Aboriginal Peoples and Sport in Canada

This book considers sport as a way for Aboriginal peoples to assert their cultural identities and find a positive space for themselves and upcoming generations in contemporary Canadian society.

Aboriginal Peoples and Sport in Canada is the first work to focus sustained and serious attention on the wider implications of Aboriginal peoples’ involvement in sport.

Aboriginal Peoples and Sport in Canada uses sport as a lens through which to examine Aboriginal peoples’ issues of individual and community health, gender and race relations, culture and colonialism, and self-determination and agency.

In this ground-breaking volume, leading scholars offer a multidisciplinary perspective on issues such as the clashing cultural imperatives that discourage Aboriginal athletes from participating at the national level; whether their needs are well served by the cultural values of sports psychology; and how unequal power relations influence the ability of different groups of Aboriginal people to implement their own visions for sport. The diverse analyses illuminate how Aboriginal people employ sport as a venue through which to assert their cultural identities and find a positive space for themselves and upcoming generations in contemporary Canadian society.