Lakota basketball and racism: Performance, performativity, and engaged acrimony

Abstract

Sporting contests between communities actively engaged in societal struggle comprise an event I call “engaged acrimony.” In these sporting contests, ideas of sport as promoting harmony get tested and often give way to demonstrations of vitriol that mirror actual relations. In this article, I discuss Lakota basketball teams from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation as they played against neighboring white teams, examining how their responses to racism were safely expressed within and around sporting events. I analyze two of the best-known instances of engaged acrimony using Turner's sense of performance and Butler's theory of performativity. In doing so, I offer an understanding of how Native communities can fashion an empowering response to racism.