Keywords: congress; physical education; knowledge; experts; Guatemala

Abstract

The following work1 analyzes, from a socio-historical approach with emphasis on the social history of knowledge and experts (Neiburg and Plotkin, 2004; Heilbron, Guilhot, Jeanpierre, 2008; Altamirano, 2013), the XII Pan American Congress of Physical Education held in Guatemala in 1989. It analyzes the event as a space of sociability, circulation of knowledge, legitimization of certain experts, and influence and power of some international organizations. Given this, the purpose of the article is to examine the knowledge, experts, and organizations that validated certain true senses on how to conceptualize the broad universe of physical culture, physical education, and sports (Scharagrodsky, 2011). To carry out the hermeneutic analysis, within the framework of a qualitative methodology, interpretative attention has been focused on various documentary sources, among which the memories and reports of the congress, the central exhibitions, the general presentations and the memories linked to other Pan American congresses stand out. A set of semi-structured interviews have also been conducted. The analysis has articulated the “text” together with the historical conditions of production and interaction of the universe investigated (Fairclough, 2003). Among the conclusions, the congress is identified as a space in which educational discipline and sports transmitted different senses about health. Likewise, the congress made visible certain international experts and important transnational institutions linked to the heterogeneous field of physical culture.

1. Introduction

In 1989 the XII Pan American Congress of Physical Education was held in Guatemala. The event held in the capital of the most populous country in Central America was the result of forty-six years of deliberations, agreements, alliances, and relations between an important part of the community of specialists in Physical Education, sports, and recreation of most American countries.

Since 1943, Pan American events have focused the attention of experts and specialists linked to the wide universe of physical culture, public and private sports institutions, teacher training organizations, and government structures related to the promotion and organization of health and sports policies of the American states.

The productive and consolidated history of these events began with the First Pan American Congress of Physical Education organized in Brazil in 1943. Three years later, in 1946, the planning and realization of the Second Congress were in the hands of Mexico. The Third Pan American Congress of Physical Education was held in Montevideo in 1950, the Fourth Pan American Congress of Physical Education was held in Bogotá in 1965, the multitudinous Fifth Pan American Congress of Physical Education with more than one thousand three hundred congressmen belonging to thirteen countries of America was held in Buenos Aires in 1970 and the Sixth Pan American Congress of Physical Education was established in Venezuela in 1976.

Later, from the ’80s, Pan American events gained greater relevance, presence, and prestige, and acquired a regularity never before established. Thus, in 1980 the Seventh Pan American Congress of Physical Education was held in the Dominican Republic, the Eighth Pan American Congress of Physical Education materialized in Mexico in 1982, the Ninth Pan American Congress of Physical Education crystallized in Curacao in 1984, the Tenth Pan American Congress of Physical Education was organized in the city of Havana in 1986 -with record participation: 1458 attendees from 27 countries- and the Eleventh Pan American Congress of Physical Education was implemented in Caracas, Venezuela in 1987.

The history of these events, whose rhythm of ‘life’ accelerated in the early ’80s, strengthened the status of the specialty, amplified the types of intervention, manufactured new recipients, consolidated the figure of experts, strengthened networks of personal and institutional relationships, enhanced regional meetings, reinforced the circulation of specific knowledge and strengthened the relationship between national states and policies on physical culture in general.

The participation of Guatemalan representatives and specialists varied in each Pan-American event. For example, at first, Guatemala had no representatives or participants (Anais First Pan American Congress of Physical Education, Volume II, 1945, pp. III-VI). In the Second Pan American Congress of Physical Education, Guatemala participated with a representative, Jorge Alberto Micheo, who is making a general balance pointed out the following:

The ideas that have most influenced the development of Physical Education in my country, from a general point of view, are the doctrinal and pedagogical currents from the Argentine Republic, orienting the subject under the principles established by Professor Enrique C. Romero Brest. Our School was founded ten years ago. Unfortunately, past dictatorial regimes stopped the progress of this important activity and Physical Education took a path that did not correspond to the constructive aims of the youth; it was militarized (...) it became a program of triumphal marches and prolonged fatigues, which contributed rather deform children than to educate them properly. (...) with the new democratic regime, the government has directed cultural missions (...) to provide Physical Education in all social sectors. (Official Report of the II Pan American Congress of Physical Education, 1946, pp. 245, 250, 345-346)

