![Sample our Sports and Leisure journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5949/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Sports-Leisure.jpg"})
Abstract
Most critical analyses of racism in sport have taken place under conditions of white institutional domination, deploying a white/non-white binary model. But what of cases in which the issue of racism may not be confined to the usual antagonists? In recent years, international cricket, once clearly bearing the stamp of British imperialism, has been increasingly controlled by a coalition of cricket authorities, media corporations and entrepreneurs from the Indian subcontinent. This new order was strikingly revealed in early 2008 when Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh allegedly called Andrew Symonds, one of whose biological parents is Afro-Caribbean, a ‘monkey’ during a Test match in Australia. This article examines the ensuing furore in the international media and the organizational manoeuvring and resolution among the cricket authorities. It argues that the changing international political economy of sport is having a significant impact on its post-colonial cultural politics, including patterns of conduct and contested readings of mediated sport events.
Acknowledgements
This article was originally presented at the Sport, Race and Ethnicity: Building a Global Understanding Conference, University of Technology Sydney, Haymarket, 1 December 2008. I would like to thank Daryl Adair for his highly effective and good humoured contribution as convenor of the conference, and Callum Gilmour for research assistance on follow-up media data for this article.
Notes
1 Citation New Formations, ‘Zidane's Melancholy’; CitationDenham and Desormeaux, ‘Headlining the Head-Butt’; CitationJiwani, ‘Sports as Civilizing Mission’.
2 CitationRowe, ‘Stages of the Global’.
3 CitationRowe and Gilmour, ‘Global Sport’.
4 CitationLong and McNamee, ‘On the Moral Economy of Racism and Racist Rationalizations in Sport’; CitationHylton, ‘Race’ and Sport.
5 CitationJarvie, Sport, Racism, and Ethnicity; CitationCarrington and McDonald, ‘Race’.
6 Rowe, ‘Stages of the Global’.
7 CitationRowe, Sport, Culture and the Media.
8 CitationEdwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete; CitationBaker and Boyd, Out of Bounds; CitationHoberman, Darwin's Athletes; CitationRigney, ‘Sport, Indigenous Australians and Invader Dreaming’.
9 Rowe, ‘Stages of the Global’.
10 Jiwani, ‘Sports as Civilizing Mission’, 21.
11 CitationBBC, ‘Materazzi Wins Daily Mail Damages’.
12 Citation Guardian , ‘Materazzi Wins British Libel Damages Over Sun's Claims about Zidane Head-Butt’.
13 Rowe ‘Stages of the Global’.
14 Jiwani, ‘Sports as Civilizing Mission’.
15 CitationHussey, ‘ZZ Top’.
16 CitationHale and Allen, ‘Revealed’.
17 CitationPremachandran, ‘Thuggery is No Way to Cricket Paradise’.
18 See various contributions to Sport in Society, Citation2009.
19 CitationBhogle, ‘Why India Tired of Being Little Brother’; CitationRoebuck, ‘Arrogant Ponting Must be Fired’.
20 For example, CitationKumar, ‘Mental Disintegration or Mindless Games?’; CitationIndian Express, ‘Waugh Bats for Umpiring Referrals’.
21 Citation The Australian , ‘Transcript: What Was Said’.
22 CitationMehta, Gemmell, and Malcolm, ‘Bombay Sport Exchange’.
23 Hansen quoted in CitationSaltau, ‘Judgement Slings Mud at All Sides’.
24 Symonds quoted in Saltau, ‘Judgement Slings Mud at All Sides’. See also Vivek, ‘Harbhajan in Trouble’.
25 Quoted in CitationBrown, ‘Sunny Slams Ref, Aussie Motives’.
26 Gavaskar, quoted in CitationCricinfo Staff, ‘Gavaskar Slams Anglo-Australian “Dinosaurs”’.
27 CitationPierik, ‘Judge Says Andrew Symonds to Blame in Cricket Race Row’.
28 CitationBBC, ‘Lehmann Banned for Five Games’
29 CitationCoomber, ‘Cultural Differences at Heart’.
30 CitationBooth, ‘India Choose the Wrong Time to Flex their Muscles’.
31 CitationHopps, ‘Bowler Found Guilty but Australia Stand Condemned’.
32 CitationBrown, ‘Spirit Issue Haunts Ponting as Punters Desert Boorish Baggy Green’.
33 Roebuck, ‘Arrogant Ponting Must be Fired’.
34 CitationAly, ‘Cricket's Racism Bogy’.
35 CitationSpiro and Agencies, ‘Mark Ramprakash Reveals Aussie Abuse’.
36 CitationStoddart, Saturday Afternoon Fever.
37 Adair and Vamplew, Sport in Australian History, 12.
38 CitationCoakley et al., Sports in Society.
39 CitationMajumdar, Twenty-Two Yards to Freedom.
40 Premachandran, ‘Thuggery is No Way to Cricket Paradise’.
41 Mehta, Gemmell, and Malcolm, ‘Bombay Sport Exchange’.
42 CitationMehta, ‘Batting for the Flag’.
43 CitationWilliams, Cricket and Race, 1.
44 CitationWilliams, ‘Paki Cheats!’.
45 CitationMemon, ‘Cricket in the New India’.
46 Rowe and Gilmour, ‘Global Sport’.
47 CitationRoebuck, ‘Time to Draw Line on All this Argy-Bhaji’.
48 Bhogle, ‘Why India Tired of Being Little Brother’.
49 CitationMajumdar, ‘Nationalist Romance to Postcolonial Sport’, 91.
50 CitationSymonds, ‘A Painful Fight to Get Monkey Off My Back’, 65.
51 Williams, Cricket and Race, 1.
