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.

Exploring the minority–majority gap in sport participation: different patterns for boys and girls?

“…The integration potential of organized sport has been highlighted by sport associations and in governmental papers (Elling, De Knop, and Knoppers 2001;European Commision 2007;Krouwel et al 2006;Meld St 2011Spaaij 2015). The refrain is that sport is international, does not require strong language abilities and follows rules that are not difficult to manage.…”

Diaspora as aesthetic formation: community sports events and the making of a Somali diaspora

“…The research question we seek to address is how 'articulations of diasporism' (Clifford 1994, 302), such as the vision articulated by the Global Somali Diaspora (2016), become tangible in community sports spaces like AFT and embodied in subjects who participate in these spaces. We thus interpret sport as an embodied aesthetic practice through which diasporas materialise, with important implications for diasporic identity and belonging (Werbner 1996;Burdsey 2006Burdsey , 2008Joseph 2011;Spaaij 2012Spaaij , 2015. This paper is structured as follows.…”

Mixed-sex in sport for development: a pragmatic and symbolic device. The case of touch rugby for forced migrants in Rome

“…Ironically, being offered such opportunities in the host country does not necessarily make things easier, as they 'are expected to stay at home and care for family (not just for children but often for elders and other extended family members as well) and their fear of using social resources limits their interaction with broader society' (Guruge and Collins 2008). Studying the involvement of Somali Australian youth in community football clubs, Spaaij (2015) noted 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' (Spaaij 2015).…”

“…Sport participation has been shown to bring some benefits, although these are difficult to measure (Amara et al 2005;Coalter 2010), such as facilitating the beneficiaries' interaction with the local environment and reducing anti-social behaviour. Nevertheless, gender boundaries and inequalities tend to remain unchallenged (Spaaij 2015) and refugee women are often excluded from participation in sports activities based on gender-related expectations that either prevent them from engaging in physical leisure activities (Evers 2010) or confine them to a spectator role. In the few cases where forced migrant women are actively involved in sport activities, this is mainly done in the context of 'typically female' sports or at least in women-only groups (Amara et al 2005).…”