Power, Ideology and Sport in South Africa: A Narrative of Racial Hegemony

Abstract

In the Gramscian notion of hegemony, the ideological and cultural domination of one class over another in society is achieved by engineering consensus through the control of all cultural forms. Regulatory control in society is an important socio-political mechanism to establish hegemony. In South Africa during the apartheid era, the state and civil society very effectively controlled all cultural forms, including sport, to establish a system of informal and formal separateness (apartheid). From 1948, the National Party had dominated all sources of power that would allow the apartheid regime to exert their racial policies on the broader society. The governing party ability to exert ideology and power was determined by its control of the available sources of power. In this regard, the apartheid regime had control over and access to most power resources in the country, which enabled them to dominate and subject the racial majority in the country. This allowed the state the opportunity to impose the system of apartheid on the broader society and to control sport as a cultural outlet. The aim of this article is to explore the various development patterns of athletics, within the broader ambit of the establishment of a racial hegemony in South Africa.