Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

"The Bead Of Raw Sweat In A Field Of Dainty Perspirers": Nationalism, Whiteness And The Olympic-Class Ordeal Of Tonya Harding, Elizabeth L. Krause

Anthropology Department Faculty Publication Series

This paper examines the interrelations of whiteness, gender, class and nationalism as represented in popular media discourses surrounding the coverage of the assault on Olympic ice skater Nancy Kerrigan and the investigation of her rival, Tonya Harding. As with other recent works that have refocused the issue of "race" on whiteness, this essay seeks to unveil the exclusionary social processes in which boundaries are set and marked within the" difference" of whiteness. The concepts of habitus and historicity are used to understand how Tonya Harding became marked as "white trash," and the implications of her "flawed" qualifications are explored. Furthermore, …