Sports and Society in the Middle East

Description

A set of studies looking at the history, politics, and sociology of sports in the Arab world
The sociology of sports in the Middle East has been neglected compared to other world regions. This volume aspires to encourage a greater focus on this topic. Here are assembled papers that discuss various aspects of this subject. As it happens all deal with football (soccer) largely in Egypt but including other Middle Eastern countries. Some are historically or politically oriented while others take a more sociological approach. Papers deal with the relation between organized sports and fans, with the special place of youngsters and women in sports, or with the role of sports in a more general understanding of culture and society as indicators of modernization and other facets of social change. Sportive competitions arouse keen passions around such issues as gender, class, and nationality, while they raise questions about leadership on and off the field, and about the economic impact of the games. The topic needs more research.

Sujets

• Sport
• Autour du sport
• Sociologie du sport
• Social Science
• Cultural
• HISTORY
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Sociology
• General officer
• Middle East
• Anthropology
• General
• Social
• Culture

Informations

• Publié par: The American University in Cairo Press
• Date de parution: 13 mai 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781617978524
• Langue: English

Extrait

CAIRO PAPERS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE is a valuable resource for Middle East specialists and non-specialists. Published quarterly since 1977, these monographs present the results of current research on a wide range of social, economic, and political issues in the Middle East, and include historical perspectives.
Submissions of studies relevant to these areas are invited. Manuscripts submitted should be around 150 doublespaced typewritten pages submitted in hard copy or electronically. References should conform to the format of the American Anthropological Association (references with author, date and page parenthetically within the text). Manuscripts are refereed and subject to approval by the Editorial Board.
Opinions expressed in CAIRO PAPERS do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or of the American University in Cairo. The editors welcome diversity of subject matter and viewpoint. EDITORIAL BOARD Maha Abdelrahman Cambridge University Joel Beinin Stanford University Amina Elbendary Arabic & Islamic Civilizations, AUC Sharif Elmusa Political Science, AUC Nicholas S. Hopkins, Chair Anthropology, AUC Ann M. Lesch Political Science, AUC Sean McMahon Political Science, AUC Hoda Rashad Social Research Center, AUC Malak S. Rouchdy Sociology, AUC Reem Saad Anthropology, AUC Hanan Sabea Anthropology, AUC Mostafa K. Al-Sayyid Political Science, Cairo U. Earl L. Sullivan Political Science, AUC Iman A. Hamdy Editor
For submissions and inquiries.
please contact:
Dr. Iman Hamdy Cairo Papers in Social Science The American University in Cairo P.O. Box 74 New Cairo 11835, Egypt Tel: [phone] [e-mail]
CAIRO PAPERS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE
VOLUME 34
NUMBER 2
Sports and Society in the Middle East
Edited by Nicholas S. Hopkins Sandrine Gamblin
Contributors

