Leisure and Forced Migration: Lives Lived in Asylum Systems 2021002913, 9780367356712, 9780429341045, 9781032039831

Citation preview

Leisure and Forced Migration

This book offers a timely and critical exploration of leisure and forced migration from multiple disciplinary perspectives, spanning sociology, gender studies, migration studies and anthropology. It engages with perspectives and experiences that unsettle and oppose dehumanising and infantilising binaries surrounding forced migrants in contemporary society. The book presents cutting edge research addressing three inter-related themes: spaces and temporalities; displaced bodies and intersecting inequalities; voices, praxis and (self)representation. Drawing on and expanding critical leisure studies perspectives on class, gender, sexuality and race/ethnicity, the book spotlights leisure and how it can interrogate and challenge dominant narratives, practices and assumptions on forced migration and lives lived in asylum systems. Furthermore, it contributes to current debates on the scope, relevance and aims of leisure studies within the present, unfolding global scenario. This is an important resource for students and scholars across leisure, sport, gender, sociology, anthropology and migration studies. It is also a valuable read for practitioners, advocates and community organisers addressing issues of forced migration and sanctuary. Nicola De Martini Ugolotti is Senior Lecturer in Sport and Physical Cultures at Bournemouth University, UK, and a member of Associazione Frantz Fanon in Turin, Italy. Jayne Caudwell is Associate Professor in Social Sciences, Gender and Sexualities in the Department of Social Sciences and Social Work at Bournemouth University, UK.

Advances in Leisure Studies Series Editors: Jayne Caudwell Bournemouth University, UK Paul Gilchrist University of Brighton, UK

Advances in Leisure Studies features original interdisciplinary and international scholarship from leisure studies and related academic fields and disciplines. The series brings together cutting-edge research by those working in leisure studies with a focus on emerging lines of enquiry inspired by new debates, controversies and perspectives. The series explores a wide range of topics informed by new theoretical interventions and empirical research and encompasses a variety of methodological approaches. Advances in Leisure Studies is a series that speaks to the complexities and intricacies of leisure in the twenty-first century. Available in this series: Digital Football Cultures Fandom, Identities and Resistance Stefan Lawrence and Garry Crawford Leisure and Forced Migration Lives Lived in Asylum Systems Edited by Nicola De Martini Ugolotti and Jayne Caudwell

Leisure and Forced Migration

Lives Lived in Asylum Systems

Edited by Nicola De Martini Ugolotti and Jayne Caudwell

First published 2022 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Nicola De Martini Ugolotti and Jayne Caudwell; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Nicola De Martini Ugolotti and Jayne Caudwell to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: De Martini Ugolotti, Nicola, editor. | Caudwell, Jayne, editor. Title: Leisure and forced migration : lives lived in asylum systems / edited by Nicola De Martini Ugolotti and Jayne Caudwell. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Series: Advances in leisure studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2021002913 | ISBN 9780367356712 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429341045 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Refugees--Recreation--Social aspects. | Refugees--Social conditions. | Recreation--Social aspects. Classification: LCC HV640 .L364 2022 | DDC 305.9/06914--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021002913 ISBN: 978-0-367-35671-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-03983-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-34104-5 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9780429341045 Typeset in Goudy by Taylor & Francis Books

Nicola would like to dedicate this book to Serena and Camilla, who shared with him all the pains, joys and in-betweens that came during its development.

Contents

List of contributors Acknowledgements 1 Leisure and forced migration: Lives lived in asylum systems

ix xi 1

NICOLA DE MARTINI UGOLOTTI AND JAYNE CAUDWELL

PART I

Spaces and temporalities 2 Informal football spaces and the negotiation of temporal politics in the lives of forced migrants

19 21

CHRIS WEBSTER AND KHALED ABUNAAMA

3 A spatial-phenomenological analysis of asylum-seeking women’s engagement in a cycling recreation program

35

SHAHRZAD MOHAMMADI

4 Thick leisure: Waiting time in a migratory context

52

DONATELLA SCHMIDT AND GIOVANNA PALUTAN

5 “We’re the (global) North Bank …”: Transnational fandom, forced migration and football consumption CHRIS STONE

67

viii Contents PART II

Displaced bodies and intersecting inequalities 6 Leisure provision for LGBTIQ+ refugees: Opportunities and constraints on building solidarity and citizenship across differences in Brazil

83

85

NADYNE VENTURINI-TRINDADE

7 Granted asylum and healthy living? Women newcomers’ experiences of accessing leisure time physical activity in Denmark

105

SINE AGERGAARD, VERENA LENNEIS, CAMILLA BAKKÆR SIMONSEN AND KNUD RYOM

8 Pain, faith and yoga: An intersectional-phenomenological perspective on Syrian Muslim women’s experiences of resettlement in Sweden

121

CLAIRE COLLISON AND NICOLA DE MARTINI UGOLOTTI

9 Voices from the margins: Khat-chewing, devotional leisure and ambivalence in the British-Somali diaspora

139

SPENCER SWAIN

PART III

Voices, praxis, and (self)representation

155

10 Decolonial stories of forced migrants in physical activity and sport: ‘We the Afghan kids’

157

SEPANDARMAZ MASHREGHI WITH YASMIN, HASSAN, ALI, MOHAMMAD

11 A different approach to making theatre with refugees: A refuge from being a refugee

176

AQEEL ABDULLA

12 A Shia Ismaili Muslim’s ringette experiences on and off the ice: An autoethnography

191

SHEMINE A. GULAMHUSEIN

Index

205

Contributors

Aqeel Abdulla is Lecturer in Drama at the University of Exeter, UK, and founding director of Yalla Arts, Exeter. Khaled Abunaama is a participant in Chris Webster’s study and contributed to the production and analysis of the research findings. Khaled recently graduated with a Masters degree in Education from the University of Leeds, UK. Sine Agergaard is Professor and Head of the Sport and Social Issues research group in the Department of Health Science and Technology at Aalborg University, Denmark. Camilla Bakkær Simonsen is Research Assistant in Sports Sciences in the Department of Public Health at Aarhus University, Denmark. Jayne Caudwell is Associate Professor in Social Sciences, Gender and Sexualities in the Department of Social Sciences and Social Work at Bournemouth University, UK. Claire Collison is Doctoral Candidate in the School of Sport and Service Management at the University of Brighton, UK, and a yoga teacher. Nicola De Martini Ugolotti is Senior Lecturer in Sport and Physical Cultures at Bournemouth University, UK, and member of Associazione Frantz Fanon in Turin, Italy. Shemine A. Gulamhusein is a faculty member in the Department of Child and Youth Care at MacEwan University, Canada. Verena Lenneis is Assistant Professor at the Department of Health Science and Technology at Aalborg University, Denmark, and works particularly with racialised women’s participation in sport and physical activity. Sepandarmaz Mashreghi is a PhD candidate at Malmö University, Sweden. Shahrzad Mohammadi is a practitioner-researcher. She recently completed her doctorate at the Institute of Sport and Sport Science, University of Freiburg in Germany, where she also worked as a Lecturer.

x List of contributors

Giovanna Palutan is Post-Doctoral Researcher in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Padova, Italy. Knud Ryom is Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health, Section for Health Promotion and Healthcare at Aarhus University, Denmark. Donatella Schmidt is Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Padova, Italy. Chris Stone is Post-Doctoral Research Associate in the School of Social Sciences at Liverpool Hope University, UK. He previously worked as Lead Researcher for Football Unites Racism Divides (FURD). Spencer Swain is Lecturer in Sports Development and Sociology at York St John University, UK. Nadyne Venturin Trindade is a doctoral candidate at Loughborough University, UK, and an Associate Lecturer in the Faculty of Health, Education and Society at the University of Northampton, UK. Chris Webster is a PhD Student in the School of Sport at Leeds Beckett University, UK.

Acknowledgements

The completion of this book has been possible because of the collegiality and support of colleagues, not least the 16 authors who have shared their work. The project would not have been possible without funding support from the Leisure Studies journal Maureen Harrington Fund. This funding enabled an important one-day symposium (9th October 2019) at which authors were able to present their work for feedback from a supportive audience. We thank Dr Hannah Lewis for presenting a keynote and sharing her expertise. We thank the chairs of sessions—Dr Varuni Wimalasiri and Dr Ian Jones, and we thank Dr Aarti Ratna for providing insights during the editorial process.

