TRADITIONAL WRESTLING, OUR CULTURE: ESTABLISHING TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS IN SOUTH EAST EUROPE

The project team of TRADWOC wanted to meet target groups of people involved in traditional styles of wrestling in the South East Europe, styles which are in danger of disappearance if nothing will be done to organise the practice in a new way. The objectives were to motivate them to establish regional federations (or other kinds of formal institutions) with transregional networks and to become part of transnational networks promoting and safeguarding traditional wrestling. This network wasn’t a directive one: it didn’t try to control or standardise the styles. The experience of the partners showed that in modern societies (marked by migration, liberal governance, globalisation etc.), traditional sports and games cannot be maintained through organisation and transmission based only on local social structures as it was centuries-long the case in pre-modern (traditional) societies. Successful safeguarding and transmission of TSG is possible today, only when local actors are interconnected in translocal and comprehensive networks and formal institutions. More specific, tasks were: To identify South-East European traditional wrestling styles which are not organised yet in regional or national federation; To identify target groups of people who are open to new ideas and would like to cooperate with partners and to get in touch with them; To meet these target groups and share ideas and experience with them in order to convince them (action of talking) of the advantages of being organised in regional federations and in an existing TSG transnational network or in a wrestling transnational network which is still to be established in this area of Europe; To invite these target groups to a seminar and exhibitions organised during the Tocatì festival of traditional sports and games in Verona in order: - to show them which are the new opportunities and added values when promoters and players are organised in a transnational network (exchanges between federations, cooperation with schools and universities, publishing books, videos, educational material, etc.);to help them to identify the actions they could do to emphasise the situation of their style of wrestling (share ideas, experimentations, etc.), - to assure them that the contacts and collaboration started during the project will continue after the project, through the existing networks (AEJeST, FILC) and the one(s) they will create; To motivate them to think of their wrestling styles as cultural heritage rather than merely sportive activity. In other words to promote their intangible culture heritage, with wrestling as part of this culture; To lay the foundations for a new situation and new developments in the field of traditional wrestling through the planned project actions, especially through the workshops/seminars, the conference and the edited volume; To create a model for action that could be used also for other traditional sports and games in Europe;To sensitise political decisions makers and planners on the social importance of the matters mentioned above.The project began with a two-day kickoff meeting of the team manager (TM), the administrative manager (AM), the project coordinator (PC) and all members from AGA in Verona. It was held in Verona, where AGA is based and the main goal was to establish a detailed plan of the activities for the first six months of the projects. The activities decided were : edit and following a communication plan, preparation of a database and contact lists, creation of tools for communication, writing and translating representative documents, communication with local organisations in South-East Europe following a series of planned activities, a work meeting in September with the preparation conceptual and technical of the seminar in Verona, doing an International conference in Verona and after this writing editing and publishing the book regarding the project.