Mahfoud Amara Lamia Bulbul James M. Dorsey Nashaat Hussein Dalia Ibraheem Monia Lachheb Murat C. Yildiz Ereny Zarif
THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO PRESS CAIRO NEW YORK
Cover photo: Lamia Bulbul
Copyright © 2016 by The American University in Cairo Press 113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt 420 Fifth Avenue, New York 10018 www.aucpress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior writer permission of the publisher.
eISBN 978 161 797 731 2
Version 1
Contents
Arabic Abstract
1 Introduction: Why Study Sports in the Middle East?
Nicholas S. Hopkins
2 Institutions and Discourses of Sports in the Modern Middle East
Murat C. Yildiz
3 Sport in the Arab World in Postcolonial Context
Mahfoud Amara
4 Soccer: Shaping the Middle East and North Africa
James M. Dorsey
5 Sports in Egypt: Mimic-Real Spectrum
Ereny Zarif
6 Street Soccer, Masculinity, and Patriarchal Reproduction in the Streets of Cairo
Hussein
7 Gender and Sport: Adolescent Girls in Upper Egypt
Lamia Bulbul
8 The Paradoxes of Women's Football in Tunisia: The Case of the National Team
Monia Lachheb
9 Here Comes the Carnival: Chanting and Performance among Organized Football Fandom in Egypt
Dalia Ibraheem
About the Contributors
الرياضة والمجتمع فى الشرق الأوسط
تحرير نيكولاس هوبكنز وساندرين جامبلان
لا أحد يستطيع أن ينكر أن الرياضة، وخاصة كرة القدم، تحتل اهتماماً خاصاً فى كافة بلدان العالم العربى والشرق الأوسط. وعلى الرغم من ذلك، الا أنها لم تحظ بنفس القدر من الاهتمام الأكاديمى من منظور العلوم الاجتماعية كما هو الحال فى أوروبا وأمريكا اللاتينية مثلاً. من هنا كان اختيار “الرياضة والمجتمع فى الشرق الأوسط” موضوعاً للندوة السنوية التى أقامتها بحوث القاهرة فى العلوم الاجتماعية بالاشتراك مع مركز دراسات الشرق الأوسط ومنتدى الجامعة الأمريكية من أجل التعرف على هذا المجال وتشجيع مزيد من البحث فيه.
يحتوى هذا العدد على ثمانية أبحاث تتناول جوانب اجتماعية وثقافية مختلفة للمشهد الرياضى فى الشرق الأوسط خاصة كرة القدم التى كانت محور الأوراق المقدمة. وتبدأ هذه الأوراق بدراسة مراد يلدز التى تعطى خلفية تاريخية لظهور النوادى الرياضية فى قلب الدولة العثمانية فى اواخر القرن التاسع عشر وأوائل القرن العشرين خاصة فى اسطنبول والقاهرة. يلى ﺫلك بحث محفوظ عمارة الذى يتناول كرة القدم فى الشرق الأوسط فى اطار الوضع الكولونيالى وما بعد الكولونيالى والتطورات التى طرأت على هذه اللعبة فى ظل العولمة التى اجتاحت العالم فى العقود الأخيرة. بعد ذلك يتحدث جيمس دورسى عن الدور السياسى الذى تلعبه الرياضة وخاصة كرة القدم فى اطار تعبيرها عن الهوية الوطنية و مساهمتها فى احداث التغيرات السياسية والاجتماعية فى المجتمع. ومن زاوية أخرى ترى إيريني ظريف أن طبيعة وقواعد الألعاب الرياضة تتغير بتغير الأدوار التى يلعبها المشجعون الذين ينقلون سلوكهم من داخل أسوار الملعب الى الحياة العامة.
فى الورقة الخامسة، يوضح لنا نشأت حسين العلاقة بين الرياضة والمفاهيم الثقافية للمجتمع من خلال التركيز على لعبة كرة الشارع أو الكرة الشراب وارتباطها بترسيخ القيم الذكورية والأبوية فى المجتمع. وفى المقابل، تتحدث لمياء بلبل عن تجربة احدى مؤسسات المجتمع المدنى فى أسوان فى تشجيع الفتيات على ممارسة الرياضة فى مراكز الشباب الذى يعد مقصوراً على البنين وكيف أدى نجاح هذه التجربة الى حدوث تغير فى مفاهيم الآباء والبنات. وفى هذا السياق أيضاً تعرض مونيا لشهيب تجربة فريق كرة القدم للسيدات فى تونس وكيفية تعامل اللاعبات مع التعارض بين الصورة النمطية للمرأة وممارستهم لرياضة ﺫكورية. وأخيراً تعود بنا داليا ابراهيم الى ثقافة وممارسات الألتراس فى مصر من خلال تقديم صورة بانورامية لهتافات وأغنيات ولافتات ألتراس أهلاوى.
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Why Study Sports in the Middle East?
Nicholas S. Hopkins
“Football is one of the threads that make up Egyptian culture and social life.” Mohamed el-Sayed, “When Life Began.” Al Ahram Weekly , February 12, 2004.
“Soccer is a mirror that reflects the fierce struggle between the ancien régime and the revolution, between the old vested interests and those who dream of the future.” Alaa al-Aswany, “Egypt's Enduring Passion for Soccer,” International New York Times , April 16, 2014.
A truism in anthropology is that people will tell you what it is about themselves that is important to know, and here the intense Egyptian interest in sports of all kinds but especially soccer/football shows us the way, as Mohamed el-Sayed proposes and Alaa al-Aswany confirms. No one would deny that football is a major focus of attention everywhere in the Arab world/Middle East. But it has rarely been studied from a social science point of view, as it has, for instance, in Europe or Latin America. And sports other than football have received even less attention. The point of this symposium of the Cairo Papers in Social Science held in Cairo in 2015, in collaboration with the Middle East Center and AUC Forum, was to open up this topic for discussion. If we had an ulterior motive in organizing the symposium, it was the desire to encourage more and better research on the topic. In this introduction we suggest some of the possibilities for such research projects.
In a provocative study the French anthropologist Christian Bromberger (1995b) asks just why football arouses such passions, and what its latent functions are. He analyzes the ways in which the game of football mirrors the “fundamental values of contemporary life,” stressing the importance of merit on the one hand and chance on the other. He points out that if football fascinates people, “it is due first and foremost to its capacity to embody the cardinal values that shape modern societies … its deep structure … represents the uncertain fate of man in the world today” (1995a:296). But would generalizations based on Italy and France also apply to the Middle East, and what it would mean if they do or don't?
The present issue of Cairo Papers includes eight articles that treat various social and cultural aspects of the sports scene in the Middle East. It demonstrates the insights to be gained into the Middle East by a focus on sports. Not by our intention, each article gives priority of place to football. Of course football is the most popular sport in the Middle East as in the world at large, but it is far from the only one. We would have welcomed articles on basketball, squash, track and field, and other sports. Maybe in the next round.
Our papers fall into two groups. The first group includes four which offer broad overviews of the sports scene in the Middle East, while the second set focuses on particular local situations involving sports.
Murat Yildiz starts us off with a historical perspective from the center of the Ottoman Empire, the emerging modern culture of Istanbul, showing how schools and clubs organized and taught various sports in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many of these schools and clubs recruited along ethnic lines, and so the same distinctions were reflected in the teams and competitions. At the same time, however, this movement sought a certain self-conscious modernity, and stressed health and physical fitness through calisthenics.
Mahfoud Amara reviews the situation of football in the Middle East as a function of the colonial and postcolonial situation. Football originally spread as a consequence of the spread of colonial power in the late nineteenth century, but then evolved independently of colonialism and eventually even in opposition to the colonial regimes. In the last generation or so, Middle Eastern football has become an integral part of world football. The game itself has not changed, but its function in the national and international political systems has been transformed. Football has become more commercialized and globalized, with the top players and teams moving around the world. At the same time there is more awareness of the benefits of exercise for the general population.
James Dorsey examines the political roles of football—as an expression of national identity and of local rivalries. In the twenty-first century, a prominent role has been played by clubs of “ultras,” a cultural pattern which had spread from Europe, particularly Italy. These clubs featured organized cheering and other forms of support (banners, chants, common dre