Sporting culture and activism: lacrosse and the subtle power of playfulness in achieving social change through sport

Travis Taylor and Naofumi Suzuki

Chapter 10 in Handbook on Sport and Culture, 2025, pp 140-152 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter explores how sport can be a vehicle of activism aimed at social change, focusing on the history of lacrosse as a ‘contested ground’ on which indigenous and non-indigenous peoples manoeuvred to promote their respective interests. It is argued that lacrosse as a modern sport presents itself as a unique case, where the indigenous people who originated the game have established themselves as a sovereign nation to compete alongside global colonial powers at international level, and thus works as a platform for them to appeal to a wider society outside the sport for their sovereignty as a people. Using Pierre Bourdieu's Practice Theory as a theoretical reference, it demonstrates that, along with the major events of international competition and political controversies to gain economic and cultural capital, more ‘playful’ elements of sport constitute the field of activism in which social capital can be mobilised in a subtler manner.

Keywords: Indigenous sport; Lacrosse; Social capital; Practice Theory; Playfulness; Social change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035339976
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