Abstract des Autors

Traditions are invented, but it is equally important to realise that the invention of tradition is a cultural practice in itself. The performative character of tradition, however, is often overlooked in recent research that focuses too exclusively on the discursive aspect of tradition.1 Approaching tradition in the context of nation building and national identity therefore also has to integrate the perspective of performativity through the body – the one that is “doing” practice – in order to exemplify that tradition is kept alive by and does not exist without practice. Bodies are culturally encoded (cultivated) and as such they are products of culture, but at the same time bodies actively produce culture. By focusing on swimming and swim techniques in Japan during the 19th century, this paper will argue that swimming bodies in Japan were connected to the nation-building process, the self-identity as an island nation, and served to represent the constructed national characteristics of the Japanese people, as swimming could be located within the discourse of an idealized past. In swimming traditional techniques the swimmer performed his (male) Japaneseness and was turned into an ideal member of the ideal nation. Additionally, existing political conflicts were discursively negotiated and Japanese swimmers were able to symbolically reconquer the waters that had been occupied by Western powers since Commodore Perry forced the opening of Japanese harbors.