Chapter 1

Leisure and forced migration Lives lived in asylum systems Nicola De Martini Ugolotti and Jayne Caudwell

Introduction The events that marked 2020 have illuminated with devastating clarity the connectedness of the world(s) we live in, as a global pandemic, prospects of economic collapse, climate calamities and civil unrest feed into each other with yetto-be known impacts and consequences. As if to underline these entanglements, the (in)capacity to breath has become a political, embodied and historical semantic that signals domains usually perceived as separated (Beneduce, 2020). The health inequalities exacerbated by COVID-19, the devastating impacts of air pollution and unprecedented wildfires, the deadly consequences of entrenched racisms and police brutality, and the suffocating precariousness of lives lived in asylum systems1 all represent substantial examples of the ways in which “the universal right to breath” (Mbembe, 2020) has been breached by violence and injustice, before and during the pandemic. Yet, in the past months the domains of leisure and forced migration seemed to belong and relate to different and separated life-worlds. During extended lockdowns, leisure practices increasingly emerged as life-affirming, though unequally accessible, domains for home-bound populations (Mowatt, 2020; Fullagar and Pavlidis, 2020). However, in the same timeframe, State procedures put in place to manage migration flows intensified their attempts to deny the possibility of life itself for people seeking asylum. Despite being increasingly common before the pandemic, non-assistance at sea, unlawful refoulement to death and torture, confinement in overcrowded camps and detention centres, and abandonment to hunger and destitution became seemingly legitimate practices of migration management amid the COVID-19 crisis (Meer and Vilegas, 2020). Even more starkly, the intensification of harmful practices of migration management during the pandemic were met by a deafening lack of public concern beyond human rights circles, all amid widespread claims that “we are in this together” (De Martini Ugolotti, 2020a). Writing about leisure and forced migration in this time urges us to consider the disjunctions in the cultural and public narratives of the pandemic as revealing lenses of an increasing public and political consensus regarding whose DOI: 10.4324/9780429341045-1

2 De Martini Ugolotti and Caudwell

lives are worth less2 amid recurring “crises” (in sparse and overlapping order: economic, terror, migration, health). Concurrently, writing about leisure and forced migration in this time requires us to highlight how the relevance, meanings and experiences of leisure for people seeking asylum cannot be disentangled from intersecting forms of emboldened nationalisms and xenophobia, deadly State and border policies, and skewed public narratives. Unfortunately, despite an increasing scholarly interest in refugees’ leisure practices in the last three decades, the analytical lenses and research questions informing this body of research have been remarkably narrow. As Lewis (2015) noted, most of the research on the topic has centred on functionalist and policy-driven themes and questions, such as the role that leisure can play in refugees’ integration into host countries, in fostering community cohesion, and with regard to (mental) health and well-being (see Amara et al., 2004; Stack and Iwasaki, 2009; Quirke, 2015; Whitley et al., 2016; Hurly and Walker, 2018; Hurly, 2019; Cain et al., 2020). At present, and although wellintentioned, much of the research on the topic has unwittingly replicated narrow framings of refugee populations in public and policy domains, either by uncritically reflecting skewed concerns of (forced) migrants’ integration vs. segregation, and/or by reproducing simplistic binaries between a “longedfor homeland” and an unfamiliar country of exile (see Lewis, 2010). Building on what Malkki (1995) and Bakewell (2008) argued in the field of refugee studies, the tendency to centre research on policy-driven themes and questions has some substantial political and epistemological implications for scholars engaging with these topics. Studies arising too closely from policydriven themes and buzzwords (e.g. community cohesion) can end up producing short-term answers to limited questions. Additionally, this tendency can make critical questions and wider issues that sit outside of immediate policy-makers and practitioners’ concerns “irrelevant”, and therefore invisible in academic and public debates. In this sense, studies that discussed leisure and refugees’ integration in re-settlement countries have rarely3 addressed the increasing assimilationist turn surrounding the term in policy domains; nor have they unpacked how policies—which insist on refugees’ responsibility to integrate— operate to transfer societal problems, such as unemployment and poverty, onto newcomers (Uheling, 2015). Relatedly, discussions of leisure and refugees’ inclusion, and community cohesion in contexts of resettlement, seldom problematise policy-makers and academics’ perspectives that frame social tensions and divisions as coming from beyond State borders, rather than, for instance, coming from persisting social and economic inequalities (see Lewis, 2010). Finally, studies that address leisure in relation to refugees’ health and wellbeing often assume experiences of trauma and acculturation stress as intrinsic to an essentialised “refugee experience”4 (Malkki, 1995, p. 508). Such contributions fail to acknowledge the well-documented role of asylum policies, processes and spaces in shaping forced migrants’ access and opportunities for health, well-being and sociality (Fassin, 2005; Canning, 2019; Mayblin, 2020).

Leisure and forced migration

3

Taken overall, and apart from notable exceptions,5 the growing scholarly attention towards refugees’ leisure practices has consistently failed to position these domains in relation to essentialising humanitarian narratives and Statesanctioned attempts to dehumanise and exclude forced migrants from (and within) national borders. In other words, scholarship on leisure and forced migration has often unwittingly contributed to narratives that constructed refugees as a “kind of person” (Malkki, 1995, p. 513): traumatised, lacking or needing to “integrate”. At the same time, leisure scholars often fail to recognise the (bio)political and moral construction of refugeness, and forget to acknowledge how necropolitical forms of migration management6 impact and shape the experiences, meanings, needs and access to leisure for people seeking asylum. As a result, explorations of refugees’ leisure practices have often enabled the leaching out of political histories and processes that have shaped refugees’ lives and subjectivities through a seamless continuum of “paternalistic humanitarianism, bureaucratic violence, and compassionate repression” (Beneduce, 2015, p. 560). All of the above points invite a much more critical examination of the role that leisure can have in contributing to, or challenging, the reproduction of assumptions, narratives and practices that shape the lives and trajectories of people seeking asylum. In responding to the omissions and shortcomings of scholarship, and in addressing the nexus of leisure and forced migration, this book has two main aims. The first is to showcase and call for a closer engagement between leisure scholarship and critical, inter-disciplinary perspectives of forced migration. The second is to foreground the relevance of a critical focus of forced migration for leisure studies more widely. We contend that this engagement is long overdue, as well-known discussions of leisure in contemporary societies (Rojek, 2010; Blackshaw, 2016) have so far failed to articulate leisure theories and perspectives to the issue of forced migration, which is (re)shaping definitions of identity, citizenship, belonging, rights and, ultimately, humanity in our historical present.7 Such a critical engagement with the leisure–forced-migration nexus aims to meaningfully contribute to current debates on the scope, relevance and aims of leisure studies within current, unfolding global scenarios. In doing so, this focus highlights and expands crucial perspectives of leisure as a contested domain where power, knowledge, subjectivity, belonging and marginality are constantly negotiated along the intersecting lines of class, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, physical (dis)ability and legal status (Watson and Scraton, 2013; Thangaraj et al., 2018; Caudwell and McGee, 2018; Ratna and Samie, 2018; Kuppan, 2018; Mansfield et al., 2018). At the same time, while highlighting omissions and complicating debates regarding leisure and forced migration, this collection aims to offer critical questions, analyses and discussions that can enrich wider debates of forced migration across academic disciplines. In fact, while leisure scholarship has been so far tied to narrow analytical lenses and questions when addressing

4 De Martini Ugolotti and Caudwell

the topic, wider debates in refugee/forced migration studies have rarely paid attention to leisure as a meaningful entry point to address the everyday lives, practices and negotiations of people seeking asylum.8 As recent perspectives have identified, the relevance of these analytical viewpoints is underlined by the tendency of the media, the public and some academic analysis to address refugees’ lives through the binaries of victimhood or extra-ordinary achievements, speechlessness or political participation (FiddianQasmiyeh, 2020). We contend that a critical focus on leisure domains can contribute to existing analyses that have articulated the violence of migration management processes and the ambivalences of hospitality with the complex everyday experiences of lives lived in asylum regimes (Darling, 2011, 2014; Mountz, 2011; Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, 2020; Mayblin, 2020; De Martini Ugolotti, 2020b). Responding to and expanding these debates, this collection highlights how a critical engagement with leisure domains, mediums and contexts can represent a way of bridging academic research and the lived experiences of forced migration in ways that can be attentive and bring to the fore the nuances, complexities, harms and negotiations characterising the lives of people seeking asylum. As the contributions in this collection demonstrate, paying attention to leisure domains can contribute to defy boundaries and rigid categorisations, refuse the narrative enclosures that flatten people seeking asylum into essentialising binaries, and explore contexts of forced migration beyond “the discursive channels through which abjection works” (Darling, 2014, p. 496).

