Panel
Sport - Identity - Nationality

The role of sport in creating and preserving local, regional, national or international identities is undisputed. But how does it happen that sport, throughout history, has again and again been given such a sociopolitical significance? How is sport repeatedly instrumentalised by politics? In international competitions, for example, a victorious athlete is made, quasi-ceremonially by the playing of the national anthem and the hoisting of the flag, into a national figure of identity, and thus one that creates identity. The subject of sport and European identity stands in the foreground here: is there any European identity in the culture of movement at all? Where and when can its roots be found? How does it differ from non-European identities created by sport? And what is its role in the world-wide process of globalisation?

Key-note speaker: Arnd Krueger