Decolonial strategies in world politics: C.L.R. James and the writing and playing of cricket

ABSTRACT

Discussions of decolonizing world politics have flourished in international studies recently but few of these engage with popular culture, especially sports. In this paper, I address this gap and consider sports – specifically the sport of cricket – as a global phenomenon, useful for discussing key decolonizing strategies. This paper argues that cricket, as a form of popular culture, offers language and practices to critique oppressive sociopolitical norms and global hierarchies. It draws upon the cricket-writing of C.L.R. James, specifically his book Beyond a Boundary, as well as on the experiences of playing cricket to outline some decolonial strategies. These strategies include shifting perspectives on world politics, the role of biography and autobiography as critique, and the relevance of positionality in describing global processes and in the construction of knowledge. Overall, this paper claims that popular culture, especially those which are popular in the Global South, offers ways to rethink and rework relations between the powerful and less powerful. Cricket provides examples of ways in which these various decolonial strategies can be enacted in practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Cricket
• decolonial strategies
• C.L.R. James
• autobiography
• international studies

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the reviewers and editor of Globalizations for their extremely helpful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The exact ranking of cricket in terms of popularity is difficult to calculate. Popularity itself is difficult to define (and measure) as B.R. (2011) indicates.

2. For more information on how cricket is played, the Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket is a good start. The connections between local cultures and ways of playing are evident once we start watching cricket regularly – this is something that James makes clear in his writings.

3. I am grateful to a reviewer for pointing out this example.

4. I am grateful to the reviewers for this point.

5. A reviewer’s comment regarding this point is greatly appreciated.

6. This, too, is a point made by an anonymous reviewer and one for which I’m grateful.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Priya Dixit

Priya Dixit is Associate Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech, United States. Her research is about qualitative research methods, global security, and identity-formation. She is also studies interconnections between popular culture and world politics. She has written books and articles on critical research methods, popular culture, and terrorism. She is currently researching ideologies of the ‘alt-right’ in the United States and spending too much time watching ‘alt-right’ videos on the Internet. Priya is a long-term cricket fan and credits cricket commentary for being a great source for learning English! She is very thankful for Internet radio where she can listen to cricket commentary from the United States and is hoping for good things for Nepal’s cricket teams in the years ahead.