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'The Day the Flame Came to Town': the Olympic flame, symbol, community and commodification

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journal contribution
posted on 2016-05-09, 13:50 authored by Joseph Maguire, Jack Black, Becky Darlington
Debates regarding the Olympic Flame Relay oscillate between questions concerning the symbolic value of the Relay and the commodified nature of the Games more generally. While some argue for the potential intercultural understanding that the Flame Relay fosters, others point to the extent to which Olympism is embedded within the practices of commercial companies. Research thus tends to use either ethnographic accounts or media analysis—the former being seen by some as authentic and the latter viewed as capable of capturing the commodified context of such consumption. Attention is given here to its visit to one town and how people experienced the Relay themselves, against its (re)construction in local and national mediated accounts. Data were collected from interviews with those watching the Flame Relay, extensive photographic records, fieldwork observations, and local media coverage of the event. The ritual itself appeared temporary, superficial and contoured by the major sponsors of the Relay. While the Flame had some local significance, claims made for its broader symbolic value appeared muted—people knew less about Olympism and were less moved by its symbolism.

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

Sociology of Sport Journal

Volume

32

Issue

2

Pages

117 - 139 (22)

Citation

MAGUIRE, J., BLACK, J. and DARLINGTON, B., 2015. 'The Day the Flame Came to Town': the Olympic flame, symbol, community and commodification. Sociology of Sport Journal, 32 (2), pp. 117 - 139.

Publisher

© Human Kinetics

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2014-06-07

Publication date

2015

Notes

© Human Kinetics as accepted for publication. The definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1123/ssj.2014-0093

ISSN

1543-2785

Language

  • en

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