CHAPTER FOUR Embodied Identities: Sport and Race in South Africa Douglas Booth and John Nauright 1 … the truth of the self is manifested in the authenticity of the body. More precisely still, it is the surface of the body which is the mirror of the self. Bryan Turner 2 In this chapter we move beyond political and historiographical perspectives of race and sport to focus on racialized and sporting bodies. Though this case focuses on South Africa where racialized bodies have been central elements in defining difference, there are many international parallels and a multitude of case study examples that could be added to our analysis. Social historians and sociologists have collectively written thousands of volumes about sport over the last three decades. While much of their work has been critical, exploring social relations of power, inequality and oppression, they have said little by comparison about bodies. This omission contains a double paradox. First, by definition sport is a corporeal practice, and second, power, inequality and oppression are embodied. 3 In the case of the latter, consider the following encounter at the height of apartheid between a black middle- class woman and a crowd of intoxicated white rugby enthusiasts outside Ellis Park (Johannesburg)—a citadel of white South African masculinity: