Hegemonic settler-colonial structure

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“Here, breaking is a space for those ‘othered’ by Australian institutions to express themselves and engage in new hierarchies of respect. We argue that breaking’s institutionalization via the Olympics will place breaking more firmly within this sporting nation’s hegemonic settler-colonial structures that rely upon racialized and gendered hierarchies.”

—Dr Rachael Gunn, The Australian breaking scene and the Olympic Games: The possibilities and politics of sportification, September 2023

Hegemonic settler-colonial structure
/ˌhiːɡɪˈmɒnɪk sɛtlə-kəˈləʊniəl ˈstrʌkʧə/ (n.)
A system where a dominant group (often from a colonising country) establishes control over a territory and its indigenous population.

“Hegemonic”, we suppose because a group becomes dominant and imposes cultural, economic, and political influence, on the values, norms, and systems of a subordinate group. In any case, some pre-existing power structure whose existing mechanisms impose political order and hierarchy on a “society” of some sort.

“Colonial” suggests the hegemony then involuntarily appropriates and exploits the society’s cultural artefacts and resources.

“Settler” because the Colonial hegemonists do not just cut and run: they settle on the society’s territory and exclude the indigenous population from its own homeland.

Bing AI tells us:

“This structure often leads to long-term social, economic, and political inequalities, with the indigenous population facing marginalization and loss of their land, culture, and autonomy.”

Worked example

Dr Gunn highlighted a real possibility of this happening should “Breaking” be introduced to the Paris Olympics. Now we can carp about these grievance studies warriors writing self-regarding baloney on the public purse, but Dr Gunn’s warnings here were prescient: Her warnings about the colonial-settler hegemony, invading an

“expressive and social dance style originating in the Bronx, developed and largely practised by People of Colour ... [that] does not easily ‘fit’ with the construction of the idealized Australian sporting hero – the large, muscular, White, cismale uniformed body enculturated as part of an established sporting institution.”

indeed came to pass: Australia was represented at the Olympics by “Bgirl Raygun”, a uniformed, white, “cisgendered” female athlete — JC would not presume to remark on a lady’s musculature or size — enculturated as part of the established sporting institutions that coordinated Australia’s strikingly successful campaign at Paris.

So, who is this Bgirl Raygun?

Well, it may be “near impossible for breakers in Australia to make a living from breaking” as Dr Gunn puts it in her monograph — but apparently you can make a living writing about it: BgirlRaygun is none other than Dr Rachael Gunn, lecturer in the cultural politics of, well, breaking, at Macquarie University’s Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature, and author of that very study in grievance.

Come and see the violence inherent in the system indeed!

See also

• Fox Sport Australia’s backgrounder to Breaking’s inclusion in the 2024 Olympics
• Critical theory