The Third Pan American Congress of Physical Education was attended by Guatemalans Francisco Leal de León, José Feliz Gil Sierra, and Amando Padilla Rodrigo (Report of the III Pan American Congress of Physical Education, Assistant Delegates, 1950, p. 3). The first had an outstanding performance coordinating the Commission of Physical Education of deaf-dumb, blind and crippled. This type of intervention was not repeated in the following congresses, for example, in the Fourth Pan American Congress of Physical Education or in the Fifth Pan American Congress of Physical Education held in Buenos Aires in 1970 (Memory of the V Pan American Congress of Physical Education, 1971, pp. 7-9, 158-160), since there was no Guatemalan presence in them. But in the decade of the ’80s, the Guatemalan delegation in some congresses increased. For example, at the VIII Pan American Congress of Physical Education held in Mexico in 1982, there were three Guatemalan presences: Erick Roberto Castro, Manuel De León Corzantes and Julia Mendia de Massella (Memoria del VIII Congreso Panamericano de Educación Física, 1982, p. 37). Likewise, at the X Pan American Congress of Physical Education held in Havana in 1986, Guatemala sent “9 delegates and/or specialists” (Memorias del X Congreso Panamericano de Educación Física, 1987, p. 33). In fact, several of the five commissions with presentations by the attendees were chaired by the Guatemalan professor Mario Coll Solares and by Dr. Amarilys Padilla2 (Memorias del X Congreso Panamericano de Educación Física, 1987, pp. 33, 64).

Taking into account the consolidation of the most important Pan American circuit of Physical Education of the second half of the twentieth century, the following work explores, from a social, political, and cultural history of education, the dynamics developed in the XII Pan American Congress of Physical Education held in the Guatemalan capital. To this end, it focuses the analytical focus on the presentation and circulation of the knowledge debated in this space, as well as who were the participants most valued in epistemological terms, and the institutions present at the international event.

2. Methodology

The methodological framing of the article was based on a comprehensive interpretive tradition. The analytical approach was based on a socio-historical perspective with emphasis on the social history of knowledge and experts (Neiburg and Plotkin, 2004; Heilbron, Guilhot, Jeanpierre, 2008; Altamirano, 2013) in dialogue with the history of physical education as a school discipline (Goodson, 2003; Scharagrodsky, 2011).

Based on the universe investigated (the Pan American congress held in Guatemala in 1989), three constituent dimensions of the educational discipline produced in this academic space have been analyzed: the knowledge and perspectives transmitted and put into circulation, the most recognized disciplinary experts, and the legitimizing institutions.

To carry out the work, a series of sources were analyzed, among which the memories and reports of the congress, the central presentations of the experts, the general presentations, and the memories linked to other Pan American congresses stood out. A set of semi-structured interviews have also been conducted (Vasilachis de Giardino, 2007).

The analysis has articulated the “text” together with the historical conditions of production and interaction of the universe investigated (Fairclough, 2003). The interviews allowed the construction of theoretical categories linked to the dimensions analyzed from recurrences and dissonances of meaning as a function of degrees of saturation (Vasilachis de Giardino, 2007). The analysis made it possible to triangulate and analytically enhance the interpretations obtained from documentary sources and to identify more clearly the dimensions investigated: the knowledge and perspectives addressed, the referents or experts of the specialty, and the national and international institutions acting. The selection criteria for the respondents interviewed were linked to the type of participation and function exercised in the congress: organizers and speakers.3

Among the questions that have been raised, it is possible to mention the following questions: what were the knowledge and perspectives that supported the topics and debates discussed at the international event? and who were the experts and international institutions that arrogated to themselves the authority and legitimacy of knowledge in the community of physical education teachers during the congress?

3. Results and discussion

3.1. The congress: topics addressed and theoretical perspectives

As on previous occasions, the XII Pan American Congress of Physical Education organized in the Guatemalan capital had the political and economic support of different organizations and governmental structures. Among them, the Autonomous Sports Confederation of Guatemala, which was a central actor in the organization and logistics of the international event (Figure 1), stood out. The Ministry of Culture and Sports and the Ministry of Education also supported the realization of the event with different resources. As mentioned by a member linked to the Scientific Commission of the congress: “The State played a role of a sponsor (...) but the Pan American congress was organized by the Autonomous Sports Confederation of Guatemala, -CDAG- governing body of federated sport” (Jorge Zamora Prado, personal communication, August 20, 2021). For the first time, Guatemala became the host of an international congress of such symbolic and material magnitude, although it had a rich and varied sporting past (Zamora, 2008; McGehee, 1992).

