Negotiating their right to play: Asian-specific cricket teams and leagues in the UK and Norway

Abstract

The cultural significance of ‘ethnic-specific’ cricket teams and leagues has received limited scholarly attention, despite increasing evidence of their various social functions. This article aims to contribute to this under-researched area by drawing upon two individual case studies of Pakistani Muslim cricket teams; the first is based in the UK and the second in Norway. In this article we argue that leisure and sport are key spaces for the delineation of social identities and hierarchies. We identify how cricket represents a significant social network within both the British and Norwegian Pakistani communities. In particular, we articulate the role of cricket in establishing and maintaining friendships and relationships, bolstering a sense of belonging, initiating diasporic sentiments, as well as being significant in the development of social capital, and resisting institutionalised white privilege.

Keywords:

• cricket
• diaspora space
• Muslims
• Pakistanis
• racism

Notes

1. We prefer to use the term ‘Asian-specific’ rather than ‘Asian-identified’ because respondents in both case studies challenged the accuracy of the ‘Asian’ team label and subsequently, did not necessarily ‘identify’ themselves as belonging to an Asian team. We also avoided the term ‘all Asian’ team on the basis that both clubs welcomed (and in the case of Aylesworth, already had) members from different ethnic groups.

2. For further discussion see the special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies on ‘New racisms, new racial subjects?: The neoliberal moment and the racial landscape of contemporary Britain’, edited by Victoria Redclift (2014).

3. In the Norwegian language, the term ‘gjeng’ (gang) has a dual and contradictory meaning. It can refer both positively to a group of friends and acquaintances that meet regularly, and more negatively to a group of trouble-makers or criminals.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas Fletcher

THOMAS FLETCHER is a Senior Lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University.

Thomas Walle

THOMAS WALLE is a Senior Curator at the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History.