Pueblo street fighting to national martial art

Nation building and the nationalization of a Venezuelan civilian combative practice

Bibliographic Data

ID2279239
AuthorsMichael J Ryan (0000-0002-5679-6031)
Year2011
Volume38
Issue3
Pages531-547
Publication date2011-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Ethnologist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0094-0496 • E-ISSN: 1548-1425
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1548-1425.2011.01321.x
OpenAlexW2086037535
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited49

In this article, I examine how local groups are often instrumental in the establishment of nation-states whose legitimacy is later threatened through acts of resistance or subversion by these same groups or their heirs. In Venezuela, groups who maintain a tradition of stick fighting provide a case in point. Developed among the rural civilian population in the postcolonial era for defensive purposes and sometimes deployed in the service of the nascent Venezuelan state, stick fighting has recently been promoted as a national martial art. As one group of stick fighters helped link the popularization of this art with Venezuelan nationalism, it simultaneously drew on strategies of misdirection and secrecy associated with the art to restrict its dissemination. In doing so, it maintained local forms of sociality against the cultural domination of state and global forces

Archaeology · Legitimacy · Martial arts · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Secrecy · Sociology · State (computer science · Subversion · History · Law · Martial Arts: Techniques, Psychology, and Education · Sociology and Norbert Elias · Sports, Gender, and Society

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