern development state-through the lens of physical culture, Simon Creak's lively and incisive narrative illuminates a nation that has no reputation in sport and is typically viewed, even from within, as a country of cheerful but lazy people. Creak argues that sport and related physical practices-including physical education, gymnastics, and military training have shaped a national consciousness by locating it in everyday experience. These practices are popular, participatory, performative, and, above all, physical in character and embody ideas and ideologies in a symbolic and experiential way.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-310)and index.
Table of contents: title: Making a modern tradition; title: Renovating the body, restoring the nation/race; title: Embodying military masculinity; title: Sport and the theatrics of power; title: Representing Meuang Lao in Southeast Asia; title: Socialist cultures of rhetoric and physicality; title: Mobilizing the revolution; title: Vientiane Games, 2009.