Themes of the book Three inter-related themes underpin this collection: spaces and temporalities; displaced bodies and intersecting inequalities; voices, praxis and (self)representation. These themes reflect a commitment to engage with perspectives and experiences that unsettle and oppose dehumanising or infantilising binaries, and instead aim to articulate the reach of asylum regimes with the complexities of refugees’ everyday lives and leisure practices. The first theme, spaces and temporalities, underlines the relevance of domains that have been, so far, neglected in existing scholarship on leisure and (forced) migration, as well as in recent, state-of-the-art reviews on the topic (Stodolska, 2018; Spaaij et al., 2019). Recognising the relevance of this theme not only expands important debate of the spatial politics of leisure, but provides meaningful entry points to explore the “everyday geographies of asylum” (Darling, 2011, p. 408). This focus enables the potential to illuminate the gendered and racialised power relations shaping refugees’ “ordinary” spatial practices and contexts, and how these can be reproduced and negotiated through apparently mundane leisure domains. Furthermore, as the production of (leisure) space is intertwined with the rhythms of everyday life (Lefebvre, 1991), a focus on the spatial politics of

Leisure and forced migration

5

leisure can represent a meaningful way to examine forced migrants and allies’ disruptions of the suspended time that is inherent in the spatial practices of asylum regimes (Mountz, 2011). The chapters contributing to this theme address leisure, space and temporality in contexts of forced migration and resettlement, and open important avenues to examine the ways in which cities, towns, camps and reception centres are differently lived and (re)constructed through leisure practices by people seeking asylum. Relatedly, discussions highlight how attention to this theme can advance opportunities to consider, conceptualise and shape a temporal politics of asylum that is not only defined by the spatial, technological and bureaucratic mechanisms of the border/asylum regimes. The second theme, displaced bodies and intersecting inequalities, brings together chapters that address the diversity and complexities of forced migration experiences. It focuses on the ways displacement and resettlement are differently lived and negotiated by people seeking asylum across different and overlapping markers of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion and legal status. This theme expands important contributions in the field of leisure studies (Caudwell and Browne, 2011; Watson and Ratna, 2011; Watson and Scraton, 2013; Ratna and Samie, 2018; Kuppan, 2018), towards a reading of the diversified forms of access, meanings and experiences of leisure in contexts of forced migration. The chapters within this theme illuminate how an appreciation of the diversity of forced migration and resettlement experiences requires an understanding of intersecting forms of power structures such as racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, State-policies and late-capitalist forms of “accumulation by dispossession” (Harvey, 2003). Addressing leisure and forced migration through this lens complicates current narratives of displacement and forced migration in (at least) two ways. First, it problematises homogenizing and reductive depictions of refugees as passive victims waiting to be “saved”, “assisted” or “protected” by non-refugee others (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, 2020). This focus of analysis highlights how initiatives driven to improve forced migrants’ (mental) health can implicitly silence refugees’ diversified meanings and practices of health, sociality and (self-)care. This is often relevant when such shortcomings overlap with the lack of attention in asylum policies towards gender and sexuality (Canning, 2019), and the employment of stereotypical and rigid definitions of vulnerability (Donà, 2007). Second, the chapters contributing to this theme highlight how an attention to intersecting forms of inequality can enable insight in to refugees’ multiple meanings and responses relating to leisure, health, safety and marginality. The final theme, voices, praxis and (self)representation, contributes to discussions that address how processes of representation and knowledge production shape narratives and practices in the domains of leisure and forced migration. While existing work underlined the lack of discussions afforded to ethical research processes on this topic (Doidge, 2018; Spaaij et al., 2019), the chapters on this theme address and expand these considerations by looking at the ethics

6 De Martini Ugolotti and Caudwell

and politics of knowledge production in research and practical interventions. Central concerns that animate this theme are questions of voice, power, knowledge and representation. More specifically, the chapters address questions such as what voices and whose viewpoints are put in the foreground in research and interventions about leisure and forced migration? What are the consequences of skewed narratives adopted in leisure/artistic projects with or for people seeking asylum? And, how can well-intentioned leisure interventions contribute to reproduce the “othering” of people seeking asylum in contexts of resettlement and in public discourses? The chapters on the final theme of the book go some way to respond to calls and efforts to decolonise leisure studies (Carrington, 2018, Mowatt, 2018; Fox and McDermott, 2020) by complicating “single stories” employed to represent racialised migrant and displaced populations. Some explicitly engage and make visible the interconnected histories (Bhambra, 2014; see also Ratna, 2018) that exceed and complicate Western understandings and uses of leisure as a means for integration, therapy or community cohesion. Others bring to the fore their own voices as authors, practitioners and (forced) migrants to critically interrogate experiences, absences and problematic approaches surrounding the topic. In critically questioning (and providing alternatives to) the representational choices and assumptions that inform a wealth of leisure interventions with, and for, people seeking asylum, the chapters speak to wider discussions on the politics and praxis of knowledge production in the domain of leisure studies (and beyond).

Chapter outlines In the first chapter of the section spaces and temporalities, Webster and Abunaama focus on the experiences of nine male research participants living their lives within the asylum system in the UK. The nine men, including Abunaama, and Webster share an active involvement with football. This involvement centres around a local football club—Yorkshire St. Pauli and the club’s initiative Football for All. Both the club and the initiative enact anti-discriminatory politics, in particular the ethos that “no person is illegal” and “refugees are welcome”. Over a three-year period, Webster, Abunaama and the research participants spent time together supporting and playing football, as well as hanging out beyond the football grounds. The discussion addresses the temporal politics through which the Home Office shape the lives and circumstances of asylum seekers in both tangible and intangible ways. These include denying access to basic entitlements of security and safety, and the slow erosion of asylum seekers’ hopes, desires, health and well-being. Yet, the ethnographic data show how football and the forms of socialities that surround Yorkshire St. Pauli practices can provide opportunities for the re-structuring of the waiting time, slow time, dead time and frantic time that Home Office processes enforce on asylum seekers’ lives. The chapter highlights how the shared time of football enables the participants to claim back some form of control of their time

Leisure and forced migration

7

through leisure, and to re-appropriate their bodies and lives as more than objects of asylum policies. In her chapter, Mohammadi moves our attention to women living in the asylum system in Germany. Her research is with four women (aged between 19 and 45 years) that are involved with a cycling project called Bike Bridge. This focus is significant because the use of bicycles by women and girls has a history in some contexts as regulated, controlled and liberatory (Langhamer, 2000). For the four women in Mohammadi’s research, cycling enabled physical activity outside the confines of the refugee accommodation centre where they were placed. At times, this activity was independent of the official project. Drawing from five months of research, including ethnographic observation and interviews, the chapter engages Lefebvre’s (1991) analysis of spatiality in discussing participants’ embodied experiences of cycling. The research explored the participants’ experiences of refugee accommodation as a space of safety from where they could start to plan their futures, but also as a space of confinement and suspension. The findings show how the research participants dislocated the often-liminal spaces (and temporalities) of asylum “accommodation” by their regular and frequent physical activity—cycling. Moreover, as a women-only project, the cycling provided a number of opportunities to forge solidarity and support, as well as individual and collective challenge of gender-, race- and ethnicity-based stereotypes evident both within and beyond the accommodation centre. The chapter highlights how through their cycling, the women in the study contested, transformed and re-claimed their presence inside and outside of the centre in which they were accommodated. “Waiting time” continues as the foci of analysis for Schmidt and Palutan’s study of migrants in-transit, refugees and asylum seekers in Italy. Working with people in provisional and informal encampments in Rome, the researchers map out how activists connect with refugees through food, medical and legal support, and leisure. Schmidt and Palutan highlight how the people living in informal camps can be seen as migrants-in-transit from a physical point of view, and from a juridical point of view. Relatedly, the authors discuss how despite the common experiences of suspension for people in the camps, the concept of waiting cannot be reduced only to an externally imposed category; it can be addressed instead as waiting for and waiting to. Meaningful leisure practices— sport activity, music, dance, art and craft workshops, socialising, and eating and drinking together—are shown to punctuate the temporalities of waiting time. The authors use the term “thick leisure” to emphasise how these practices can contest waiting time and produce agency for the refugees and the activists involved in the study. Leisure can thus be assigned temporal agency in opposing experiences of waiting time as passively endured and powerless. This form of agency might, momentarily, transcend the enforcement of temporal and spatial confinements for people living in the asylum system. The final chapter on the theme spaces and temporalities documents the experiences of a fan of men’s football. Chris Stone discusses how Dekor, an

