Sport and Collective Memory: New Directions

Workshop (Paris, May 19-20 2025)

Sport and Collective Memory: New Directions

Sciences Po, CNRS and Paris Nanterre University

2024 highlighted the strong links between sport and collective memory. The Paris Olympic Games were conceived as a commemoration of the 1924 Games and, more broadly, of French history. In France, they also gave birth to an unprecedented national public collect of archives of sport. And, conversely, as they unfolded, talk of the “historic” nature of the 2024 Games was evoked by various players on a daily basis, right up to the speech by COJOP president Tony Estanguet at the closing ceremony. "This summer, millions of families, friends, lovers, colleagues and neighbors created shared memories. This summer, an entire country thrilled to the same feats. Beyond the language we share, beyond the values we hold in common, beyond monuments and history books, what binds us together and builds us as a nation are collective emotions. What binds us together are shared memories. And the Games provided us with some wonderful, shared memories. This summer, France had a rendez-vous with history, and it was there."

This workshop aims to bring together specialists in memory studies and sports to question the assumption that attending a sporting event in common, from a soccer World Cup match to a marathon, creates memories that are themselves shared. Over the past twenty years, research on memory has focused mainly on so-called traumatic events and political violence. And they have largely left aside moments of jubilation and joy, notably sporting gatherings. Today, sport is a major collective event, but its place in the construction of collective memories has not yet given rise to numerous studies.

This workshop will bring together in Paris a group of around ten researchers from different disciplines to discuss and work on the contributions sent for April 1st by each of the participants to the group as a whole. The aim will be to exchange ideas on the basis of these texts, with a view to the construction of two special issues of the journal, from each of the two sub-disciplines. The meeting will take place at Sciences Po Paris and Université Paris Nanterre. Accommodation and meals will be provided, and travel assistance may be considered.

Submissions on the following topics will be much appreciated. However this list is not exhaustive.

- Participatory archives and sport collective memory

- Quantitative data on memory of sport events and characters

- Local sport history and national memory

- Gender, memory and sport

- Events and memory

- Sport, social networks and memory

- Sport, memory and (de)politization

- Heritage, sports and memory

- Business value of memory of sport

- Work, sport and memory

- The role of archives in the construction of a memory of sport

- Cosmopolite memory and sport

- National memory and sport

- Memory of migrations and sports

- Mémoire du sport, mémoires de supporters

- Stadiums and museums as places of collective memory

- Paralympic Memories

Send 500 words abstracts and 200 words biographies to sarah.gensburger@sciencespo.fr by January 15, 2025.

The organizing committee is composed of:

Sarah Gensburger, CNRS / Sciences Po Paris, Centre de Sociologie des Organisations

Valentin Guéry, Paris Nanterre University/CNRS, Institut des Sciences sociales du Politique

Julien Sorez, Paris Nanterre University/CNRS, Institut des Sciences sociales du Politique