The origins of nearly all sports can be found in religious ceremonies. The Olympic Games and Sumo wrestling are clear examples of how civilizations, both ancient and modern, connect athletic performance and achievement to a higher spiritual plane - to an indescribable yet clearly recognized "something more."
"The Gift of Sports" will give readers an understanding of and appreciation for the religious dimensions of sports. The selections in the text demonstrate that the appeal and popularity of sports is based on viewing them, not just as business or entertainment, but as ceremony.
Topics covered in the book include:
- Religion as a gift exchange between different beings
- The sacred nature of sporting events and venues
- Sports as a vital force in youth and community development
- Fan devotion
- Mascots
- Sports and Money
- "The Creator s Game" of Lacrosse
- Racism and Sexism in sports
"The Gift of Sports" offers a unique perspective on two familiar topics by showing that in many respects, they are one and the same.
Philip P. Arnold is Associate Professor of Religion at Syracuse University in New York, which is located in Onondaga Nation Territory--the heartland of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). He has written on Aztec and Haudenosaunee traditions and advocates for Indigenous peoples and their traditions through the Indigenous Values Initiative. As a sports fan he enjoys watching games of all kinds, particularly those involving family and friends.

In this book, Philip Arnold utilizes a collaborative method, derived from the "Two-Row Wampum" (1613) and his 40 year relationship with the Haudenosaunee, in exploring the urgent need to understand Indigenous values, support Indigenous Peoples, and to offer a way toward humanity’s survival in the face of ecological and environmental catastrophe. Indigenous values connect human beings with the living natural world through ceremonial exchange practices with non-human beings who co-inhabit the homelands. Arnold outlines Indigenous traditions of habitation and ceremonial gift economies and contrasts those with settler-colonial values of commodification where the land and all aspects of material life belongs to human beings and are reduced to monetary use-value. Through an examination of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, a series of fifteenth-century documents that used religious decrees to justify the subjugation and annihilation of Indigenous Peoples, Arnold shows how issues such as environmental devastation, social justice concerns, land theft, and forced conversion practices have their origins in settler-colonial relationships with the sacred—that persists today. Designed to initiate a conversation in the classroom, in the academy, and in various communities about what is essential to the category of Indigeneity, this book offers a way of understanding value systems of Indigenous peoples. By pairing the concepts of Indigeneity and religion around competing values systems, Arnold transforms our understanding of both categories.

In this book, Philip Arnold utilizes a collaborative method, derived from the "Two-Row Wampum" (1613) and his 40 year relationship with the Haudenosaunee, in exploring the urgent need to understand Indigenous values, support Indigenous Peoples, and to offer a way toward humanity’s survival in the face of ecological and environmental catastrophe. Indigenous values connect human beings with the living natural world through ceremonial exchange practices with non-human beings who co-inhabit the homelands. Arnold outlines Indigenous traditions of habitation and ceremonial gift economies and contrasts those with settler-colonial values of commodification where the land and all aspects of material life belongs to human beings and are reduced to monetary use-value. Through an examination of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, a series of fifteenth-century documents that used religious decrees to justify the subjugation and annihilation of Indigenous Peoples, Arnold shows how issues such as environmental devastation, social justice concerns, land theft, and forced conversion practices have their origins in settler-colonial relationships with the sacred—that persists today. Designed to initiate a conversation in the classroom, in the academy, and in various communities about what is essential to the category of Indigeneity, this book offers a way of understanding value systems of Indigenous peoples. By pairing the concepts of Indigeneity and religion around competing values systems, Arnold transforms our understanding of both categories.

Diplomarbeit aus dem Jahr 2005 im Fachbereich Touristik / Tourismus, Note: 1,3, Hochschule Pforzheim (Fakultat fur Wirtschaft & Recht), Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Inhaltsangabe: Einleitung: In der heutigen Welt besitzt die Lust zu Reisen ein gigantisches, internationales Gewicht und ruckt die Tourismuswirtschaft auf der Liste der globalen Wirtschaftsmotoren auf einen der fuhrenden Platze. Der Tourismus ist in der Lage, gerade Landern mit relativ niedrigen Industrialisierungsgrad ein hervorragendes Entwicklungspotential fur den heimischen Beschaftigungsmarkt zu liefern und unterstutzt somit eine nachhaltige Entwicklung schwacherer Gebiete. Naturlich lassen sich heute auch die negativen Auswirkungen eines (zu) schnell wachsenden Tourismus erkennen, der Volkswirtschaften in einen wahren Ausverkauf ihrer Landschaften zwingt und die Bevolkerung in eine starke Abhangigkeit sturzen kann. Reisen ist zu einem Grundbedurfnis der Menschen geworden. Der stetig wachsende Wirtschaftszweig Tourismus ist mit uber 250 Millionen Beschaftigten der weltweit grosste Arbeitgeber und erbrachte allein in Europa im Jahr 2003 einen Umsatz knapp 400 Milliarden Euro. Gerade bei diesen okonomischen Dimensionen verwundert es, dass man in vielen Unternehmen der Tourismuswirtschaft ein systematisches Marketing, wie es andere Branchen schon seit Jahren praktizieren, vergeblich sucht. Eine Antwort findet sich im Ruckblick auf vergangene Jahrzehnte. Die touristischen Verkaufermarkte ermoglichten nahezu jedem touristischen Anbieter ohne differenziertes Marketing seit den funfziger Jahren bis ins letzte Jahrzehnt ein stetes Wachstum. Die Neunziger jedoch zeigten erste Sattigungstendenzen und kundigten den Wandel vom Verkaufer- zum Kaufermarkt an, der naturlich auch gestiegene Anforderungen an die touristischen Leistungsanbieter stellte. Die vorliegende Arbeit mochte die Wirkungsfelder touristischer Marketingforschung, sowie den Entstehungsprozess einer Marketingkonzeption, am Beispiel der spanischen Re

Religion and Global Culture draws together the work of a group of historians of religion who are concerned with situating the contemporary study of religion within the cultural complexity of the modern world. The writing of each of the volume's contributors relates to the work of leading historian of religion Charles H. Long, who has identified religious meanings in the contacts and exchanges of the colonial and postcolonial periods. Together with Long, these scholars explore religious practices in a variety of globalized contexts; chapters consider such varied subjects as the rituals of African immigrant communities in the United States, the making of Mohawk sweet grass and black ash baskets, the religious experience of prisoners in the Nazi holding camp of Westerbork, and the regional repercussions of contemporary multi-national business. By locating religion in the conflicted and cooperative relationships of the colonial and postcolonial periods, Religion and Global Culture calls on scholars of religion to reconfigure their interpretive stances from the perspective of the material structures of the modern, globalized world.