Barry Konkin,

I continue to be pleased at the mushrooming of discussion around 
elite/non-elite/other/halfway of these activities and I am glad of a 
discussion that opens this up from labels that preclude too much 
debate. 

But the point I seek to make here is that there is an unhelpful 
delimitation of the discourse if we confine within even a notion of 
plurality of labels, when we should be thinking of processes.

I too am confounded by the still-smothering coverage of Class in this 
debate. It is the `still-smothering` bit that I mean, not that it 
should be significant- not least in terms of native American peoples 
alongside others. There is a much more complex cultural debate around 
these things. How does the emerging `bedroom comuntiy` [?] feel 
about/cope with the other ways/contexts of practicing the game, how 
does it festure in the lives of diferent rgoups through the complexity 
of practices, knowledges, iedntities, empowerments they use, how does 
all this inter-cut and connect with webs of power and control....

David Crouch
cultural geography Anglia University UK.


On Mon, 7 Jun 1999 10:05:00 -0700 "Konkin, Barry" 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> 
> From: Konkin, Barry
> To: R Evans, School for Policy Studies
> Subject: Re: Lacrosse is an elitist sport?
> Date: Friday, June 04, 1999 9:20AM
> 
> Rhys:
> 
> it's interesting to talk of the appropriation of certain activities by
> groups such as the so-called 'elites' of the Ivy League schools on the east
> Coast of the US (Harvard, Cornell, etc.) It sounds like a similar
> demographic has adopted the sport in England.
> 
> I'd like to point out that in certain places, while lacrosse is a working
> class sport, in my experience, in Saanich (a then-agricultural community
> evolving into a bedroom community) and Esquimalt (the site of the largest
> naval base on the West Coast of Canada, and very much a working-class
> municipality) on Vancouver Island, it is a strongly Aboriginal game.  These
> two communities both have at least two large reserves within their
> boundaries.  The youth box lacrosse matches I watched were often clearly
> influenced/directed by racial interactions, as the aboriginal youth often
> took the opportunity to 'give back' to the white youths they faced on the
> court.
> 
> In other communities such as Surrey, the Indo-Canadian population has begun
> to produce good lacrosse players as well, but in a strongly suburban
> 'bedroom community', rather than a working class environment.  The
> Indo-Canadian community in Surrey developed around an agricultural base, as
> any new immigrants to Canada became farmers in the community.  However, this
> has changed dramatically in the last decade, as the Indo-Canadian community
> has become strongly urbanized.
> 
> I think that to define a sport such as lacrosse in polarized terms such as
> 'working class' or 'elitist' is simplistic, and we should perhaps consider
> these activities  along a range of 'labels', recognizing that  the locale in
> which we examine activities such as sport exerts a strong influence on its
> character.
> 
> Barry Konkin
> Planning & Development Department
> City of Surrey
> Surrey BC
> Canada
> [log in to unmask]
> 
> 
>  --------
> From: R Evans, School for Policy Studies
> To: Robert Campbell
> Cc: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Lacrosse is an elitist sport?
> Date: Friday, June 04, 1999 6:51AM
> 
> Robert,
> 
> Having grown up on Canada's West Coast, I would like to reinforce what
> you have said about lacrosse.  I was absolutely gobsmacked to see what
> _we_ thought of as _our_ game being appropriated by a bunch of upper
> middle class English snobs/professional American jocks/whatever.
> 
> It is too funny to think of lacrosse as being played by varsity or
> other teams.  What's next? Designer face masks?  High tech jock
> protectors?  Non=-contact lacrosse? I grew up in a very poor community
> and box lacrosse (played indoors in a dry hockey arena or community
> hall) was a community sport. If i remember right the teams were named
> things like New Westminster Salmonbellies (or was that the hockey team
> only?).  Our team was the Bridgeview Bulldogs (usually changed to
> Bridgeview Bastards).  Looking back, the game occupied a similar place
> in our society that `hurling'(Sp?) does in Eire -- it was an extremely
> rough game, with lots of contact --watch out for that stick! -- which
> prepared boys for working-class lives in jobs which constantly hurt
> their bodies -- sawmill work, truckdrivers, labourers, etc.  The game
> was resolutely amateur, even when semi-pro.  And the teams definately
> functioned as nodes of community spirit/identity.
> 
> Wondering what purpose such a game might have amongst academics and
> middle-class professional sports people makes me think that one aspect
> of what we have here is an appropriation of working-class authenticity
>  -- the use of formerly working-class signifiers like denim jeans, blues
> music or Doc Maartins boots by the hegemonic class fractions.
> Distinction indeed!  As one who has very little time for commercialised
> sports, i frankly find this locker-room -- sorry, coffee-room talk --
> rather off-putting.  It is almost as if the speakers are desperately
> brandishing symbols to show that they are not elite, not privileged,
> and using it to hide the cultural capital (=power) which they mobilise
> every day in the course of their work.
> 
> But of course, that is rather extreme of me.  Certainly there is an
> attraction to losing oneself in physicality, teamwork and being
> successful at it.  And of course, the above analysis operates on the
> level of the collective, not the individual -- let's not get caught in
> the ecological fallacy here.
> 
> Still, i always found lacrosse to be brutish, punishing and extremely
> violent.  How strange to find it appearing in the context of academic
> geography....
> 
> regards
> 
> rhys evans
> 
> ****************
> note new address:
>  ----------------------
> R Evans, School for Policy Studies
> 8 Priory Rd., Bristol BS8 1TZ
> (0117 9546984)
> [log in to unmask]

----------------------
David Crouch
Anglia Polytechnic University
[log in to unmask]



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