A Nation of Family and Friends?

Sport and the Leisure Cultures of British Asian Girls and Women

Aarti Ratna author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Rutgers University Press

Published:12th Apr '24

Should be back in stock very soon

A Nation of Family and Friends? cover

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.
 

“Philosophically expansive, theoretically sophisticated, and methodologically complex, A Nation of Family and Friends? charts new intertextual terrains that elevate our understandings of South Asian diasporas, race, gender, ethnicity, class, and leisure. With incredible analytic precision, Aarti Ratna provides a must read for those interested in the politics of belonging, nationalism, and ethno-nationalism.  A brilliant book in the service of social justice!”
 — Stanley I. Thangaraj, author of Desi Hoop Dreams: Pickup Basketball and the Making of Asian American Masculinity
A Nation of Family and Friends? offers a much-needed exploration into the sporting and leisure experiences of South Asian women, which has thus far lacked visibility and depth of analysis. I commend Aarti Ratna on the work put into this project and her determination to create something unique and against the grain.”— Courtney Szto, author of Changing on the Fly: Hockey through the Voices of South Asian Canadians

ISBN: 9781978834118

Dimensions: 216mm x 140mm x 13mm

Weight: 32g

164 pages