Week 5

The module gave me the insight of the FIFA World Cup not only as a sports event, but as a potent historical instrument of studying the nationalism, modernity, and identity of the world. Bowman (2020) in The World Cup as World History reframed the event as a projection of greater political, economic, and cultural pressures rather than sports between countries.  As Bowman (2020) demonstrates, the World Cup turned out to be a massive event as the nations could display an image of power, solidarity, and a contemporary image worldwide. This attitude assisted me in perceiving the role of sport as a historical actor within the historical context as opposed to a background event.

The article by Acuna (2019) about the World Cup of 1930 in Uruguay enriched this knowledge further by emphasizing visual culture and photography as historical sources. Acuna (2019) posits that images captured at the tournament were not objective documents but highly designed pictures that conveyed the message of modernity, democratization of Uruguay, and national pride of the nation in its own centennial. The focus on the structure of stadiums and spectators, the idea of gender roles, and racial difference demonstrated how the World Cup became an instrument of representation to signify the advances and the state power. This visual presentation served as a supplement to the wider argument by Bowman (2020), who offered tangible examples of how the World Cup was used as a nation-building tool.

Among the observations I made in reading both works is the extent to which there was an effort to craft the public perception, be it through worldwide narratives, media, or photographs. Both authors emphasize the use of the World Cup to manipulate meaning, both Bowman (2020) in political structures across the world and Acuna (2019) in imagery and representation. Collectively, they show that football was strongly connected to the notions of citizenship, men, and national identity.

Although the information I obtained has led me to the present level of understanding, I still wonder whose voices were left out of these stories, especially the working-class audience and non-symbolic representations of women. In general, the module allowed me to view the World Cup as a historical process that shows how countries have used sport to narrate stories about themselves and their identity in the world.