Embodied Nation - Sport, Masculinity, and the Making of Modern Laos

Title:  Embodied Nation - Sport, Masculinity, and the Making of Modern Laos
By:  Simon Creak
Publisher, Year:  University of Hawaii, 2015
ISBN:   9780824838890
Price:  USD$30

The entire first chapter is rather lengthy in its discussion about the Lao sport of tikhi.  A Lao game which looks very much like a precursor to hockey played on a field rather than ice.  I found the later chapters to be much more interesting though.

It's interesting to learn how whichever powers that existed at the time in the country, that they attempted to use sport to change behaviour, develop pride in one's nation, teach ideology, shape an image of masculinity, promote service to the nation, and so fourth.  More than anything else, it's a fascinating read on how politicized sports can be and how it can feed into issues of race and nationhood.

In particular, some of the interesting tidbits in this book are the historical sports related stories that are sprinkled throughout and of course the discussions on major sports events that have occurred in Laos.

Examples:

• The story of the Bedier Cup in 1936 and subsequent controversy between Lao and Vietnamese teams.
• The Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO) and the politics involved at the time.  Like how the Lao team was called Pathet Lao which politically referred to the Lao communists but here it was being used to describe all Lao athletes.  Something that the Royal Lao government at the time did not agree with.
• Laos' first appearance at the Olympic games in 1980.
• Laos' first National Games in 1985 and how the divisions were done in zones rather than provinces.
• First SEA Games in Laos in 2009.
• Rivalry against Thailand.
• Female representation, albeit limited, is an issue that is addressed in this book as well.
• Even the posters, pictures and drawings from earlier periods that relate to sport and propaganda are interesting to see.

If any of what I've written here interests you, then I highly recommend you get a copy for yourself.  Additionally, for your reference the complete and lengthy table of contents is shown below, for those who might be interested.

Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Language Conventions
• Map
• Introduction
• Making a Modern Tradition (tikhi)
    Travellers' Tales
    Writing Lao Culture in the 1930s
    The Anthropologists - Paul Levy
    The Anthropologists - Archaimbault
    Tikhi, Ritual, and Sport
• Renovating the Body, Restoring the Nation/Race
    The National Revolution in Indochina
    The Objectives of Sport in Indochina
    The Nhay Movement
    The Physical Renovation in Practice
    Franco-Lao Ideas and Agency
    Race, Bodies, and Modernity
    The promise and Limits of Cultural Nationalism
• Embodying Military Masculinity
    Decolonization and Militarization
    Militarization Outside the Military
    The Militarization of Lao Masculinity
    Picturing the Military Body
    Training and Transformation
    Shared Agency in the Almost-Nation
• Sport and the Theatrics of Power
    Disunity in Postcolonial Laos
    Discourses of Unity and Progress
    Performing Unity and Progress in 1964
    Sport and Modernity in Postcolonial Laos
• Representing Meuang Lao in Southeast Asia
    Sport, Globalization, and Regional Dynamics
    The SEAP Games
    Lao Nationalism and the Regional Geography of Desirability
    Victory Against the Big Brother
    The Politics of GANEFO
    An Alternative Meuang Lao
    GANEFO in Revolutionary Sport and Historiography
    Sport and Region i Laos
• Socialist Cultures of Rhretoric and Physicality
    Socialist Physical Culture and Rhetoric
    The "Third Revolution" and the New Socialist Person
    Building the New Socialist Person Through Education, Culture, and Physical Culture
    Mobilizing Sport and Physical Culture for the Masses
    Achievements and Shortcomings
    The Motif of Labor and the Body
    Physical Metaphor in the Cosmology of Socialist Laos
    The Physical Cultures of Socialist Laos
• Mobilizing the Revolution
    Conceptualizing Socialist Spectator Sport
    Building a Revolutionary Atmosphere
    The Extended Socialist Family
    On the World Stage
    Equality Between the Sexes
    Moscow 1980
    Vientiane 1985 and Beyond
    Demobilizing the Revolution
• Vientiane Games, 2009
    The SEA Games in Historical Context
    Paradox and History
    Sport, Physical Culture, and State Power in Laos
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index