Forced migration, resettlement, and sport: Lessons from the Kabul-Edmonton soccer team
Abstract
Forced migration is one of the most pressing crises of our lifetime. Of the millions forced to migrate, many come to know the brutality of state-managed migration that habitually denies asylum seekers and places substantive restrictions on refugees who have been resettled. Sociologists of sport and leisure have examined the sporting experiences of refugees through an intersectional lens, foregrounding how displacement and resettlement are differently lived and negotiated across overlapping power structures and markers of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, and legal status.
Through a participatory and collective photovoice project, this article explores the experiences of an all-Afghan soccer team that played in a social, co-ed soccer league in the spring of 2022, just after they arrived in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. In photovoice narratives and subsequent interviews, team members underlined many of the barriers they faced as they navigated the formal and informal rules and dominant norms of this seemingly inclusive sports landscape. In doing so, they revealed some of the limits of official discourses of Canadian multiculturism, which rarely accommodate more significant forms of difference, and which reproduce racial and ethnic hierarchies that powerfully discipline newcomers who are encouraged to embrace their precarious status as model minorities.
Notes
Future research / gaps identified: not stated
Key findings:
1) Football (soccer) as a common habitus between home and Canada.
2) Gender norms, roles and gendered football experiences while playing on a co-ed team in Edmonton.
3) Football league’s intentions of having a minimum amount of female players on the field at all times created barriers for the Kabul-Edmonton team, who couldn’t always get this number due to gender norms.
4) Racism and Othering experienced as the only all-refugee team in the league.
Community organizations: Free Play (FP)
Integration timeline: “just after their arrival to Edmonton”
Key populations: Afghan refugees who now live in Edmonton
Key recommendations:
1) Increase government funding for sports in such a way that sports create inclusion and not assimilation
2) Create culturally-sensitive sport programs for newcomers through existing newcomer-serving non-profits
3) Increase trauma-informed services across all sectors for forced migrants and asylum seekers
Location: Edmonton, AB
Open access: Yes