8 De Martini Ugolotti and Caudwell

Arsenal fan, lives his fandom as an asylum seeker in the UK. Dekor has always supported Arsenal men’s team, and the history of this involvement includes following the team’s performances while living close to the Iran–Iraq border, while travelling through Europe, and when in the UK. Transnational football fandom and the reach of football consumption are critically discussed in the chapter, as are forced migration and transgressional football consumption. Stone details the ways Dekor navigates watching his team in places such as pubs, libraries and a live game. The author concludes that Dekor’s fandom has enabled a sense of “home” within the cultural sphere of football fandom. This “home” is not pure, as it remains a predominantly masculine space marked by forms of racism. However, for Dekor it is a stable source of identity within the liminal spaces and permanent impermanence of his life as an asylum seeker. Dekor’s fandom appears as a rich subjective domain of his everyday life in spite of the Home Office’s demeaning treatment of asylum seekers. The next section of the book turns our attention to displaced bodies and intersecting inequalities. The four chapters offer insights into “LGBTIQ+ refugees” in Brazil; women newcomers in Denmark; Syrian Muslim refugee women in Sweden; and members of the British-Somali diaspora community in the UK. The intersections of inequality involve gender, sexuality, ethnicity and religious practices. Venturini-Trindade focuses on the group named travestis by Brazilian activists. This group, within the LGBTIQ+ collective in Brazil identifies male-born transgender individuals, and the chapter explores the experiences of travesti individuals that seek asylum in Brazil as a consequence of prejudice, discrimination, persecution and violence. The high number of crimes against trans people, including murder, has led commentators to refine the terms homicide and femicide to distinguish gendercide as a transgender-contingent crime. Detailing a three-year Participatory Action Research (PAR) project seeking to support “LGBTIQ+ refugees”, Venturini-Trindade illuminates the tensions—in terms of project outcomes and power relations—between funders, professionals working on the project, and the project’s participants. The chapter champions the voices of the travestis participants and critically discusses how their experiences and needs are overlooked within existing funding approaches relying on pre-determined, quantitative measures of “social change”. As Venturin-Trindade highlights, the application of these pre-determined measures often shows very little understanding of the specific patterns of violence against travestis and gender non-conforming individuals seeking refuge. The chapter explains these tensions and the worth of the project’s participatory methodologies. Such an approach insists that researchers and practitioners focus on reflexivity, integrative participatory processes and a commitment to social justice. The next two chapters, in different ways, centre the experiences of women refugees in Northern Europe. Agergaard, Lenneis, Bakkær Simonsen and Ryom discuss how Eritrean and Syrian women experience physical activity and leisure upon arrival in Denmark. Collison and De Martini Ugolotti

Leisure and forced migration

9

focus on a women-only yoga course attended by Syrian Muslim refugee women in Sweden. In their chapter, Agergaard and colleagues critically discuss the limited leisure opportunities for women newcomers against the backdrop of increasingly restrictive asylum policies and Western “healthist” discourses. The chapter focuses on the experiences of four Eritrean and eight Syrian women attending Danish language courses as part of their introduction programme for newcomers granted asylum and/or a residence permit. Based on the findings from semi-structured interviews, the authors critique scholarly and policy frameworks that focus on newcomers’ health promotion and integration into receiving societies, but that neglect the practices and experiences that (forced) migrants carry with them. The research shows that despite previous experiences of active leisure and physical activity the women in the study spoke about feeling and/or being unhealthy in comparison to health discourses and practices promoted in Denmark. The chapter demonstrates how Western health-promoting discourse can operate to make invisible women newcomer’s past and present (transnational) relationships to physical activity. Furthermore, the discussion shows how lack of time, economic restrictions and personal worries related to their uncertain future in Denmark make the pursuit of active leisure for women newcomers a (desired) practice hindered by a number of overlapping obstacles. Collison and De Martini Ugolotti address the experiences of a group of Syrian Muslim refugee women attending women-only yoga courses in Sweden. These courses were part of a Civic Orientation programme that combined the prescription of therapeutic yoga and educational activities with the aim to transform refugees into integrated, employable Swedish citizens. Collison’s expertise as a yoga practitioner and her ethnographic participation in the courses means that the authors provide an in-depth account of the participants’ embodied experiences of yoga and re-settlement. The core of the mandatory yoga courses aimed to support refugee women’s health and well-being. However, the courses relied on specific gendered assumptions regarding the vulnerability and trauma of refugee women. By adopting a phenomenological and ethnographic frame the authors are able to show how the participants’ embodied experiences of yoga reflected and responded to objectifying narratives depicting them as traumatised refugees, oppressed Muslim women and hypervisible others in Sweden. The in-depth engagement with the participants’ subtle and intimate re-appropriations of the compulsory yoga space contributes to unsettle such narratives. Moreover, the participants’ re-appropriations of the secular and self-development-oriented space of trauma-sensitive yoga complicated rigid dichotomous understandings of East/West, here/there, and secular/ religious in understanding leisure domains. Drawing from his research in the UK with members of the British-Somali diaspora, Swain explores khat-chewing as a form of leisure activity that shapes community belonging and identity expression for middle-aged men living at the intersections of citizenship and (forced) migration. The chapter

10 De Martini Ugolotti and Caudwell

focuses on gender, masculinity, tradition and marginality. Khat stalks (plant product) are chewed as a form of leisure because the constant chewing process releases the naturally occurring chemical dopamine; this enables lively and vibrant social interaction with other khat-chewers. The chapter indicates that those who take part in the chewing and the ensuing conversations maintain a sense of Somali identity, which Swain discusses in terms of devotional leisure. In particular, older and middle-aged men connect with each other, their country of origin, and share masculinist cultural practices. However, not everyone perceives khat in such a positive way, with many younger British-Somalis and women’s groups viewing the substance as a symbol of domination used to exercise patriarchal and patrilineal hierarchies. This means that while providing a sense of purpose and identity for some, Khat-chewing as devotional leisure is highly controversial and an example of the multiple and contrasting subjectivities constituting diasporic communities. Swain shows how gender, masculinity, tradition and marginality are, through leisure, contested, shifting and in flux. The final section, voices, praxis and (self)representation, reflects the methodological approaches of collective storytelling, script writing and autoethnography. In Chapter 10, Mashreghi, with Yasmin, Mohammad, Hassan, Ali and Baset, explains the value of co-creating accounts of forced migration. The research project involved Mashreghi working with ten young people living in a small town in Sweden. To challenge the “single stories” surrounding Afghan unaccompanied children as either vulnerable victims or cunning strategists, the authors offer an amalgamated analysis of their ordinary engagements with physical activity during their migration journeys and in re-settlement. The methodological joining of Arts-Based Research and Participatory Action Research gives rise to a unique project that debunks the coloniality of Western-based accounts of forced migration, young people and physical activity. This is achieved through the coresearchers’ narratives, which highlighted how experiences of physical activities, and its benefits, are not universal but historically and materially contextual. This is the case when the co-researchers’ narratives constantly connect their experiences of leisure, labour and migration with Khorasani forms of poetry and selfreflection. While the chapter challenges the often-assumed stereotypes of young forced migrants as victims or tricksters, it also displaces the narrow understanding of sport initiatives with unaccompanied migrants as tools for “development” and “integration”. As the authors argue, engaging with the co-researchers’ experiences of physical activity in their own terms provides opportunities to highlight muted and subjugated knowledges regarding bodies, subjectivities and socialities that have been so far silenced by Western-based approaches and uses of sport in contexts of (forced) migration. In his work with theatre and theatre production in the UK, Adbulla considers how and why community and refugee theatre can move beyond scripts of trauma, tragedy and victimhood. As a theatre academic, a practitioner and a refugee, Abdulla provides details that are most likely unfamiliar to leisure

Leisure and forced migration

11

studies. However, the author is careful to offer a balanced and full exploration and explanation of community and refugee theatre. Abdulla discusses the emergence of refugee theatre as a response to xenophobia and populist migrantblaming narratives that have become systematically normalised in the UK and other European countries. However, through a reflective discussion of refugee theatre scripts and productions, Abdulla warns of the dangers of theatre that reproduces “archetypal refugee” narratives that can be described as “uncomplicatedly tragic” (Wilcock, 2019, p. 146). Addressing a worrying trend towards a one-dimensional depiction of refugees and their stories in refugee theatre, the author explores the problematic implications of such approaches and proposes a different way to enact theatre with refugees. While centring his discussion on the domain of community/participatory theatre with refugees, Abdulla stresses the points of critical dialogue and exchange across theatre, forced migration and leisure studies. In the final chapter of the book, Shemine Gulamhusein takes an auto-ethnographic approach to explore her experiences of recreation, leisure and sport as a child of immigrants in Canada. Her narrative focuses on her sporting experience as a Shia Ismaili Muslim woman of migrant background, who learns to navigate playing sport as a person of colour in Canada while playing ringette (a competitive sport similar to hockey). In doing so, she acknowledges how her experiences of leisure and recreation are related to wider racialised hierarchies and Canada’s history of settler colonialism that have shaped, in different ways, the experiences, practices and access to leisure of (forced) migrants and aboriginal youths. Through an auto-ethnographic approach, Gulamhusein uses her experience to attend to the forms of oppression and privilege a person can experience based on race, ethnicity, class, gender and religion within the hegemonic whiteness of ringette and Canadian society. Adopting Ahmed’s (2014) concept of the “willful subject”, Gulamhusein reflects on how her own embodied experiences in becoming a ringette player drove her to trespass social settings and carve an in-between space that could be possible for her to inhabit on and off the ice. The author’s auto-ethnographic discussion opens relevant insights that elucidate the tensions of being a “willful” young woman at the cross-road of multiple social locations (race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age). Gulamhusein’s narrative closes the book by providing a rich, intimate and indepth account that highlights relevant connections across the domains of leisure and (forced) migration studies.

