Animal sports and popular culture: Problems of continuity

Abstract

The central thesis of this paper is that some recent illegal or deviant activities in the field of sports must be interpreted as continuations of popular pastimes which were repressed during the nineteenth century. Besides this the paper will demonstrate that the study of traditional popular culture does not need to be an objective in itself, but that knowledge of popular culture can be useful to understand present-day problems. An interesting aspect of traditional popular culture, defined as the forms and standards of behaviour of the common people during the period between the Renaissance and the rise of industrial societies, is a preference for animal sports,’ in which torturing the animals was part of the fun.2 In many studies of popular culture much attention has been paid to the struggles of people and organisations from the middle classes to repress and prohibit ‘cruel’ animal sports and other uncivilised pastimes.3 Less attention has been given to the possibilities that some prohibited activities had not completely disappeared, but were perpetuated illegally on a local level where they escaped notice. Discussing the origins of recent forms of organised dogfights, this paper is meant as an initial exploration of these possibilities. To support the central thesis, two conditions have to be met: (1) it must be shown that some ‘cruel’ animal sports and other uncivilised pastimes have never completely disappeared during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and (2) the increased publicity and visibility of these activities during the last ten years have to be explained. In order to discuss these specific issues it is necessary to have a general understanding of the relation between modern sports and traditional animal sports.