Politics of Leisure and RecreationApril 1, 2008

Recap of Slow Food Movement

Emerged from concerns about disappearance of culinary traditions

Response to formation of European Union, loss of local identity

Sought to establish a new social movement of consumers who would adopt a politics of “slowness” and “virtuous” consumption to contest globalization

Within the movement, there emerged new hierarchies of value I.e. whose lardo or chocolate is most authentic, who is living the slow life most legitimately

To a degree, confirms Bourdieu’s thesis on taste: SFM is new mode of asserting distinction; creates hierarchies of legitimate taste

More general recap of ways we’ve analyzed leisure practices:

Assert distinction Enforce exclusion Express opposition Pursue mobility Solidify social networks Escape the everyday Enable larger structures of domination

Create inclusionCreate diasporic identitiesAcquire skills and embodied

posturesCreate relationshipsTransmit traditionsPerform norms

Some of these, we identified as conscious pursuits

Others, we decided were effects of these actions that agents may not have intended

We wondered whether we needed to “take a stand” on a leisure activity

Yet it was clear that leisure activities, embedded as they are within broader sets of power relations, have implications

Want to continue look at leisure activities in the context of those broader social relations

With that in mind, today we turn to the phenomenon of Tennis Clubs and Masculinity in Southeastern Nigeria

Dan Smith, anthropologist

Did research in Igbo-speaking southeastern Nigeria

Igbos are 3rd largest of Nigeria’s 250 ethnic groups

Tennis Club: venue for production of elite male sociality

Masculinity, infidelity, and HIV-risk

Tennis in Nigeria

British introduced tennis in the early 1900s

Tennis was introduced in selective schools by 1945

Nigeria is a member o the International Tennis Federation

Nduka Odizor, the best tennis player Nigeria has ever produced, who remains the only African to have reached the quarter finals of the world’s most prestigious grand slam tournament, Wimbledon Open in 1986

Created “TENNIS FOR AFRICA” humanitarian sports project in Nigeria

Tennis Clubs

situates Nigerian men’s motivations for extramarital sex in the context of social, structural, and cultural forces that prevail in contemporary Nigeria

Sugar Daddies

Term used by Nigerians to describe married men who have sexual relationships with younger unmarried women

Sugar daddies: own cars, belong to social clubs, give women substantial amounts of money and gifts

Having young, attractive, educated extramarital sexual partners is as much about social status as sexual gratification

Features of the Sugar Daddy Relationship (class comments) Older male figure who bestows gifts Marked age disparity between women

and men Sexual Gratification comes from

engaging in sex with a displayed good Hugh Hefner made Sugar Daddy

respectable There are parallels between Sugar

Daddies and Pimps; both are figures of “protection” to sugar daughters

Partners of sugar daddies are seen as having lost their way but these women engage with men as a means of income

Both parties are engaging in it with knowledge and consent

Relationships serve both partiesSugar Daddies exist in male-male

relationships

See a link between women in Allison’s hostess club and handbags in tennis clubs; facilitate intramale sociality; both are fetishes

Beyonce’s Sugar Momma describes a situation where women provide for men

American women travel to Dominican Republic to find male companions who sometimes become their husbands

Intramale sociality

Intramale sociality crucial for understanding men’s extramarital sexual relationships

Men compliment each other on their girlfriends

Intimacy between men takes shape as solidarity and camaraderie

Men secure a temporary girlfriend for their tennis partners

Men assume that married men won’t want to spend their night alone

Handbags and Razor Blades

Men ask each other if they are “carrying a handbag” in reference to taking a young female lover on tennis tour

Sometimes, women are depicted as “razor blades” that bleed men of their money

Smith’s Observations

Men experience pressure to provide for wives and children

Some find young female lovers more sympathetic, they listen to their provisioning woes

Men reluctant to talk about sexual matters with their wives, for fear they would be suspected of having extra-marital affairs

Lack of communication increases risks of HIV transmission

Discussion Question

What opportunities for social mobility does the tennis club open up for "handbags"?

Response Paper Questions

1. What social function does the tennis club play in enabling Nigerian men to display and confirm their masculinity?

2. Imagine you are an HIV/AIDS prevention activist; which social institution(s) or social practices or social actors would you seek to engage with to achieve a reduction in the incidence of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria?

DUE THURSDAY IN CLASS

Thursday: Sugar Daddies

Daddy-Daughter configuration evokes clearly asymmetrical power relationships

Sugar evokes the seduction and sweetness of that relationship

Will explore both the asymmetries and the seductions of this configuration