Concluding comments Throughout this book, the use of an interdisciplinary approach has been inescapable and, we hope, enabling. This edited collection has brought together a variety of voices, viewpoints and positionalities across various disciplinary perspectives to critically address the nexus between leisure and forced migration. The result is not, and never aimed to be, a neat and exhaustive picture of

12 De Martini Ugolotti and Caudwell

the relationship and points of contact between these domains. Rather, it is a polyphonic collection of perspectives and analyses, each highlighting and addressing critical questions and issues without any pretence to present a “definitive” answer. In defining the remit and scope of this book, as editors we decided to employ the terms “refugee”, “forced migrant”, “people seeking sanctuary/asylum” inclusively to refer to people at all stages of the asylum process (see Lewis, 2015). This flexible terminology aimed to highlight how the complexity of the phenomenon of forced migration cannot be simply approached by following legal/ policy categories that often create arbitrary and shifting distinctions between people moving across borders (Erdal and Oeppen, 2017; Crawley and Skleparis, 2018). Taking this editorial approach, we want to highlight how immigration categories and socio-legal statuses are not fixed nor “objective”, and are not usually embraced by those they seek to define. The use of this terminology seeks to highlight the slipperiness and complexity of people’s migration trajectories as they move between statuses through time, either “agentically” or because of shifting structural barriers such as increasingly restrictive legislation and policies (Lewis et al., 2014). Relatedly, our use of the term “forced migration” reflects our aim to recognise and take in to account highly differentiated displacement geographies that exceed normative and restrictive understandings of refugeehood (see Zetter, 1991; Erdal and Oeppen, 2017; Crawley and Skleparis, 2018). While this approach reflected our analytical and political stance in addressing the topics of this collection, the book’s contributors chose to engage with a variety of categories according to what was more relevant to address specific contexts and questions, and according to the preferences of research interlocutors. Nevertheless, we engaged with all the authors in a critical dialogue regarding the use and implications of the lexicon currently available to discuss leisure and forced migration. Our intention as editors was not to define, normatively, what frameworks and keywords should (not) be used in researching these topics. Rather, we critically engaged with the contributors’ perspectives with the aim of fostering interdisciplinary dialogues and provocations that could interrogate, enrich and exceed debates in and around studies of leisure and forced migration. However, one common concern links all of the chapters. That is, the importance for scholars in the fields of leisure and (forced) migration studies to remain aware of the role they can have in influencing different political and public narratives and approaches to human displacement. This means we must be cognisant of how concepts, assumptions and positionalities we inherit, adopt and choose to engage with—even while aiming to make “impactful” research—can (unwittingly) imply an investment in and complicity with diverse power structures (e. g. from assimilationist policies and discourses, to essentialising humanitarian narratives and “othering” forms of knowledge). This critical awareness translated in analyses that did not instrumentally address leisure as a “fix” for policy-

Leisure and forced migration

13

driven issues (e.g. community cohesion, integration/segregation), or as a domain through which specific “benefits” (e.g. health and various forms of “capitals”) can be identified and measured for people seeking asylum and for host societies. Rather, the contributions in this book aimed to critically interrogate these perspectives, by engaging with leisure as a domain where social, political and structural issues are lived and addressed by people seeking asylum. Therefore, leisure domains emerge through the chapters as related to the “political production of sociality” (Rozakou, 2016, p. 187) in contexts of forced migration. In other words, the chapters highlight the relevance of examining leisure to address the contingent but productive spaces and practices of migration solidarity, to make visible the harms and negotiations associated with displacement and intersecting inequalities, and to illuminate the bio- and necropolitical management of refugee populations. Following these considerations, the critique of existing approaches that is advanced in this collection does not stem from a willingness to minimise the need to produce relevant and impactful research, especially when addressing issues connected to political violence, poverty and systemic exclusion. In fact, we contend that precisely because leisure domains have received an increasing interest from initiatives and interventions across (inter)national scenarios (Jeanes et al., 2015; UNHCR, 2020), we should be able to critically and productively challenge practitioners, policy-makers and stakeholders around existing/established ways of conceptualizing and employing leisure in displacement and resettlement contexts. That is why, following Malkki (1995) we understand interdisciplinarity in the study of forced migration as not simply an academic matter, but as implying the necessity to find relevant and yet-to-be-explored engagements with organisations, local communities and institutions who address or want to address these issues. From this basis, we underline how, on several occasions, important contributions on understanding the relevance of leisure domains have come from refugees, grassroots and activist groups acting beyond the remit of established humanitarian and/or governmental frameworks, priorities and approaches (see Pelham and McGee, 2018; Zaman, 2019; De Martini Ugolotti, 2020b; Webster and Abunaama, this volume; Schmidt and Palutan, this volume; Abdulla, this volume). While solidarity initiatives for and by refugees have been facing increasingly hostile responses by State and security apparatuses worldwide (Fekete, 2018), we contend that they represent crucial domains that need further explorations because they can highlight the relevance and productivity of leisure in contexts of forced migration. It is obvious that this edited book is not able to exhaustively discuss the complexities of forced migration, and the possible directions and questions that can inform leisure scholars aiming to explore and interrogate the issues. As the contributions of this collection mainly relate to European contexts (with the relevant exceptions of Venturin-Trindade’s and Gulamhusein’s chapters), much remains to be said in regard to the locations where the majority of the

14 De Martini Ugolotti and Caudwell

world’s displaced people actually reside (see also Spaaij et al., 2019). Therefore, we intend this collection as an initial, and inevitably partial, exploration of the nexus between leisure and forced migration. It is a call for leisure scholars to engage more widely with critical questions and analyses that are more representative of the global geographies of displacement. As we make this call, we stress the importance of engaging with non-Western voices and dominant epistemologies in Western contexts and “refugee-receiving” societies. To borrow from Trinh Minh-ha (1989), such a perspective is fundamental for future analyses on and beyond leisure and forced migration,9 in reminding us that “What is at stake is not only the hegemony of western cultures, but also their identities as unified cultures; in other words, the realization that there is a Third World in every First World, and vice versa” (p. 23). Following these considerations, and despite the limitations of this edited book, we suggest that it offers productive directions and interrogations of the role and relevance of leisure perspectives in the global present. The chapters in this book provide in-depth and compelling explorations of the rich, diversified and contested meanings, experiences and vocabularies through which leisure domains are lived in, and relate to contexts of displacement and resettlement. Moreover, the chapters demonstrate that a focus on leisure can reveal and oppose dehumanising policies and discourses surrounding refugees, as well as question and displace well-intentioned, but often problematic, efforts to foster “development”, “integration” and “health” for people seeking asylum. From this basis, we invite leisure and forced migration scholars to engage with and expand these critical perspectives. We hope that the insights advanced in this collection can offer provocations and inspire yet-to-be-explored questions to critically address the challenges and unresolved injustices that shape the entangled world(s) we live in.

Notes 1 As described by Darling (2014), Canning (2019) and Mayblin (2020). 2 A “sorting process” that also meant that the pandemic and its responses disproportionately harmed racialised minorities, victims of domestic violence, the poor and the excluded (with these categories often intersecting). 3 See Jeanes et al., (2015) for an exception. 4 Following Malkki (1995, p. 510), “it would be foolish to claim that displacement does not cause distress of many kinds, but when considering the question of psychological disorders among refugees […] We cannot assume psychological disorder or mental illness a priori, as an axiom, nor can we claim to know, from the mere fact of refugeeness, the actual sources of a person’s suffering.” (Emphasis added.) 5 See Lewis, 2015; Pelham and McGee 2018; Stone, 2018; Doidge, 2018. 6 Following Mayblin (2020) we consider necropolitical forms of migration management when boats are allowed to sink, children are separated from their families, homeless migrants’ spontaneous camps are burnt to the ground, and people seeking asylum are abandoned to hunger and destitution—in other words, when people seeking asylum are “kept alive, but in a state of injury in a phantomlike world of horrors and intense cruelty and profanity” (Mbembe, 2003, p. 21; see also Webster and Abunaama, this volume).