Figure 1

Advertising of the XII Pan American Congress of Physical Education

Note: Autonomous Sports Confederation of Guatemala (C.D.A.G.). (1989b). Memorias del XII Congreso Panamericano de Educación Física. Preliminaryinformation, pp. 18-19. n/a

The presence of key actors of the State and, especially, of sports organizations materialized during the event, mainly in the inauguration and closing of it. Among the most prominent – and controversial – authorities were the lawyer Mario Coll Solares as president of the event, General Héctor Gramajo Morales for the Ministry of Defense, Mr. Emilio Goubaud for the Ministry of Culture and Sports, Juan de la Cruz García for the Guatemalan Olympic Committee, Oscar Erasmo Velásquez for the Autonomous Sports Confederation of Guatemala, Julio García for the Sports Directorate and Professor Thelma De Veras for the National Directorate of Physical Education. The inauguration was also attended by the President of Guatemala, Marco Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo.

With the support of these institutions and authorities, but in a complex, violent and unequal Guatemalan socio-political context crossed by “(...) stabilization and adjustment packages – which implied severe restrictions on the already deteriorated quality of life of the population – applied in 1988 and 1989 (...)”, with a historic “internal conflict (that) left a society torn apart: with a balance of 150,000 to 160,000 dead and 40,000 to 45,000 disappeared between 1960 and 1996” (Figueroa Ibarra, 2004, pp. 135), and persistent “electoral frauds” that occurred in the ’70s (Urrutia, 2013, pp. 295-296) and despite an important education strike with national scope, was held at the Miguel Ángel AsturiasCultural Center, at the Mateo Flores National Stadium and in the halls of the Hotel El Dorado, the international congress to which there were “more than 800 participants from some 22 countries in the region and Europe” (Vera Guardia, 1998, p. 174).

Following the tradition of other congresses, in Guatemala, several sports and folkloric activities were carried out, among which the Pan American half-marathon stood out to make the event visible to the general public, as well as activities related to the “(...) native folk dances accompanied by the national instrument of Guatemala: ‘La Marimba’”, performed at the National Theater where the public had the possibility of “(...) admire the typical costumes unique in the world for their variety and polychromy (...)” (Memories of the XII Pan American Congress of Physical Education. Preliminary information, 1989b, p. 31). The identity and national celebration was a dominant tone in most Pan-Americans, nuanced by the rhetoric of continental brotherhood and fraternity.

Analyzing the main themes, the sub-themes, the areas of special interest, the keynote presentations, and the theoretical perspectives investigated give us indications about the knowledge especially debated and the theoretical perspectives mostly assumed during the said congress.

The conceptual axis of the congress was “Human Development and Sport, Physical Education and Recreation” and the sub-themes: “Sport, Science and Humanism”, “Recreation, Man and Society”, “Education and Education of the movement” and “Human Resources. Interrelations between Sport, Recreation and Physical Education” (Memories of the XII Pan American Congress of Physical Education. Preliminary information, 1989b, p. 8). The areas of work were “Sports Medicine; Promotion and communication of sports, recreational and Physical Education activities; Architecture in facilities for Physical Education, recreation, sport and tourism; Sciences applied to sport” and Sports Legislation” (Memories of the XII Pan American Congress of Physical Education. Works, 1989a, Cover).

