TY - JOUR
T1 - Sport and the Theatrics of Power in a Postcolonial State: The National Games of 1960s Laos
AU - Creak, Simon
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - The National Games of 1961 and 1964 transformed the theatrics of state power in postcolonial Laos. While using modern sporting spectacle to promote national unity and progress in a context of Cold War division, the games were also embedded in an existing theatrics of power, which dramatised the status of their founder, General Phoumi Nosavan. The modern motifs of national unity and progress were not only a device of state legitimation; they were also the currency of status display, an end in itself. Combining the theory of spectacle in modern societies with a modified reading of Geertz's "theatre state", this article questions the modernising impact of sport, arguing instead that twentieth-century technologies of performance have transformed the theatrics of power in postcolonial Southeast Asia.
AB - The National Games of 1961 and 1964 transformed the theatrics of state power in postcolonial Laos. While using modern sporting spectacle to promote national unity and progress in a context of Cold War division, the games were also embedded in an existing theatrics of power, which dramatised the status of their founder, General Phoumi Nosavan. The modern motifs of national unity and progress were not only a device of state legitimation; they were also the currency of status display, an end in itself. Combining the theory of spectacle in modern societies with a modified reading of Geertz's "theatre state", this article questions the modernising impact of sport, arguing instead that twentieth-century technologies of performance have transformed the theatrics of power in postcolonial Southeast Asia.
U2 - 10.1080/10357821003802011
DO - 10.1080/10357821003802011
M3 - Article
SN - 1035-7823
VL - 34
SP - 191
EP - 210
JO - Asian Studies Review
JF - Asian Studies Review
IS - 2
ER -