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Abstract
In 2010, Tim Albone, Leslie Knott and Lucy Martens directed the excellent Out of the Ashes, a documentary tracing the journey of an inexperienced group of Afghani cricketers from the obscurity of rubble pitches to the green grass of international cricketdom and sporting success. A year later, Albone wrote a book with the same title, adding significant details to this ‘compelling story of triumph over adversity’.1 Following introductory remarks about cricket in Afghanistan, the main focus of this article will be on analysing the documentary since it preceded the book and enjoyed a wider circulation. The study employs both thematic and discursive forms of analysis.2 I discuss the emergent overarching themes of ‘culture clash’ and ‘socio-economic imperatives’ as well as interpretive repertoires revolving around ‘cricket as civilizing mission’ and ‘triumph of plucky underdogs’. The analysis of the book brings forth themes missing from the film such as class antagonism and also a number of ‘ideological dilemmas’.3 I conclude by suggesting that a critical analysis reveals far more about the complicated intersections of class, ethnicity, nationality and gender than intended by the film-makers.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Prof. Houchang E. Chehabi (Boston University, USA) whose comments greatly improved an earlier version of this article. The suggestions of the anonymous referees for South Asian History and Culture have also been very helpful. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the editors of SAH&C for a rapid turnaround. In an age when most academic journals confuse procrastination with prestige, an efficient review policy represents a great boon for authors.
Notes
1. Albone, Out of the Ashes, Backcover.
2. For thematic analysis templates, see Manen, Researching Lived Experience; Smith and Osborn, “Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis”; Cromby and Martin, “England’s Dreaming?” For discourse analysis, see Edley and Wetherell, “Jekyll and Hyde”.
3. See Potter and Wetherell, Discourse and Social Psychology and Billig et al., Ideological Dilemmas.
4. Birley, A Social History of English Cricket, 57.
5. Ibid., 59.
6. Ibid., 72.
7. The First Anglo-Afghan War is also known as Auckland’s Folly. It resulted in death of 4500 British and Indian soldiers, plus 12,000 of their camp followers. See Wikipedia, ‘First Anglo-Afghan War’ and ‘Second Anglo-Afghan War’, as well as Encyclopaedia Iranica, ‘Anglo-Afghan Wars’.
8. See Afghanistan Online, “Afghan Sport History”.
9. Yaqub, “Bowling Over the Taliban”.
10. Smucker, “For Afghans, Cricket is a Link to the World”.
11. Asian Cricket Council, “Afghanistan Profile”.
12. BBC News Asia, “Afghan Women Take to the Cricket Pitch in Kabul”.
13. Michaelis, “Afghanistan’s Rapid Rise in Cricket”.
14. Cavendish, “In a Rare Victory for Afghanistan”.
15. The two fragments are, respectively, from Michaelis, “Afghanistan’s Rapid Rise in Cricket” and Cavendish, “In a Rare Victory for Afghanistan”.
16. Beckman, “A Dusty Wicket”.
17. Walshe, “In Praise of the Civilising Obsession of Cricket,” 14.
18. Merrill, “Afghanistan Cricket Team Beat Kenya to Reach Country’s first World Cup”.
19. I have consulted the official website for the film and book at http://www.outoftheashes.tv/
20. Comments about Out of the Ashes are usually related to the film unless otherwise stated.
21. Corner, “Performing the Real”.
22. Ibid., 259.
23. Ibid.
24. See Rose, Visual Methodologies and Blackman and Walkerdine, Mass Hysteria.
25. See Sacks, “Sociological Description” and Sacks, “Notes on Methodology”.
26. Mondada, “Using Video for a Sequential and Multimodal Analysis of Social Interaction”.
27. Pink, “Mobilising Visual Ethnography”.
28. Howes, “Introduction,” 7.
29. See Carrington, “Sport, Masculinity, and Black Cultural Resistance” for a similar treatment of the subject.
30. Bohnsack, “The Interpretation of Pictures and the Documentary Method”.
31. Ibid.
32. Ferrándiz and Baer, “Digital Memory”.
33. Vivanco, “The Work of Environmentalism in an Age of Televisual Adventures,” 13.
34. Aslama and Pantti, “Talking Alone,” 170.
35. On interpretative phenomenological analysis, see Manen, Researching Lived Experience and Smith and Osborn, “Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis”. On critical discourse analysis, I have relied chiefly on Potter and Wetherell, Discourse and Social Psychology.
36. Gilbert and Mulkay, Opening Pandora’s Box.
37. Hepburn, An Introduction to Critical Social Psychology, 103.
38. Edley and Wetherell, “Jekyll and Hyde”.
39. ‘Homosocial’ space is Gayle Rubin’s term for a space exclusively devoted to same-sex relationships that may be charged with eroticism but not necessarily sexual. I have dealt with the nuances of homosocial space in Fozooni, “Iranian Women and Football” and the upcoming Fozooni, “A Rhetorical Analysis of Nationalism in Shakespeare’s Henry V”.
40. ‘Westoxification’ (original Farsi, Gharbzadegi) refers to the uncritical adoption of ‘Western’ culture and the loss of one’s ‘native’ culture. See Wikipedia, ‘Gharbzadegi’. The term’s counterpoint, ‘Eastoxification’ (Sharghzadegi), is gaining popular currency as a charge against the emotional rejection of all that is deemed ‘Western’ and the uncritical approval of ‘Eastern traditions’.
41. I have touched upon the antagonistic relationship between ‘carnival’ and ‘spectacle’ in Fozooni, “Religion, Politics and Class”.
42. Billig et al., Ideological Dilemmas.
43. Anderson, Imagined Communities.
44. Albone, Out of the Ashes, 30.
45. Ibid., 32.
46. Ibid., 67.
47. Ibid., 9.
48. Ibid., 67.
49. Ibid., 2.
50. Ibid., 121–3.
51. Ibid., 20–1.
52. Ibid., 82.
53. The quote is from 1942. See Birley, A Social History of English Cricket, 47.
54. Albone, Out of the Ashes, 42.
55. Ibid., 59.
56. Ibid., 142–3.
57. Ibid., 118.
58. Ibid., 13 and 175, respectively.
59. Ibid., 151.
60. Perks, “The Nouveau Reach,” 105.
61. Ibid., 186.
62. Albone, Out of the Ashes, 43.
63. Ibid., 67.
64. Ibid., 152.
65. Ibid., 183.
66. Ibid., 186–7.
67. Ibid., 145.
68. Smith, “‘Beyond a Boundary’ (of a ‘Field of Cultural Production’),” 103.
69. Roberts, “‘It’s Just Not Cricket!’ Rorty and Unfamiliar Movements,” 75.
70. See Burdsey, “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore”.
71. Buckley, “Aristotle and Cricket,” 21.
72. For useful critiques, see Dimeo and Kay, “Major Sports Events” and Malcolm, Bairner, and Curry, “‘Woolmergate’ ”.
73. Cole, ‘Foreword’, xv.
74. Burman, Deconstructing Developmental Psychology, 4.
75. Rose, Kamin, and Lewontin, Not in Our Genes.
76. Kay, The Economic Theory of the Working Class.
77. Beckles, “The Caribbean, Cricket and C. L. R. James,” 20.
78. Jiwani, “Sports as a Civilising Mission,” 29.
79. Fleming quoted in Beckman, “A Dusty Wicket,” 22.
80. Bateman, “Development through Sport”.
81. See interview of Ashis Nandy, “It Has Become a Real Business,” in Frontline, June 28, 2013.