‘Does he look like a Paki?’ an exploration of ‘whiteness’, positionality and reflexivity in inter-racial sports research

† The term ‘Paki’ is a racist and derogatory term used to describe members of the Pakistani diaspora.

Abstract

This article reflects on fieldwork with white and British Asian cricketers which explored the construction, maintenance and contestation of racialised identities in the sport of cricket. It addresses my experiences of gaining access to and working alongside both communities, particularly as I negotiated insecurities over the suitability of my own identity(ies), the normalisation of ‘whiteness’ and the constant awareness of my insider and outsiderness within different contexts. I draw on personal experiences and fieldnotes to argue that one’s insider or outsider status is never certain; rather it is filled with dissonance and ambiguity, is an ongoing performance and is always in a state of flux. I provide evidence to show how white researchers (of sport) are, at times, culpable of reinforcing dominant racial discourses rather than challenging them. I conclude by arguing that if sociologists of sport are to establish a methodological framework for researching ‘race’ and its intersections, more scholars need to engage with the relationships between self and other and the self-as-other; more freely exploring the nature of reflexivity, and how doing reflexivity presents opportunities to connect with people across (and in spite of) cultural divides.

Keywords:

• British Asians
• ethnography
• identity
• insider/outsider
• inter-racial research
• methodology
• reflexivity
• whiteness

Notes

† The term ‘Paki’ is a racist and derogatory term used to describe members of the Pakistani diaspora.