The Transformation Of Modern Korean Sport

This study is intended to search for the significant role of sport in Korea. A major focus of this study is to argue that the development of Korean sport has been used as a mechanism for promoting and supporting cultural exchange between the West and the East, and for political and ideological advancement, the revision of traditional values, and economical and social transformations. This study also argues that the evolution of Korean sport has been the product of cultural diffusion, national assimilation and imperial resistance.

Korea has become a powerful force in global sport, with South Korea finishing fifth in the medals table at London 2012 and hosting the Winter Olympics in 2018. This book brings together scholars from disciplines including sport history, sociology, journalism, economics, sport development, and sport management to explore the significance of sport in contemporary Korea. Presenting a variety of international perspectives, it plots the dynamic evolution of sport in Korea and envisions the possibilities for its future. Each chapter focuses on a key topic of current relevance, such as sport in the context of shifting relations between North and South Korea, or the role of sport in the expression of Korean nationalism. Arguing that individuals, institutions, businesses, and governments have actively leveraged or exploited sport to influence developments in various social, economic, cultural, and political arenas, this book sheds new light on the importance of sport as a catalyst for change in Korea. This is indispensable reading for any student or scholar with an interest in sport, history, and culture in Korea.

This is the first book to offer a comprehensive overview of the history, development and contemporary significance of sport in Asia. It addresses a wide range of issues central to sport in the context of Asian culture, politics, economy and society. The book explores diverse topics, including the history of traditional Asian sport; the rise of modern sport in Asia; the Olympic Movement in Asia; mega sport events in Asia; sport governance and policy; gender, class and ethnicity in Asian sport, and Asia’s sporting heroes and heroines. With contributions from 74 leading international scholars, it offers a new perspective on understanding Asian sport and society, telling the story of how sport in this mega-region is coming together and reshaping the world in the process. It also provides readers with a wide lens through which to better contextualise the relationships between Asia and the world within the global sport community. The Routledge Handbook of Sport in Asia is a vital resource for students and scholars studying the history, politics, sociology, culture and policy of sport in Asia, as well as sport management, sport history, sport sociology, and sport policy and politics. It is also valuable reading for those working in international sport organisations.

This cutting edge collection presents a political reading of the power of modern sport in Asia. Providing an interdisciplinary study of political and cultural tensions in Asia, past and present, through the key case-study of sport, it illuminates the complex practices and legacies of Japanese imperialism across East and Southeast Asia through the 20th century and beyond. Focusing on the deep background to contemporary dynamics of intraregional tensions, it examines sport both as a tool of imperialism and as an agent of reconciliation as the region gears up to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Offering a unique contribution to East Asian Studies, Colonial and Postcolonial Studies and Sport Studies, this work represent key reading for students and scholars of East Asian studies, International Politics and Sports Diplomacy.

The premise of The Asian Games: Modern Metaphor for The Middle Kingdom Reborn - Political Statement, Cultural Assertion, Social Symbol is emphatic. The Guangzhou 2010 Asian Games was a metaphor for hegemony and renaissance. China crushed the other Asian nations with the massive weight of its Gold Medal haul and demonstrated regional self-confidence regained. The huge accumulation of gold medals emphasized that once again China stood apart, and above, other nations of Asia. China's reaction and the reactions of the other Asian nations are explored in The Asian Games. There is another premise in the publication that the Chinese Asian Games were a harbinger of a wider dominance to come: geopolitically, politically, militarily, economically and culturally. And there is a further issue raised by the Guangzhou Asian Games- the continuing determination of the Asian nations to mount a distinctive Games that is Asian and resistant to the cumbersome gigantism of the Modern Olympic Games. Asia now has the wealth to promote, present and project a global sports mega-event with an Asian identity and in an Asian idiom. This Collection is unique in focus, argument and evidence.This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Written by a team of international scholars, Sport and Nationalism in Asia - Power, Politics, and Identity is a collection of original research which addresses a number of issues central to notions of nationalism and identity in sport including: how the Olympics and other international and regional sports events have fostered an active interweaving of sport, politics and nationalism; the role of traditional sport in the building of national consciousness and national identity; the way modern sport creates and reflects nationalism, thereby giving it a voice and a focus. The book covers eight case studies on countries/regions across West Asia, Central Asia and East Asia. It is one of the few works that examines the relationships between sport, politics and nationalism from Asian perspective. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

This tribute to Professor J. A. (Tony) Mangan is well-deserved. Professor Mangan is a path-breaking scholar. Mangan's impact is measurable in the rarest of ways: institution-building. Under his leadership, a globally situated team has opened a new relationship between sport and the academy and I recommend Manufacturing Masculinity: The Mangan Oeuvre -- Global Reflections on J.A. Mangan's Studies of Masculinity, Imperialism and Militarism as, yet again, it offers a unique consideration of the relationship between sport and academy. Professor John D. Kelly - University of Chicago Professor Mangan has since the early 1980s been one of the foremost international scholars within his chosen field of cultural history. Over this period he has possibly more convincingly than any other international academic shown in his research how much sport and associated forms of competitive performance have not only reflected and reproduced but indeed sometimes also reformed and redirected fundamental political, cultural and social structures and ideological transformative forces in modern civilisation. Professor Henrik Meinander - University of Helsinki Professor Mangan is widely and greatly respected in China as a scholar of international distinction... he has made both direct and indirect contributions to Chinese scholarship especially regarding Chinese women and their long struggle for emancipation... Finally, and I cannot stress this point too strongly, a most important contribution ... has been his crystal clear and nuanced writing style much appreciated by... Chinese who wish to write for the international scholastic world. Professor Dong Jinxia - Peking University No one has had a more influential role in, or made a greater contribution to the cultural history of modern sport than Professor J.A. Mangan. With his visionary, pioneering monographs and many seminal edited collections and as founding editor of the series Sport in the Global Society with its numerous volumes and most especially as founding editor and editor of The International Journal of the History of Sport for some thirty years -- which he took from the original three numbers a year to eighteen numbers a year, his contribution has been unparalleled. Professor Roberta J. Park - University of California, Berkeley

This book explores the transformation of cultural and national identity of global sports fans in South Korea, which has undergone extensive cultural and economic globalization since the 1990s. Through ethnographic research of Korean Major League Baseball fans and their online community, this book demonstrates how a postcolonial nation and its people are developing long-distance affiliation with American sports accompanied by nationalist sentiments and regional rivalry. Becoming an MLB fan in South Korea does not simply lead one to nurturing a cosmopolitan identity, but to reconstituting one’s national imaginations. Younghan Cho suggests individuated nationalism as the changing nature of the national among the Korean MLB fandom in which the national is articulated by personal choices, consumer rights and free market principles. The analysis of the Korean MLB fandom illuminates the complicated and even contradictory procedures of decentering and fragmenting nationalism in South Korea, which have been balanced by recalling nationalism in combination with neoliberal governmentality.