The cultural transition of Indigenous Australian athletes’ into professional sport

Light, RL; Evans, JR; Lavallee, D

The cultural transition of Indigenous Australian athletes’ into professional sport

Light, RL Evans, JR

Lavallee, D

Permalink

Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Sport, Education and Society, 2019, 24 (4), pp. 415 - 426
Issue Date:: 2019-05-04

Closed Access

	Filename	Description	Size
	The cultural transition of Indigenous Australian athletes into professional sport.pdf	Published Version	1.11 MB	Adobe PDF	View/Open

Copyright Clearance Process

Recently Added
In Progress
Closed Access

This item is closed access and not available.

Full metadata record

Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Light, RL	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Evans, JR https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1566-4507	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Lavallee, D	en_US
dc.date.issued	2019-05-04	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Sport, Education and Society, 2019, 24 (4), pp. 415 - 426	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	1357-3322	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/135721
dc.description.abstract	© 2017, © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This article reports on a study that inquired into the journeys of sixteen Indigenous Australian athletes from their first touch of the footy to the Australian Football League (AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL) that identified two distinct stages of their journeys. These were: (1) the development of expertize and of a distinctly Aboriginal style of play from their first touch of a footy to around the age of thirteen and, (2) a process of cultural transitioning toward and into the AFL and NRL. This article takes an interdisciplinary approach to focus on the second stage of transitioning into the world of professional sport and sport as business. Identifying this as a process of cultural transitioning from local Aboriginal culture to the culture of professional sport provided insight into this transitioning process while illuminating the profound importance of culture in this process. It also helped identify the ways in which tensions between local approaches to ‘footy’ as play and cultural expression and professional sport as work, within the global culture of sport-as-business, were manifested in the challenges that the participants had to overcome. This article thus contributes to knowledge about Indigenous development of sporting expertize, of the specific challenges they face in transitioning into the global culture of commodified sport and how they succeed from a cultural perspective.	en_US
dc.relation	http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/IN140100048
dc.relation.ispartof	Sport, Education and Society	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1080/13573322.2017.1391085	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Sport Sciences	en_US
dc.title	The cultural transition of Indigenous Australian athletes’ into professional sport	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	4	en_US
utslib.citation.volume	24	en_US
utslib.for	1106 Human Movement and Sports Sciences	en_US
utslib.for	2002 Cultural Studies	en_US
utslib.for	1301 Education Systems	en_US
utslib.for	1302 Curriculum and Pedagogy	en_US
utslib.for	1303 Specialist Studies in Education	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Health
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - CHSP - Health Services and Practice
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - SIC - Strengthening Indigenous Communities
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access
pubs.issue	4	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	24	en_US

Abstract:

© 2017, © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This article reports on a study that inquired into the journeys of sixteen Indigenous Australian athletes from their first touch of the footy to the Australian Football League (AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL) that identified two distinct stages of their journeys. These were: (1) the development of expertize and of a distinctly Aboriginal style of play from their first touch of a footy to around the age of thirteen and, (2) a process of cultural transitioning toward and into the AFL and NRL. This article takes an interdisciplinary approach to focus on the second stage of transitioning into the world of professional sport and sport as business. Identifying this as a process of cultural transitioning from local Aboriginal culture to the culture of professional sport provided insight into this transitioning process while illuminating the profound importance of culture in this process. It also helped identify the ways in which tensions between local approaches to ‘footy’ as play and cultural expression and professional sport as work, within the global culture of sport-as-business, were manifested in the challenges that the participants had to overcome. This article thus contributes to knowledge about Indigenous development of sporting expertize, of the specific challenges they face in transitioning into the global culture of commodified sport and how they succeed from a cultural perspective.

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:

http://hdl.handle.net/10453/135721