Leisure and forced migration

15

7 Ben Carrington highlighted a related omission in relation to issues of race and coloniality in his keynote speech at Leisure Studies Association Annual Conference 2018. We relate and expand on Carrington’s arguments here by addressing forced migration as a structural phenomenon whose responses can be seen as an example of the “coloniality of power” (see Mayblin, 2017). 8 For some relevant exceptions see Van Aken (2006), Khan (2013) and Zaman (2019). 9 We envisage a dialogue between studies of leisure, forced migration and Indigenous practices, ontologies and epistemologies as an important future development for leisure studies more widely. We see this dialogue to start from acknowledging the links between the forms of displacement and dispossession experienced by people seeking asylum, and those endured by Indigenous populations in settler colonial states.

References Ahmed, S. (2014) Willful Subjects. London: Duke University Press. Amara, M., Aquilina, D., Argent, E., Betzer-Tayar, M., Green, M., Henry, I., et al. (2004) The roles of sport and education in the social inclusion of asylum seekers and refugees: an evaluation of policy and practice in the UK. Loughborough: Institute of Sport and Leisure Policy, Loughborough University and University of Stirling. Bakewell, O. (2008) Research beyond the categories: the importance of policy irrelevant research into forced migration. Journal of Refugee Studies, 21(4): 432–453. Beneduce, R. (2015) The moral economy of lying: subject-craft, narrative capital, and uncertainty in the politics of asylum. Medical Anthropology, 34(6): 551–571. Beneduce, R. (2020) Leggere l’archivio di Fanon oggi: razzismo, violenza e follia[Reading Fanon’s archive today: Racism, violence and mental illness]. Caribbean Philosophical Association, “Fanon at 95” Online Symposium. Available at http://www.caribbeanp hilosophicalassociation.org/fanon-at-95.html (Accessed on 27th November 2020). Bhambra, G. (2014) Connected Sociologies. London: Bloomsbury. Blackshaw, T. (2016) Re-Imagining Leisure Studies. London: Routledge. Cain, M., Istvandity, L., and Lakhani, A. (2020) Participatory music-making and wellbeing within immigrant cultural practice: exploratory case studies in South East Queensland, Australia. Leisure Studies, 39(1): 68–82. Canning, V. (2019) Degradation by design: women and asylum in Northern Europe. Race and Class, 61(1): 46–63. Carrington, B. (2018) Whose freedom, which constraints? Towards a decolonial leisure studies. Keynote Lecture. Leisure Studies Association Annual Conference, University of Bath. Caudwell, J. and Browne, K. (2011) Sexy spaces: geography and leisure intersectionalities. Leisure Studies, 30(2): 117–122. Caudwell, J. and McGee, D. (2018) From promotion to protection: human rights and events, leisure and sport. Leisure Studies, 37(1): 1–10. Crawley, H. and Skleparis, D. (2018) Refugees, migrants, neither, both: categorical fetishism and the politics of bounding in Europe’s “migration crisis”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44(1): 48–64. Darling, J. (2011) Giving space: care, generosity and belonging in a UK asylum dropin centre. Geoforum, 42: 408–417. Darling, J. (2014) Another letter from the home office: reading the material politics of asylum. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 32(3): 484–500.

16 De Martini Ugolotti and Caudwell De Martini Ugolotti, N. (2020a) “We are in this together”: covid-19, the politics of emotions and the borders of humanity. Discover Society. Available at https://dis coversociety.org/2020/04/08/we-are-in-this-together-covid-19-the-politics-of-em otions-and-the-borders-of-humanity/ (Accessed on 27th November 2020). De Martini Ugolotti, N. (2020b) Music-making and forced migrants’ affective practices of diasporic belonging. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, doi:10.1080/ 1369183X.2020.1790344 Doidge, M. (2018) Refugees united: the role of activism and football in supporting refugees. In Transforming Sport: Knowledges, Practices, Structures (Eds.), T. Carter, D. Burdsey and M. Doidge. London: Routledge, 25–33. Doná, G. (2007) The microphysics of participation in refugee research. Journal of Refugee Studies, 20(2): 210–229. Erdal, M.B. and Oeppen, C. (2017) Forced to leave? The discursive and analytical significance of describing migration as forced and voluntary. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44(6): 981–998. Fassin, D. and D’Halluin, E. (2005) The truth from the body: medical certificates as ultimate evidence for asylum seekers. American Anthropologist, 107(4): 597–608. Fekete, L. (2018) Migrants, borders and the criminalisation of solidarity in the EU. Race & Class, 59(4): 65–83. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2020) Refuge in a Moving World: Tracing Refugee and Migrant Journeys Across Disciplines. London: UCL Press. Fox, K. and McDermott, L. (2020) The Kumulipo, native Hawaiians, and well-being: how the past speaks to the present and lays the foundation for the future. Leisure Studies, 39(1): 96–110. Fullagar, S. and Pavlidis, A. (2020) Thinking through the disruptive effects and affects of the coronavirus with feminist new materialism. Leisure Sciences. doi:10.1080/ 01490400.2020.1773996 Harvey, D. (2003) The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hurly, J. (2019) ‘I feel something is still missing’: leisure meanings of African refugee women in Canada. Leisure Studies, 38(1): 1–14. Hurly, J. and Walker, G. J. (2019) ‘When you see nature, nature give you something inside’: the role of nature-based leisure in fostering refugee well-being in Canada. Leisure Sciences, 41(4), 260–277. Jeanes, R., O’Connor, J. and Alfrey, L. (2015) Sport and the resettlement of young people from refugee backgrounds in Australia. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 39 (6): 480–500. Khan, N. (2013) From refugees to the world stage: sport, civilisation and modernity in Out of the Ashes and the UK Afghan Diaspora. South Asian Popular Culture, 11(3): 271–285. Kuppan, V. (2018) Crippin’ blackness: narratives of disabled people of colour from slavery to Trump. In The Fire Now: Anti-Racist Scholarship in Times of Explicit Racial Violence. (Eds.), A. Johnson, R. Joseph-Salisbury and B. Kamunge. London: ZED, 60–73. Langhamer, C. (2000) Women’s Leisure in England, 1920–1960. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell. Lewis, H. (2010) Community moments: integration and transnationalism at ‘refugee’ parties and events. Journal of Refugee Studies, 23(4): 571–588. Lewis, H. (2015) Music, dancing and clothing as belonging and freedom among people seeking asylum in the UK. Leisure Studies, 34(1): 42–58.

Leisure and forced migration

17

Lewis, H., Dwyer, P., Hodkinson, S. and Waite, L. (2014) Precarious Lives. Forced Labour, Exploitation and Asylum. Bristol: The Policy Press. Malkki, L. (1995) Refugees and exile: from ‘refugee studies’ to the national order of things. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24: 495–523. Mansfield, L., Caudwell, J., Wheaton, B. and Watson, B. (2018) The Palgrave Handbook of Feminism and Sport, Leisure and Physical Education. London: Palgrave. Mayblin, L. (2017) Asylum After Empire: Colonial Legacies in the Politics of Asylum Seeking. London: Rowman and Littleman. Mayblin, L. (2020) Asylum and Impoverishment: Social Policy as Slow-Violence. London: Routledge. Mbembe, A. (2003) Necropolitics. Public Culture, 15(1): 11–40. Mbembe, A. (2020) The Universal Right to Breathe. Critical Inquiry. Available at http s://critinq.wordpress.com/2020/04/13/the-universal-right-to-breathe/ (Accessed on 27th November 2020). Meer, N. and Villegas, L. (2020) The Impact of Covid-19 on Global Migration. Governance of the Local Integration of Migrants and Europe’s Refugees (GLIMER) Working Paper Available at https://www.glimer.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Globa l-Migration-Policies-and-COVID-19.pdf (Accessed on 5th March 2020). Minh-ha, T. (1989). Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism. University of Indiana Press. Mowatt, R. (2018) Understanding Ifá: inserting knowledge of an African cosmology in leisure studies and nature-based research. Leisure Studies, 37(5): 515–532. Mowatt, R.A. (2020) A people’s future of leisure studies: leisure with the enemy under Covid-19. Leisure Sciences. doi:10.1080/01490400.2020.1773981 Mountz, A. (2011) Where asylum-seekers wait: feminist counter-topographies of sites between states. Gender, Place & Culture, 18(3): 381–399. Pelham, J. and McGee, D. (2018) Politics at play: locating human rights, refugees and grassroots humanitarianism in the Calais Jungle, Leisure Studies, 37(1): 22–35. Quirke, L. (2015) Searching for joy: the importance of leisure in newcomer settlement. International Migration & Integration, 16: 237–248. Ratna, A. (2018) Not just merely different: travelling theories, post-feminism and the racialised politics of women of color. Sociology of Sport Journal, 35(3): 197–206. Ratna, A. and Samie, F.S. (2018) Race, Gender and Sport: The Politics of Ethnic ‘Other’ Girls and Women. London: Routledge. Rojek, C. (2010) The Labour of Leisure. London & Thousand Oaks: SAGE. Rozakou, K. (2016) Socialities of solidarity: revisiting the gift taboo in times of crisis. Social Anthropology, 24(2): 185–199. Spaaij, R., Broerse, J., Oxford, S., Luguetti, C., McLachlan, F., McDonald, B., Klepac, B., Lymbery, L., Bishara, J. and Pankowiak, J. (2019) Sport, refugees, and forced migration: a critical review of the literature. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living. doi:10.3389/fspor.2019.00047 Stack, J. and Iwasaki, Y. (2009) The role of leisure pursuits in adaptation processes among Afghan refugees who have immigrated to Winnipeg, Canada. Leisure Studies, 28(3): 239–259. Stodolska, M. (2018) Research on race, ethnicity, immigration, and leisure: have we missed the boat? Leisure Sciences, 40(1–2): 43–53. Stone, C. (2018) Utopian community football? Sport, hope and belongingness in the lives of refugees and asylum seekers. Leisure Studies, 37(2): 171–183.

