2015. Pelota II

Social and visual anthropologist Olatz González Abrisketa, a professor at the University of the Basque Country, has produced an ethnographic and philosophical account of the highly ritualized Basque ball game, pelota, in which she argues that the traditional contest reveals important insights into the “Basque cultural imaginary.” Abrisketa conducted fieldwork (1998-2002) in the Basque country of northern Spain, where she interviewed numerous pelota athletes—generally always men—and observed their games on the public courts (frontons) centrally located in the plaza of any Basque village.

Sociology of Sport Journal, 2013, 30, 525-528 © 2013 Human Kinetics, Inc. "One could be tempted to paraphrase C.L.R. James (1994) and ask, “What do they know of pelota who only pelota know?” Olatz González Abrisketa offers a resoundingly persuasive answer in this book by demonstrating that knowing about pelota, about Basque identity, about public space, and about masculinity inter alia is indivisible. There are important lessons to be learned here by sociologists of sport. I very much hope that the book gets the size of readership that it undoubtedly deserves"

Analyses of ball courts tend to focus on their possible ritual meaning and function. However, the sociopolitical processes that made ball courts and associated ballgames so efficacious in Mesoamerica are still relatively poorly understood. Clearly, close archaeological, historical, and ethnographic investigation is needed in order to understand the implications of these prominent structures in political and community relationships. This paper will present the preliminary results of an ethnographic study of the modern ballgame in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca and propose further avenues of research.

Native America Indigenous Self-Representation in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, 2016

This paper explores the different ways in which the Mexican government has attempted to ensure the survival of the indigenous Mexican handball game pelota mixteca, the reaction of the players of the game to the state’s actions, and the possible impact of all these initiatives on the chances of survival of this indigenous game in a globalizing world. Ultimately, the main issue that is explored in this chapter is the tension between the appreciation of indigenous traditions as intangible heritage on the one hand, versus lived practice on the other. The ‘museumization’ or ‘heritage canonization’ of lived (indigenous) traditions not only freezes them in time, but also confines them to a certain sector of society. On the other hand, the popularization of indigenous traditions leads to detraditionalization, which in turn brings about a transformation of the original practice. The aim of this chapter, then, is to come to a better understanding of this apparent paradox, in which the practitioners of a tradition argue for its detraditionalization, while outsiders argue for its canonization as national patrimony.

2018

Talk Presented at IAPS , 2010

Ball games are widespread in our age and played by millions of people at different levels. And billion others experience these games either directly or through a medium, as in the recent World Cup held in South Africa that we just left behind. But do we really know what the ball is and what it does to us, either as players or observers, or to society in general? The central issue that I set to examine in this research paper is how the ball impacts the spirit of competition in ball games; I do not, however, claim that ball games are played only for competition. But my focus will be on the competitive ball games where the game is played for winning or losing with different levels of importance. I structured my paper in three short parts: first, I present an understanding of the origin of ball, what it is, and how it functions in games. No doubt, for more concrete research, one must examine the role of the ball in a specific type of ball game. However, I suspended this specificity in order to understand the ball and its essence from a phenomenological standpoint. My second task is to present a preliminary framework for agonistics, especially as practiced by (but not limited to) the ancient Greeks and as understood by Burckhardt, Nietzsche, and historians of ancient sports. Finally, I bring the two together and pose my central question: what does the ball do to the spirit of contest? I. The Origin of the Ball and Ball Games and the Functions of the Ball A. The Origin of the Ball and Ball Games The emergence of ball in human prehistory is shrouded in mystery, and we can only decipher a small portion of the puzzle by examining some of the evidence we have from the ancient world as far back as we can go. The central question one can pose here is, and this is a question, which will be open for researchers for time to come: out of what circumstances did the ball emerge as an object of game? If we accept, with Burkert, Girard, and others, 1 that archaic societies were 1 This is also confirmed by many historians of sports. According to Robert W. Henderson, "as we delve back into the records of ancient civilizations, we find that folk customs and religious ceremonies…are the roots from which our modern sports [or any sports] have sprung." Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origin of Ball Games, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001.

Rooted Cosmopolitanism, Heritage and the Question of Belonging, 2024

Pelota mixteca is a handball game that originated in Mexico’s southern state of Oaxaca. Because of the extensive labour migration that has taken (indigenous) migrants from Oaxaca to areas far removed from their hometowns, today, the game is also played in different parts of Mexico and the United States. In this chapter, I describe and analyse what could be called a bottom-up, rooted cosmopolitan practice of players of pelota mixteca. Faced with the choice between the ‘museumisation’ of the game on the one hand and its ‘detraditionalisation’ on the other, the playing community has tried to popularise pelota mixteca using transnational networks and ‘global forms’. In the second part of this paper, I briefly consider the broader ethical question of how a rooted cosmopolitan mindset can help us not only better understand the processes and cultures we are studying but also move past the artificial boundaries of ‘the field site’ and its implicit connotations of ‘out there’/’exotic’/’Other’. Following Meskell’s 2009 Cosmopolitan Archaeologies , I argue that a rooted cosmopolitan approach to the study of immaterial heritage can offer a fruitful way out of the perceived exclusionary binaries of local/global and traditional/modern.

The International Journal of the History of Sport , 2018

In January 1917, a very special sports court opened in Madrid. Sixteen women initiated a successful new type of Basque pelota, which was subsequently played professionally by more than a thousand women until it disappeared in 1980. Paired with a system of simultaneous betting, racket pelota became an industry, with more than 30 courts operating in Spain, Cuba, Brazil, and Mexico, and with training schools distributed across the Basque Country, from where most of the players originated. The present article examines the historical and cultural conditions which created the possibilities for this new female sport to emerge and explores its paradoxical development during Franco’s fascist regime. This paper also argues that the absence of support for racket pelota under Basque nationalism (and also from feminist quarters) is puzzling, considering the ethnic politics they defended; the lack of interest and protection toward this sport contributed to the strengthening of Francoist discourses, which perceived it as ‘inappropriate’ for women. Based on archive material and informal interviews, this paper briefly describes the history of racket pelota, in order to address the contradictions between dimensions of success, repression, and oblivion that these female racket players had to confront.