Bob carries himself distinctively as he bestrides the corridors, offices and wards of Constance Hospital. His porter’s uniform of blue fabric trousers and yellow poloshirt (with name tag on the left breast) are tightly stretched across a bodybuilder’s frame, in particular chest and neck. Bob has well-developedtrapeziusandlatissimus dorsimuscles, as well as pectorals anddeltoids. And he holds them with a certain tightness and expansiveness through the day. With his blonde hair in crew-cut style, his glasses magnifying a slight squint in his eye, and a slight stoop in his posture, Bob – ‘B. HUME, SUPPORT SERVICES’ – is...

My first encounter with a muscular Christian took place when I was still finishing my undergraduate degree. I had just decided that my doctoral work would focus on conservative Protestantism when I heard that Jim, a fellow student of anthropology, had recently ‘converted’. I confess I was somewhat sceptical as I went up the steps to Jim’s room in college to see for myself. I was used to thinking of him as a friendly, if physically-imposing, presence, more renowned for his prowess on the rugby field – and in the bar – than for his academic abilities.

I found Jim squeezed, as...

I thought it went like a dream. I carved diagonally left to right across the top of the drop, railed on the lip and span into the flat water of the right hand eddy. Dreams, however, are rarely identical to reality. I had put more body power than style into the move, fought the water, it redirected my efforts shooting me back into the drop. I tried to turn, went nose vertical in the drop before cart-wheeling down stream. I was now tail vertical in the main flow, with fifteen meters till the hardest series of drops in this section....

‘Reike, massage, water therapy, yoga and relaxation techniques – see Maire and Heikle’. This is the sign on the side of a car parked along the dirt road to Cala Deia, Mallorca described as one of the most beautiful coves in the Mediterranean. Deia, a village on the northwest coast of Mallorca, has attracted exotic visitors since the last century (see Rusinol 1929). On arrival, it is not long before most visitors become aware of the fifteen hundred foot mountains that form the valley of Deia. Walking down to the cove through the valley is often described by new and repeat...

A rich anthropological literature examines the processes and associated practices of hunting animals for food but little attention has been paid to the hunting of wild animals in the modern world, when the activity moves from being part of a subsistence strategy to becoming a sporting practice.¹ In this movement hunting becomes set apart from utilitarian concerns and enters that space and time occupied by play, games, sports and other leisure activities. It becomes subject to rules and regulations that mark it as a non-necessary and essentially nonproductive activity,² engaged in primarily for the inherent pleasures of the event itself....

Whether actively pursued or incidentally encountered, engagement with sport constitutes a salient feature of everyday life for a sizable proportion of children, youth and adults in cities and communities across Canada. This chapter examines how varying forms of involvement with sport may be marshalled to shape domestic representations of Canada as a nation as well as to mediate the paired and often problematic identities of ‘Canadians’ and ‘immigrants’. Although Western social science has traditionally relegated sport to a supposedly frivolous category of mere ‘fun and games’, such a perspective is badly dated and conceptually callow. Within Canada, as in many...

The crowd exploded in a thunderous cry of anger and disbelief. Another close call had gone against the home team. One man leapt onto the backstop separating the field from the seats behind home plate. Stadium officials plucked at the back of his shirt in an attempt to pull him down as he vainly tried to jam his hand through the gaps in the wire mesh to get his hand closer to the umpire. Several irate fans clambered onto the roof of the dugout sheltering the home team’s players. Conga drums continued beating out a rumba-like rhythm and a couple...

On 1 January 1900 the Consul General and Minister Plenipotentiary of Germany in Cairo, Herr von Muller, lavishly entertained thirty hand-picked members of the German community at a dinner party in Cairo’s famous Shepheard’s Hotel. Thirty covers were laid out on a table with ‘exquisite taste’ in a ‘magnificent’ hall that had recently been added to the hotel.² A menu of thirteen items had been arranged and printed copies (in German) were handed to the guests. After the party, the consensus among the guests was that ‘the chef had even surpassed his previous worthy efforts on occasions of this nature...

I currently practice and teach a Japanese martial art called aikido. I also practise and teach anthropology. These practices are often inseparable. For a start, when I sit at my office desk or stand in front of a class full of students, the frequent aching in my body, as well as momentary reflections I have on aikido practice and body movement, permeates my work, informs my thought, and refigures my identity. It does this both in terms of the social world I engage in as well as in a sense of personal growth that I feel and inwardly discuss with...