Hegemony, domination and opposition: Fluctuating Korean nationalist politics at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang

Abstract

This article is concerned with the contested nature of nationalism expressed through sport. The 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang offers some useful episodes where I can investigate a different type of Korean nationalism represented through sport. At this Winter Olympics, I observed four distinctive discourses on Korean identity being displayed via the winter sporting competition: 1) unified Korean ethnic nationalism, 2) South Korean state patriotic nationalism, 3) postcolonial anti-imperialist nationalism, and 4) cosmopolitan Korean identity. The four variants of nationalism were vying for the dominant position in the hierarchy of South Korean politics, and the Winter Olympics presented a platform on which each nationalist group asserts the legitimacy of their sense of nationhood. Therefore, I conclude that the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang was not simply a physical contest between athletes but more importantly, was a field of the hegemonic struggle between adherents of different nationalistic views.

Keywords:

• Nationalism
• hegemony
• politics
• Korea
• Winter Olympics
• PyeongChang 2018

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).