%0 Journal Article
%T Responding to globalisation: The case of elite artistic gymnastics in China
%A Alan Bairner
%A Jinming Zheng
%A Tien-Chin Tan
%J International Review for the Sociology of Sport
%@ 1461-7218
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/1012690217730679
%X This article presents an exploration of a non-Western nation¡¯s responses to globalisation through an in-depth analysis of elite artistic gymnastics in China over a lengthy time span. The concept of globalisation and patterns of ¡®reach¡¯ and ¡®response¡¯ act as the heuristic devices underpinning the analysis. Data were collected from a range of documents and from six semi-structured interviews. The trajectory of Chinese elite artistic gymnastics¡¯ responses to globalisation can be characterised as a passive response in the 1950s, a participative response in the first half of the 1960s, a conflictual response from 1966 to the early 1970s, a participative response from the early 1970s to the 2012 Olympic Games, and a passive response, once again, during the Rio Olympiad (post-London 2012). In this way, a nation¡¯s responses to globalisation are seen as dynamic rather than rigid or static. China¡¯s case also demonstrates that a nation can have a degree of autonomy when responding to globalisation, although in extreme cases, a nation-state can choose to resist this globalising context, largely depending on a government¡¯s attitude towards globalisation and the value the government attaches to it
%K artistic gymnastics
%K China
%K globalisation
%K politics
%K responses
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1012690217730679