18 De Martini Ugolotti and Caudwell Thangaraj, S., Ratna, A., Burdsey, D. and Rand, E. (2018) Leisure and the racing of national populism. Leisure Studies, 37(6): 648–661. Uheling, G. (2015) The responsibilization of refugees in the United States: on the political uses of psychology. Anthropological Quarterly, 88(4): 997–1028. UNHCR (2020) Sport for protection toolkit: programming with young people in forced displacement settings. Report. Available at https://www.unhcr.org/publications/manua ls/5d35a7bc4/sport-for-protection-toolkit.html (Accessed on 27th November 2020). Van Aken, M. (2006) Dancing belonging: contesting dakbeh in the Jordan Valley, Jordan. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 32(2): 203–222. Watson, B. and Ratna, A. (2011) Bollywood in the park: thinking intersectionally about public leisure space. Leisure/Loisir, 35(1): 75–86. Watson, B. and Scraton, S.J. (2013) Leisure studies and intersectionality. Leisure Studies, 32(1): 35–47. Whitley, M.A., Coble, C. and Jewell, G.S. (2016) Evaluation of a sport-based youth development programme for refugees. Leisure/Loisir, 40(2): 175–199. Wilcock, C.A. (2019) Hostile immigration policy and the limits of sanctuary as resistance: counter-conduct as constructive critique. Social Inclusion, 7(4): 141–151. Zaman, T. (2019) Neighbourliness, conviviality, and the sacred in athens’ refugee squats. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. doi:10.1111/tran.12360 Zetter, R. (1991) Labelling refugees: forming and transforming a bureaucratic identity. Journal of Refugee Studies, 4(1): 39–62.

Part I

Spaces and temporalities

Chapter 2

Informal football spaces and the negotiation of temporal politics in the lives of forced migrants Chris Webster and Khaled Abunaama

Introduction Yorkshire St. Pauli (YSP) is a collective of football fans who gather to watch the Hamburg-based team—FC St. Pauli—compete in division two of the German national league. For many YSP members, the anti-discriminatory politics of the club is what drew them to support the team in the first place. The politics of migration is of particular concern, with supporters plastering Millerntor-Stadion, where the team play, with murals and stickers: “Refugees Welcome” and “No Person is Illegal” (Davidson, 2014). This sentiment is echoed by YSP members. In 2013, they elected to directly demonstrate acts of solidarity and friendship to refugees and asylum-seekers by establishing “Football For All” (FFA). Through FFA, YSP aims to invite people to play football in a fun and relaxed environment, regardless of ability, economic circumstances, gender, sexuality or background. In practice though, whilst players at FFA represent a diverse range of cultural, social and economic backgrounds, the initiative has struggled to overcome the historically gendered aspect of football (Magee et al., 2007). Furthermore, whilst a small number of women participate in the sessions on a regular basis, none of them have directly experienced navigating the UK asylum process. Therefore, it is critical to acknowledge that the experiences detailed in this chapter are from the perspective of players who identify as male. The sessions are not exclusive to forced migrants but YSP members work with local refugee and asylum seeker charities to encourage potential participants to play by providing transport to and from the FFA venue, providing football kit as necessary and asking players—who can afford to do so—to contribute to the cost of pitch hire. Moreover, FFA is a counter to the competitive nature of formal Sunday league football in that players agree to play in a relaxed and non-aggressive manner. For the lead author, Chris, this chapter is the culmination of three years spent in the field as a participative researcher. As an ethnographic study, “hanging out” with nine participants (who have direct experience of forced migration) in and beyond the spaces of playing and watching football, for him, was also part of his leisure and commitment to the politics of YSP and FFA (since his involvement in 2012). Thus, Chris considers DOI: 10.4324/9780429341045-3

22 Chris Webster and Khaled Abunaama

all the participants—including the co-author of this chapter Khaled—to be his friends. Together we explore the significance of time for members of FFA who have experienced the UK asylum system. This chapter will highlight how time was experienced as “slow”, “frozen” or even “frenzied” at different junctures by the participants. It will then demonstrate how FFA provided a “space” of resistance, and the possibility of exercising agency over time separate to Home Office jurisdictions. In doing so, we invite the reader to think critically about the significance of leisure and sport spaces in challenging, rather than reproducing, the praxis of policymakers and those concerned with the assimilation of an apparent homogenous mass of newly arrived migrants into the host society (Lewis, 2015). Crucially, the central concern of this chapter is not on “top-down” assumptions of the significance of leisure participation to “fix” perceived societal-ills. Instead, our focus is on understanding the intricate personal and societal meanings of FFA in the everyday lives of those who attend. In turn, the following chapter centres the agency and negotiations of our friends, rather than portraying them as passive victims, in the UK’s brutal border regime.

Neo-liberal “time”, power and leisure Time is often expressed through two primary units; the year and the day. Time appears to be linear, in a continuous state of progression, and evolving as a simple fact of the natural world. It is in this astronomical form of time that we record our life schedules using calendars, diaries, watches, alarm clocks and, perhaps now more commonly, mobile phones (Adam, 1990; 1995). However, far from being exempt from human life, the concept of time is experienced and interpreted in a plethora of different ways across societies, communities, individuals and historical epochs. If we think critically about common colloquialisms and assumptions such as “time flies when you’re having fun”, we begin to acknowledge that far from being a humanless “fact” of the natural world, the speed of which astronomical time is experienced fluctuates depending on our individual meanings and social experiences. For example, a person involved in education may indicate that their “year” begins at the start of the academic year in September rather than January. Likewise, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, if you asked an avid European football fan when their year begins, they may point to the start of the football season in August. Culturally then, time is experienced in different and multiple ways, and it can be based on shared as well as divergent meanings relevant to our leisure lives as well as leisure “time” outside of the realm of work (Griffiths et al., 2013). Humans, as social agents, can indeed exercise variable levels of control over time, through the ability to adapt and/or mediate social and material conditions in the present to change future outcomes and possibilities. Agency and power are therefore inextricably linked to time. The most recognizable example of this can be found in the bio-politics of the criminal justice system where “time” is

Football spaces and temporal politics

23

punitive (Foucault, 1977). The severity of crimes is measured by the length of time prisoners are incarcerated. In this scenario, this time becomes “dead”, bracketed or frozen, as the prisoner’s punishment is the process of being physically restricted whilst “waiting” for eventual release (Wilson, 2004). Prisoners can adapt to conditions in prison, pre-empting the possibility of early parole. Time can also be controlled in more elusive ways, as the Marxist-Historian E. P. Thompson (1967) famously explored. As part of the industrial revolution, he argued that labour was valued and fixed in relation to clock-time. For many workers, “time” shifted away from the vague “natural” and slow rhythms of agricultural work, to the rigorous, strict, clock-centric time of industrial work (Ingold, 1995; Landes, 1983). Labour and its exchange value radically changed from output orientated, e.g. the completion of daily and weekly tasks, to alienated, hourly labour. In other words, time is also money. However, as outlined by Gershuny (2005), there has been a shift in perception of time capital in relation to leisure. Whilst increased leisure time would once be seen as the ultimate badge of honour, a status symbol that differentiated the working class from those who purchased their labour, there now exists a perception of “busyness” or lack of free time as something to aspire to as it carries significant cultural capital. Whilst there has long been an association between the “respectable working class” and busyness, for example through the maintenance and cleanliness of the home (Álvarez-López, 2019), Gershuny’s argument hints at a new form of perceived busyness orientated around waged labour. The present neoliberal epoch has enabled the reconfiguration of the work–leisure relationship to “time” which, in turn, has resulted in perceived “busyness” becoming a powerful badge of honour and symbol of subordination amongst the working class. Leisure spaces are traditionally seen as a temporary escape from the shackles of work, as the human need for leisure time is critical in formulating a sense of agency against the backdrop of waged-labour. However, with the rise of precarious employment (see Standing, 2011), the significance of organised leisure spaces has dwindled in response to “work time” encroaching and filtering into previously established “leisure time”. In contrast, for people seeking asylum, who for the most part are excluded from paid employment, structured leisure time cannot be understood in relation to the temporal nature of waged labour. Instead, leisure time is understood in the context of enforced restrictions concerning mobility, belonging and temporality. Significantly in relation to forced migration, it is vital to recognise that neo-liberal “busyness” is an embodied process though the act of “movement” and the need to always be active and changing. Through an analysis of neo-liberal biopolitics, Ozolina-Fitzgerald argues that one is not supposed to sit around idly and wait. Constant movement and activity is the norm. At the same time, neo-liberal politics across the

