Wrestling with identity: a case study of competing nationalisms mediating olympic media, sponsor, athlete, and audience relations

Introduction

National identity is a fickle and slippery phenomenon. The purpose of this research is to adapt Benedict Anderson’s notion of nationhood as an "imagined community" using feminist postcolonial theory in order to analyze constructions of political identity struggled over within the nexus Olympic media, sponsor, athlete and audience relations. A case study of 2000 Olympic wrestling champion, Daniel Igali, is pursued.

Methods

Qualitative methods are employed. They include: (a) ethnographic observation of Olympic news media production, corporate public relations events for Cheerios, and Igali’s African development events for CUSO; (b) discourse analysis of media coverage of Igali between 2000 and 2004 by Canadian and Nigerian media; and (c) retrospective interviews with media, athletes and audience members.

Results

Identities are fluid and constantly struggled over within Olympic media representations and within unequal relations of political, racialized and gendered power. When wrestler Daniel Igali won a gold medal at the 2000 Olympic Games, he spread a Canadian flag on the wrestling mat, pranced around it clockwise, counterclockwise, and then kneeled in blessing to kiss the flag. Anglophone media from Canada quickly hoisted this unknown refugee from Nigeria to the status of a conquering hero and symbol of multicultural masculine pride in Canadian media headlines. His athletic victory also resonated within his birth village of Eniwari Nigeria, where his ‘traitor’ status was reconstituted as a wrestling hero whom was welcome to return with development funds and sporting expertise.

Discussion/Conclusions

This wrestling case study demonstrates how identity oscillates when the subaltern find voice and disrupt power relations by surfing diasporic tensions and reconciling divided loyalties. Contradictory representations of national and local identities coexist in media coverage by anchoring political glory in black masculine sporting prowess. Identity is found to be more than a representation of the imagination - it is actualized in the lived relations between athletes, audiences, sponsors and media, and in media texts.