In A Nation of Family and Friends, sociologist Aarti Ratna examines the complex and dynamic relationships between South Asian women and sporting and leisure cultures. Mining autobiographical insights (as a South Asian scholar living in the UK) she links the chapters of this innovative book using the sociological concepts of family and friends, particularly as they relate to an analysis of wider debates about the complexities of race, gender, and the nation. Ratna underscores the importance of studying informal spaces of sport and leisure as friendly, familial, sociable, and political spaces. She simultaneously highlights the role of earlier sociological research in disseminating myths about South Asian women as too physically weak to play competitive sports; culturally passive victims of South Asian cultures and religions; and as sexually exotic women requiring saving through colonial and imperial projects led by white men and women. Ratna also examines two key cultural objects - the popular films "Bend it Like Beckham" and “Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal� - to examine in detail the gendered representation of South Asian soccer players’ engagement in amateur and elite levels of the sport. She critiques studies of women’s football fandom and sport that fail to acknowledge social differences relating to race, class, age, disability, and sexuality. By linking the social forces (across time and space) that differentially affect their sporting choices and leisure lifestyles, Ratna portrays the women of the South Asian diaspora as active agents in the shaping of their life courses and as skilled navigators of the complexities affecting their own identities. Ultimately Ratna examines the intersections of class, caste, age, generation, gender, and sexuality, to provide a rich and critical exploration of British Asian women's sport and leisure choices, pleasures, and lived realities.  

In A Nation of Family and Friends, sociologist Aarti Ratna examines the complex and dynamic relationships between South Asian women and sporting and leisure cultures. Mining autobiographical insights (as a South Asian scholar living in the UK) she links the chapters of this innovative book using the sociological concepts of family and friends, particularly as they relate to an analysis of wider debates about the complexities of race, gender, and the nation. Ratna underscores the importance of studying informal spaces of sport and leisure as friendly, familial, sociable, and political spaces. She simultaneously highlights the role of earlier sociological research in disseminating myths about South Asian women as too physically weak to play competitive sports; culturally passive victims of South Asian cultures and religions; and as sexually exotic women requiring saving through colonial and imperial projects led by white men and women. Ratna also examines two key cultural objects - the popular films "Bend it Like Beckham" and “Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal� - to examine in detail the gendered representation of South Asian soccer players’ engagement in amateur and elite levels of the sport. She critiques studies of women’s football fandom and sport that fail to acknowledge social differences relating to race, class, age, disability, and sexuality. By linking the social forces (across time and space) that differentially affect their sporting choices and leisure lifestyles, Ratna portrays the women of the South Asian diaspora as active agents in the shaping of their life courses and as skilled navigators of the complexities affecting their own identities. Ultimately Ratna examines the intersections of class, caste, age, generation, gender, and sexuality, to provide a rich and critical exploration of British Asian women's sport and leisure choices, pleasures, and lived realities.  

Leisure, Racism, and National Populist Politics responds to the rise and revival of nationalistic, ethnocentric, and authoritarian forms of hegemony, power, and control. Importantly, as a collection of essays, it foregrounds and (re)politicises debates around race and racism, recognising the significance of leisure spaces to the emergence of bottom-up, polymorphous, and dynamic forms of community, resistance, and belonging. A range of authors present a critical and varied exploration of the global manifestations of state-based, increasingly mainstream, racist politics, whilst concomitantly unpicking connected assemblages of power and control. For example: how homonormativity and whiteness structure queer visibility, sexual and civic rights; how white supremacist rhetoric is transformed and differently coded through anti-Black university traditions and state pride; how Western nation-states structure Muslim identity as opposite to national identity; how leisure becomes the site of protest against larger classist and corporate ventures; and how the hegemony of neoliberal, state, and municipal planning practices, and policies about rights to spaces of the neighbourhood, city, and sport, are understood, negotiated, and challenged. The book serves to not only enhance understanding of populist politics but, also, to demand an end to ethnic and racial violence perpetuated through nationalistic and racialised discourses about belonging, citizenship, and social rights to the nation. This edited volume will be a key resource for students and scholars interested in the dynamics of race, gender, and nation, and the politics of belonging in the realm of leisure. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Leisure Studies.

The experiences of ethnic 'Other' females have - until recently - been widely overlooked in the study of sport. There continues to be a need to produce critical scholarship about ethnic 'Other' girls and women in sport and physical culture, in order to represent their complex, multifarious and dynamic lived realities. This international collection of critical essays provides compelling insight into the lived realities of ethnic 'Other' females in sport. Throughout the book, contributors either draw on the political consciousnesses of 'Other' feminisms, or privilege the voices of ethnic 'Other' girls and women so as to broaden, diversify and advance critical thinking pertaining to ethnic 'Other' females in sport and physical culture. The purpose of the collection is both to produce knowledge and privilege otherwise subjugated knowledges, which individually and collectively present counter-narratives that better speak to the lived realities of racially oppressed groups of women and girls. Race, Gender and Sport: The Politics of Ethnic 'Other' Girls and Women is important reading for all students and scholars with an interest in the sociology of sport, gender studies, or race and ethnicity studies.

The experiences of ethnic 'Other' females have - until recently - been widely overlooked in the study of sport. There continues to be a need to produce critical scholarship about ethnic 'Other' girls and women in sport and physical culture, in order to represent their complex, multifarious and dynamic lived realities. This international collection of critical essays provides compelling insight into the lived realities of ethnic 'Other' females in sport. Throughout the book, contributors either draw on the political consciousnesses of 'Other' feminisms, or privilege the voices of ethnic 'Other' girls and women so as to broaden, diversify and advance critical thinking pertaining to ethnic 'Other' females in sport and physical culture. The purpose of the collection is both to produce knowledge and privilege otherwise subjugated knowledges, which individually and collectively present counter-narratives that better speak to the lived realities of racially oppressed groups of women and girls. Race, Gender and Sport: The Politics of Ethnic 'Other' Girls and Women is important reading for all students and scholars with an interest in the sociology of sport, gender studies, or race and ethnicity studies.

Leisure, Racism, and National Populist Politics responds to the rise and revival of nationalistic, ethnocentric, and authoritarian forms of hegemony, power, and control. Importantly, as a collection of essays, it foregrounds and (re)politicises debates around race and racism, recognising the significance of leisure spaces to the emergence of bottom-up, polymorphous, and dynamic forms of community, resistance, and belonging. A range of authors present a critical and varied exploration of the global manifestations of state-based, increasingly mainstream, racist politics, whilst concomitantly unpicking connected assemblages of power and control. For example: how homonormativity and whiteness structure queer visibility, sexual and civic rights; how white supremacist rhetoric is transformed and differently coded through anti-Black university traditions and state pride; how Western nation-states structure Muslim identity as opposite to national identity; how leisure becomes the site of protest against larger classist and corporate ventures; and how the hegemony of neoliberal, state, and municipal planning practices, and policies about rights to spaces of the neighbourhood, city, and sport, are understood, negotiated, and challenged. The book serves to not only enhance understanding of populist politics but, also, to demand an end to ethnic and racial violence perpetuated through nationalistic and racialised discourses about belonging, citizenship, and social rights to the nation. This edited volume will be a key resource for students and scholars interested in the dynamics of race, gender, and nation, and the politics of belonging in the realm of leisure. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Leisure Studies.