The area related to sports medicine had the top specialists in this field worldwide. Among others, the Swedish Dr. Per Olof Astrand was giving lectures that elaborated on topics such as, for example, “the medical and physiological aspects in sport for all in exercises” and on the “effects of training and adaptation in man”. Also presented by the renowned Israeli-Canadian researcher, Dr. Oded Bar-Or, who gave several lectures on the “adaptability of the musculoskeletal, cardiovascular and respiratory systems”, the “role of the doctor and the physical education teacher in the treatment of obesity in school” and on one of his specialties: “the special considerations of exercise in children and adolescents” and “the growth and development of children and their physiological responses and perceptive to exercise”. Likewise, he delighted the hundreds of people interested in top-level sports training, the Italian Dr. Antonio Dal Monte, who developed specific problems related to “the behavior of the cardiocirculatory system” in sports, “the measurement of oxygen consumption and the evaluation of lactic acid in blood in high-level athletes”, “the participation of the metabolic pathway in different sports” and “the physiological-biomechanical classification of the activity sports” (Memories of the XII Pan American Congress of Physical Education. Works, 1989a, pp. 4, 31, 41, 55, 67, 91, 113, 123, 151). Tables, numbers, formulas, models, patterns, and a specific language (elasticity, lean mass, anaerobic capacity alactacid, neuromuscular coordination, aerobic strength, etc.) condensed the empirical ‘evidence’ used by these experts when justifying the need to install programs linked to daily training, physical exercise, and regular and systematic sports practice, as well as promoting maximum sports performance.

The area of “Promotion and communication of sports, recreational and Physical Education activities” transmitted from massive physical activity programs such as, for example, “Fitness Canada”, “Program for the Development of Physical Fitness and Sport for All”, “participation”, “Colombian Cycling Caravan”, “Annual Relay Races in Chile”, “Dances in Trinidad”, the health benefits when developing programs related to the awareness of sports practice in populations of all ages and all western countries attending not only to biomedical, educational or psychological issues, but also economic since sick bodies were more onerous than healthy ones for modern states. One of the most outstanding references was the Canadian doctor Jannet Connor, who presented a scheme with detailed steps when designing, programming, and elaborating “a planning of action on sport for all” and “promotional strategies to achieve it” (Memories of the XII Pan American Congress of Physical Education. Works, 1989a, pp. 179, 182, 189, 199). Many of the works insisted on the need to consolidate massive programs to project a pleasant and empathetic physical activity, combining categories from marketing (social marketing) and administration, with health, psychological and educational justifications. The greatest interest of this area was the ‘evangelization’ of the populations towards physical activity, naturalizing the taste and interest towards regular, systematic, and recurrent gym, recreational, and sports practices.

The area related to “Architecture in facilities for Physical Education, recreation, sport, and tourism” was made up of numerous architects of recognized trajectory such as the German Frieder Roskam -author of the planning guides for all types of sports facilities in the Federal Republic of Germany-, the Englishman Geraint John or the Yugoslav Petar Boskovich. The first spoke about the “integration of sports centers and school buildings.” The Englishman presented aspects related to “the development of sports facilities” and the Yugoslav elaborated on “the modern football polygons” (Memories of the XII Pan American Congress of Physical Education. Works, 1989a, pp. 271, 291, 299). With nuances, the proposals of the aforementioned architects -and many others- was to vindicate the idea of the design of the space as an educational and sanitary place more friendly for the physical-sports practice, where architectural knowledge had to be concerned with rationalizing, organizing, ordering and optimizing the bodies in movement.

The area that thematized the “Sciences applied to sport” discussed the aspects related to the “pedagogy of physical activities” and the optimization of “motor learning” in education, as well as the different teaching models of the educational discipline in question and their implications in the “training of teachers in physical education” (Memories of the XII Pan American Congress of Physical Education. Works, 1989a, pp. 348, 363, 387). This space had references to physical education such as the Belgian Maurice Pieron or the Argentine Mario López. Many of his conceptions questioned the quasi-authoritarian and Darwinian historical pedagogical tradition of physical education or sports teaching more linked to the positivist paradigm concerning knowledge; but at the same time, they maintained certain principles linked to axioms derived from neo-behavioral psychology, utilitarian or pragmatist philosophy, and functionalist sociology more interested in individual and social adjustment and adaptation than in the radical critique of the “modern corporeal project” (Scharagrodsky, 2011).

Finally, the area related to “sports legislation” prompted to discuss aspects related to “sports law” and, especially, “sports crimes” (Memories of the XII Pan American Congress of Physical Education. Preliminary information, 1989b, p. 21), although without questioning the modern sports contract as an artifice that under the halo of ‘sports humanism’, kept intact the social relations of corporal objectification and political exploitation of body models (white, masculine, effective, successful, yielding, etc.) above others.

