SPORT AND NATION IN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE: SLOVENIA AS LAND OF SKIING NATIONHOOD
Keywords:
sport, nation, alpine skiing, ethnography, anthropologyAbstract
This paper explores the role of alpine skiing in Slovenian culture and society by taking into consideration how sports and ideas of nation and nationhood are intertwined. The analysis, which is based on historical evidence and ethnographic data, suggests that in Slovenia, alpine skiing, with its natural sceneries, amateurish background, sporting events, media attention and national heroes, is one of the main sports arenas in which the Slovenian nation-imagining, nationalism and national identity have been exercised throughout the twentieth century. The importance of alpine skiing for the image of the Slovenian nation was often acknowledged in the Yugoslav period and was further intensely reconfirmed after Slovenia’s secession from the socialist country.
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