Between Tatami and Sawdust : The Ambiguity of Breton Wrestling’s Sites

The competitive schedule of Gouren, the Breton Wrestling, is divided into two seasons. During winter, the wrestlers compete into indoor sports arenas, while in summer they wrestle en plain air, in outdoor sawdust arenas, confronting each other in a particular, commemorative way – called Mod Kozh, “old-fashioned” – which evokes the history of Gouren. The structures and the symbolic references of these two kinds of competitions clearly differ a lot. The aim of this paper is to focus on the different – and to some extent opposite – processes of space and history management carried out by wrestlers in each competitive pattern. In fact, winter and summer Gouren tournaments take place in an apparently contradictory frame between modernity and tradition, globalisation and localisation. On one hand, the winter indoor arenas can be described as a kind of «non-places» - impersonal and strictly operational places which appear to be similar in every part of the world, being the stages of many modern sports, and thus evoking the most modern aspects of Gouren. In order to feel familiar with such places, wrestlers enter, step by step, in the mood of competition, as well as in the “domestic” atmosphere which gradually characterizes the arena once the athletes and the public start to occupy it (a kinesthetic atmosphere, made of smells, sounds, people, similar to the atmosphere they regularly find in the gyms where they train). On the other hand, Mod Kozh tournaments take place in typical and recognizable settings, full of symbolic marks, which immediately convey the stereotypical representation of Breton culture and history, and which clearly evoke the supposed traditional features of Gouren. In such places, athletes immediately feel “at home”, since Brittany’s landscape and history are perceived as their “natural” habitat, their own home. Nevertheless, Mod Kozh Tournaments are actually a most recent re-«invention» than indoor competitions.