In any case, despite the heterogeneity of topics addressed and discussed in the different areas, and the “differences between countries on physical education, sports, and recreation (Carlos Vera Guardia, personal communication, January 29, 2021), there was a central category that crossed all areas of work: health. This great empty signifier was endowed with multiple senses.

With the use of the empty significant category, we refer to certain terms that are the object of a very strong ideological struggle in society; therefore, these terms will tend to be tendentially empty signifiers – never empty – because given the plurality of conflicts that occur around them they cannot be fixed to a single discursive articulation. And precisely, in the fact of the disputes that arise around them, lies that potentiality and capacity for interpellation. (...) partial emptying speaks of the power of a signifier that manages to absorb others, is partially emptied at the same time that it incorporates senses and meanings that exceed it (...). (Southwell, 2018, p. 79)

For a group of prestigious speakers, health was an objective state without social, cultural, political, economic, gender, or social class crossings. That is, for many works presented at the Pan American Congress, scientific knowledge conveyed by exercise physiology, molecular biology, endocrinology, genetics, and somatology were a sufficient, objective, and neutral condition to intervene technically and rationally on the individual body and the social body. Its objectives were, fundamentally, to improve the performance and effectiveness of the bodies, without questioning the why or why of these actions. For other positions, health although it remained the great goal tied to a set of objective medical facts; went beyond physical-sports performance or the teaching of a specific sports technique, attending to psychological, social, cultural, and economic factors. Finally, a few positions tried to conceptualize health less as a fact and more as a relationship subject to classification processes that responded to criteria that exceeded the organic universe. For these positions “the biologically normal was always founded on notions of the socially normal” (Turner, 1989, p. 264). This implied accepting health and disease as social and political relationships with metaphors, values, and principles that went beyond the organic, such as valuing efficiency, performance, effectiveness, or bodily self-discipline over solidarity, equality, and equal access to the sporting social good.

3.2. The Congress: international experts and organizations present

The congress held in Guatemala – the first of such international magnitude and importance – not only prioritized the discussion and debate of certain issues and how to address them but in itself became a space where the power, prestige, and authority of some participants were central to define certain ‘true’ senses about Physical Education, sports, recreation and individual and collective health. They were the experts. These central figures for any specialty or field of modern knowledge were present at the international event. From the use of certain cultural capital, academic career, institutional linkage, accreditation, prestige, and successful management of certain knowledge in the face of certain practical situations, the figure of the expert in the art of educating and healing bodies in movement emerged. But the experts present at the event were not a homogeneous or harmonious block. On the one hand, there were the “academic experts”. On the other, “management experts” and “training experts”.4

We conceptualize the figure of the expert as socially recognized people, highly prepared and specialized in a specific issue (pedagogy of physical education, sports methodology, exercise physiology, body measurement, evaluation during the physical-sports performance, etc.) and with important labor relations in State agencies and non-governmental organizations both national and international. In many ways, experts linked to physical education, sports and recreation became the authoritative voices when it came to operating on reality, making indispensable the knowledge produced by these figures and the exercise of their activity or profession (Scharagrodsky, 2021).

Among the Guatemalan referents or experts, Mario Coll Solares, doctors Enrique Amaya and Víctor Manuel Ordóñez, the architect Sergio de León López and eduardo Madariaga Delancey and Anahí Ibarra Pineda stood out in the organization. The first was the president of the organizing committee and the rest coordinated the different areas of the congress.

Among the foreign experts were present disciplinary referents from America such as Dr. Carlos Vera Guardia and Mr. Robert Rodríguez for Venezuela, Dr. Lupe Aguilar for Mexico, Dr. Dan Tripps for the United States, architect Aldo Barbieri and Professor Mario López for Argentina, Dr. Roberto Hernández Corvo for Cuba, Dr. Víctor Matsudo for Brazil, Dr. Janet Connor and Dr. Oded Bar-Or for Canada. Referents from Europe were also summoned, such as Dr. Conrado Durantez for Spain, the architect Frieder Roskam for Germany, the architect Petar Boskovich for Yugoslavia, Dr. Maurice Pierón for Belgium, Dr. Per Olof Astrand for Sweden, and Dr. Antonio Dal Monte for Italy.

