(Inter)National Pastime: le scienze sociali e le nuove interpretazioni del baseball

Abstract

A microcosm of modernity. History, ethics and politics of (post)colonial cricket Cricket is the first sport to fully represent modernity, intertwining with 19th century society and culture. British sport par excellence has served as an instrument of discipline and ethics to “nationalize the masses” and “colonize the consciences”. It consolidated the idea of Britishness, but it was also the nucleus around which anticolonial sentiments coagulated and post-colonial national identities were formed, from India to the Caribbean, from Australia to South Africa, up to diasporas and contemporary migrations. Paraphrasing Kipling, then, «what do they know of cricket who only cricket know?». The answer is in the secular history of the game: beyond the boundaries of the field, cricket is a cultural event, a tool for the construction of identity, a microcosm of modernity.