Speaker
Description
In postcolonial states, the history and development of contemporary sports are intertwined with colonialism, imperialism, and, more recently, globalization. During the colonial period, colonizers used colonial sports in their ‘civilizing mission,’ which is now relevant to the current context of increased migration from the global south to the north, where the global north is using sport to facilitate/justify ‘integration,’ and the approach can be extended to the concepts of ‘assimilation' and ‘multiculturalism.’ Thus, for immigrants, sport appears as a contested site for negotiating their nationalism and the anti-colonial struggle. In the Canadian sporting context, immigrants also encounter complex interactions with hockey, Canada’s winter national sport, a colonial game, and lacrosse, Canada’s summer national sport, an indigenous sport. While hockey is promoted enthusiastically by the government, often equating with Canadianness, the spread of lacrosse is rather limited. To muddle the situation further, many immigrant communities bring with them their own sporting preferences and identity. Bangladeshi immigrants’ contemporary sporting identity is inextricably linked to the colonial sport of cricket. In this context, Bangladeshi immigrants in Canada navigate their sporting practices and identities in two directions: decolonizing colonial sports and preserving their own national identity. This paper aims to develop an analytical framework to assess how immigrants produce and reproduce their sporting nationalism through their interactions with colonial and indigenous sports. Using a decolonial lens, the study will also examine how immigrants might engage in decoloniality through colonial sports in postcolonial societies through their everyday lived experiences.