Many of them were specially invited and gave several central lectures. The training of these experts (mostly men) was linked to three major areas of knowledge: medicine, architecture, and education. Physical education, sports, and recreation were the body proposals that allowed experts to reflect, build explanatory models, and propose intervention models on both individual bodies and populations within the framework of intense medicalization processes (Foucault, 2007).

Among the “academic experts” who stood out, among others, Dr. Per-Olof Astrand and Dr. Oded Bar-Or. Both were not only producers of discourses and inventors of new topics and problems related to the broad field of physical culture, but they behaved as transnational disseminators of them. The physical education training centers of several Latin American countries transmitted knowledge from literature produced by these experts. His productions were known and read in many Western countries.

The academic and labor tours show them as producers of knowledge, highly recognized by the university or research world and as intermediary agents between Europe or the United States and Latin America, given the penetration of their texts, articles, manuals, and books in different countries. For example, Per-Olof Astrand was a renowned professor of physiology, professor and director of the prestigious Swedish Karolinska Institutet, and an honorary member of the most recognized institutions in the field of Western sports medicine (American College of Cardiology, Swiss Society of Cardiology, International Federation of Sports Medicine, Australian Medical College of Rehabilitation, Hungarian Society of Sports Medicine, etc.). Several of his productions were already read in most Latin American countries, such as the famous Textbook of Work Physiology: Physiological Bases of Exercise, first published in 1970 which had numerous editions in the late ’80s, having been translated into about ten languages. His ergometric tests linked to physical exercise were also very famous and the most applied and taught in the ’70s and ’80s, such as the Astrand-Rhyming ergometric test.

Dr. Oded Bar-Or was also a renowned medical specialist, specially trained in topics related to exercise physiology in childhood. Its production was known worldwide in the specialized sports world and training centers for education teachers and sports coaches. His institutional insertions placed him as an authoritative voice in academia (Director of the Centre for Exercise and Nutrition for Children in the School of Health Sciences at McMaster Hamilton University, Ontario, Canada; Physician associated with the Institute of Science and Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania, the United States; Director of the Department of Research and Sports Medicine at Wingate Institute, Israel, etc.) and in major international institutions (Member of the American University of Sports Medicine, the International Committee for Physical Fitness Research, the International Pediatric/Physiological Working Group, etc.). Among the countless productions that circulated internationally, it is possible to mention the classic book Growth, Maturation, and Physical Activity and the famous cycloergometric test used to evaluate anaerobic efforts in adults and children, commonly known as the Wingate test or Bar-Or test.

Several of the interviewees remember the emotion of listening to those with whom they were trained: “in the congress of Guatemala I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Oded Bar-Or (...) It was a huge emotion to be able to meet people with whom I had trained and read” (María Eugenia Jenkins, personal communication, August 13, 2021). As in previous congresses, “the exhibition and sale of books” (Memories of the XII Pan American Congress of Physical Education. Preliminary Information, 1989b, p. 32) was a space that made visibly and put into circulation the texts of these and other experts5 in a publishing market in frank growth in terms of consumption, circulation, and sale.

There were also, as in the previous Pan American Games, “management experts” and “training experts”. The “management experts” were characterized by holding senior positions in institutions related to physical culture, physical education, recreation, or sports, both nationally and internationally. Among the most outstanding it is possible to mention Dr. Conrado Durántez who dedicated himself to national and international institutions linked to sports to disseminate the Olympic values. This lawyer who came to integrate the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid, Spain, since the ’60s integrated management and planning positions related to the Olympic world. He was President and founder of the Spanish Olympic Academy, founding President of the Spanish Committee Pierre de Coubertin and in 1989 he received the Olympic Order from the International Olympic Committee. His lecture was one of the most outstanding.

Other management experts present at the Pan American event were dedicated to “distributing information and affiliation forms of international organizations” such as “the ICHPER with Dr. John Kane, the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education with the architect Frieder Roskam, the Federation International d’Education Physique (FIEP) with John Andrews, the International Association for Sports and Leisure Facilities (IAKS) with the architect Petar Boskovic, the International Association of Higher Schools of Physical Education (AIESEP) with Dr. Maurice Pieron, the Brazilian Institute of Sports Sciences with Dr. Víctor Matsudo” (Memories of the XII Pan American Congress of Physical Education. Preliminary information, 1989b, p. 32) and to disseminate -and promote- the sports and recreational policies implemented internationally by these institutions. With less political weight, Dr. Jannet Connor was a regular lecturer at the Pan American Games and became a “management expert” by spreading her work as a

