Refugee youth, belonging and community sport

Abstract

This article examines community sport as a site where refugee youth negotiate belonging, which is conceptualised as a dynamic dialectic of ‘seeking’ and ‘granting’. Drawing on three years of ethnographic fieldwork among Somali Australian youth at community football (soccer) clubs in Melbourne, the article identifies the kinds of belonging that are constructed by refugee youth in community sport, the social processes that facilitate or impede these belongings, and the forms of boundary work involved. The belonging negotiated by Somali Australian youth in community sports clubs is multi-layered, dynamic and situational, and involves multiple boundary shifts. It operates at varying scales of experience from the sports team and local community to the transnational. The article shows that while social boundaries such as clan, team and locality are porous, other boundaries of inclusion/exclusion, notably gender, ethnicity and religion, tend to be more stable and more difficult to cross for Somali Australian youth in community football clubs.

本文探讨体育社区作为一个网站，给难民青年带来的归属感，并且动态化成为“求”和“给予”的一个动态的辩证过程。根据三年来对澳大利亚索马里的青年在墨尔本社区足球俱乐部的野外调查，本文揭示了社区体育给难民青年带来的不同归属感和影响这种归属感的社会或设备阻碍或投资障碍。澳大利亚索马里年轻人和俱乐部之间的协商是多层次和动态的，并且涉及多个边界的变化。有多种体验，从运动队到社区的国际化。本文揭示了在氏族、团队和地区限制比较严重，而纳入/排除、性别、种族和宗教限制更加稳定，澳大利亚索马里的社区青年足球俱乐部很难跨越这些障碍。

Keywords:

• belonging
• boundary work
• refugees
• settlement
• sport

关键词:

• 归属感
• 限制
• 难民
• 解决
• 运动