Head of the Planning and Special Projects Division of the Department of Physical Fitness and Amateur Sport of the Government of Canada, and responsible for the implementation of special programs focused on the Canadian population to improve physical fitness through the detection of solutions to national and international problems. (Memories of the XII Pan American Congress of Physical Education. Works, 1989a, p. 179)

In many cases, such as that of JannetConnor, among their competencies in addition to the development, planning, and implementation of sports programs, they focused their task on the search and obtaining of economic resources by state agencies, international organizations, and private companies. In general, due to the growing processes of deportivization of the social world in much of the West -amplified and enhanced in the second half of the twentieth century they did so with great success materializing massive sports policies with great media impact.

Finally, the “training experts” were mainly dedicated to teaching, preparing, and training future physical education teachers, coaches, leaders, and specialists in sports work. Although the list of experts oriented to teaching in tertiary and university institutions was numerous in the Pan American, one of those who stood out in this area was Dr. Maurice Pieron who taught not only at the University of Liège, Belgium but was secretary-general of the International Association of Higher Schools of Physical Education (AIESEP). In addition, Pieron published numerous books with some international diffusion such as Pédagogie des activités physiques et sportives, published in the ’80s and translated into Spanish. His role in teacher training was very important for the specialty. This and other “training experts” acquired great visibility as a result of the quantitative growth in enrollment that occurred in several of the training centers for sports teachers and coaches in Europe and America, many of them at the university level. However, the productions of these experts were not received linearly by the interested parties present at the Pan American congresses: teachers, coaches, doctors, sports leaders, kinesiologists, nutritionists, masseurs, etc. Rather, local resignifications and translations occurred in each country, region, and educational system that in many cases enriched or modified the senses produced by the experts.

In addition to the international institutions and organizations mentioned, there was the presence of several professors and researchers from university spaces such as those of Venezuela, Costa Rica, Mexico, Brazil, and the United States, among many others. This type of presence was consolidated in the Pan American games organized in the decade of the ’90s of the twentieth century, showing the importance of these institutions (Universities, NGOs, etc.) when it came to problematizing the wide universe of physical culture and reflecting on its educational and health effects. Somehow, the congresses became multiplier spaces that consolidated the exchange between experts and institutions. As referents and organizers have pointed out, the Pan American congresses generated not only “Openness to the exchange of Physical Education and Sport especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, but in the national case (Guatemala) international training in the area of physical education and health was promoted” (Jorge Zamora Prado, personal communication, August 20, 2021). They also allowed “to carry out support projects to several countries, such as training, research, and advice by specialists in each area of interest” (Lupe Aguilar, personal communication, May 13, 2021).

4. Conclusions

The XII Congress of Physical Education was the most important Pan American event held on this subject in the history of Guatemala. Although the context was not favorable due to the teachers’ strike and the social and political difficulties that the country was going through, the international event materialized, consolidating a field linked to the education of bodies in movement with actors from various countries in America and Europe.

The different areas of work (Sports Medicine, Promotion and Communication of Sports Activities, Sports Architecture, Science Applied to Sport, and Sports Legislation) were crossed by concerns linked to the medicalization processes typical of modern societies. Health was the great metaphor problematized and - at the same time celebrated - during an international event. However, it condensed varied and heterogeneous senses. For some, health represented an objective, technical, universal, and decontextualized fact. For others, health, although it remained the great purpose of physical culture, went beyond physical-sports performance, problematizing certain effects generated at the social, cultural, political, and economic levels. Finally, a few positions tried to conceptualize health less as a fact and more as a relationship subject to classification processes that responded to ethical and political criteria that far exceeded the organic universe.

These various positions were elaborated by experts and accompanied by national and international institutions. The experts at these congresses gave prestige to the event and, at the same time, consolidated certain positions of power and authority in the field, fabricating and naturalizing a certain right to regulate and monopolize the ‘true’ senses over the modern sporting, gypsy, and recreational universe. This process was endorsed by university institutions and international organizations linked to the sports world. The international congress held in Guatemala showed the ‘health’ and ‘strength’ of these occupation groups (physical education teachers, sports doctors, coaches, etc.) and their importance and power in modern societies.

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