24 Chris Webster and Khaled Abunaama

globe relegate many to waiting. Movement in the contemporary world is a privilege disguised as a norm. (2016, p.469). On a macro-level, privilege to move is all too familiar for those who are forced to migrate around the globe via irregular methods due to ever-increasing forms of border control that racially demarcate who can cross territorial borders (YuvalDavis et al., 2005). Control on mobility is also maintained in the everyday lives of forced migrants in the UK, as Home Office regulations dictate where people are dispersed to in the country whilst also enforcing controls around employment, welfare and housing, which render many forced migrants destitute and lacking the economic and social resources to move through everyday life (Hynes, 2011). Furthermore, “dead” time, or enforced “waiting time”, is seen both as an inconvenience to personal life and of the needs of Western neo-liberal capitalism. Life in the neo-liberal present is often characterised by a constant desire to accelerate time, to cut “time” that is not deemed productive to economic growth and to be cut free from the perceived shackles of waiting. For example, mobile networks and broadband companies are constantly trying to increase the speed of connectivity, even if by a matter of milliseconds, to reduce time spent waiting. Economic capital is often at the forefront of our desires to reduce time spent waiting: for example, the ability to pay for fast-track checkin or security checks at the airport to avoid the inconvenience of queuing (Tomlinson, 2007). Schwartz’s (1974, 1975) seminal texts critically explore the politics of “waiting” in society through an analysis of server–client relations. Schwartz concludes that time, in this case waiting, should be understood by sociologists as a valuable resource that works in accordance with the distribution of power. In other words, those who wield power are the distributors of waiting time. For example, in Javier Auyero’s (2012) ethnographic study about welfare provision in Argentina, he contends that waiting time for those seeking social support can be understood as the reproduction of political subordination by bureaucracies of the State. That is, those in power exercising political domination over their subjects by a number of means, for instance, forcing benefit claimants to queue in long lines at the welfare office before they can see a support advisor as well as, perhaps more crushingly, making them wait prolonged amounts of time to legitimately receive benefit payments. Cwerner (2004) outlines the relationship between power and time, specifically in relation to the UK asylum system, arguing that the volume and shifts in immigration legislation during the 1990s and early 21st century is evidence of various governments enacting temporal power through rigid social policies designed to deter so-called “bogus asylum seekers”. Crucially, Cwerner points to more nuanced and micro methods of temporal control, for example, the tempo and duration of Home Office asylum interviews. He suggests that the

Football spaces and temporal politics

25

rapid nature of the interviews contradicts and works asymmetrically to the needs of asylum seekers to draw upon memories, which often requires time and the patience of the interviewer. The “frenzied” nature of asylum interviews that Cwerner illustrates, although based on his 2001 research, is still relevant to exploring the asylum decision-making process today. In 2018, for example, a whistle-blower working as a caseworker for the Home Office described a targetbased culture, which was designed to clear a backlog of 10,000 asylum applications as quickly as possible (Brewer, 2018). On the wall in the office, the caseworkers were reminded of their targets by a picture of a car winding on a road towards the identified target. The car is not only a visual symbol of “progress” but also depicts the speed at which the Home Office wish to arbitrarily cross their pre-set “finish line”. Although Cwerner focuses primarily on social acceleration as temporal control, other literature addresses the perceived “slowness” of moving through the asylum system (Griffiths et al., 2013; Rotter, 2010). Often this perceived slowness is manifested in the temporal social process of waiting as a means to exercise control over someone in order to generate a feeling of insecurity and powerlessness. For example, the majority of applications for asylum are initially refused by the Home Office, often leading to prolonged appeal processes, which could take months and even years to resolve. For the participants included in this study, the shortest time spent waiting for an initial decision was 6 months, whilst another person was embroiled in the asylum system for over 9 years. Mayblin et al. (2019) argue that asylum seekers are subjected to “slow violence”, a type of violence that is attritional and long lasting, to the point where it appears less visible than more overt types of violence. Their analysis is firmly rooted in Achille Mbembe’s (2003) theorisation of sovereignty, which centres “race” and histories of colonialism in understanding how (necro) power is used to control political subjects. For Mbembe, contemporary sovereignty must be understood as necropolitics, which is summarised as “the capacity to define who matters and who does not, who is disposable and who is not” (2003, p.27). Crucially for research concerning forced migrants seeking asylum, Mbembe describes how a key attribute of necro-political violence is the act of being “kept alive but in a state of injury, in a phantomlike world of horrors and intense cruelty and profanity” (2003, p.21). Mayblin et al. (2019) highlight how the Home Office’s minimal support for those seeking asylum in the UK (Section 95), should be interpreted through the “slow violence” attributed to necropolitics. They address how the slow violence of asylum support can be found in everyday life (shopping, eating, socialising, clothing) and is, ultimately, a tool of subordination. Back and Sinha (2018) further describe this prolonged period of time waiting as a “temporal straitjacket” in that this becomes a period of time where the person clearly cannot return to the place they have fled but are, nevertheless, restricted from progressing or moving forward due to the restrictions of Section 95. Significantly, these restrictions include not being able to access employment

26 Chris Webster and Khaled Abunaama

(Parker, 2018). Back and Sinha’s metaphor of a temporal straitjacket is relevant in this research as the participants defined their time as a time of “uncertainty” and waiting “in limbo”.

Time in the UK: waiting, slowness and control When exploring their experiences in the UK, the participants who claimed asylum on arrival spent a vast amount of time waiting for a substantive asylum interview and, subsequently, a decision of the outcome in writing from the Home Office. Participants frequently described this juncture as “waiting in limbo” due to being uncertain how long they would have to endure waiting. This was articulated in a walking interview conducted with Samir. He said: Just I’m waiting. If the interview comes to me, I’m good. I’m just waiting and waiting. Sometimes I speak to my solicitor and say “what’s the problem?” and he just tells me to keep waiting and waiting. Home Office don’t give me an answer. All the time I just stay here in my house, you know? … In this country everything is chance, you’re just waiting, you have to be patient in this country. At the time of walking and talking with Samir, he had been waiting for over 15 months for the Home Office to interview him. During this time, he was unable to work and—despite his best efforts—had not been able to enrol in college to study English. Other research participants had similar experiences of waiting. For example, Mazen described the initial waiting stages as deeply frustrating, as the restrictions placed on him denied him the opportunity to do other things with his time. He claims: I had so much energy, I wanted to work, I wanted to help my family, I wanted to study and continue my study, but I was just waiting. And I hate waiting. I don’t like waiting. And you’re waiting and you don’t know what’s going to happen. For Mazen, his frustration was not limited to being forced to wait indefinitely by the Home Office without being able to fulfil the tasks that would allow him to feel a sense of self-worth (e.g. working). He also felt aggrieved that he did not know what he was waiting for as uncertainty surrounded both the time and nature of the eventual substantive asylum interview, and perhaps even more daunting, the Home Office’s decision on his asylum status. Schwartz (1975) describes this as the most extreme form of punitive waiting, “when a person is not only kept waiting but is also kept ignorant as to how long he must wait, or even what he is waiting for” (p.862). For many of the participants, this is where the Home Office’s control over “time” was most sharply felt.

Football spaces and temporal politics

27

I asked the participants what they do to fill this waiting time, which they often described to me as void. During a walking interview with Mazen, he took me to the house he first lived in, in an urban neighbourhood where the housing stock mainly included council flats and houses. As we stood outside his former house, his eyes were transfixed on the upstairs bedroom window. I asked him if the place brought back good or bad memories. He explained that it provided him with no real memories because he had “nothing to do”. He then stated “I slept a lot in that time, that’s why I was a bit chubby when we first met because I was eating and sleeping, eating and sleeping, eating and sleeping”. The centrality of sleep in order to fill “dead” time was echoed by Murad when he stated that he spent most of his days in Huddersfield, where he had been initially dispersed, sleeping. Just I slept as much as possible because I had nothing to do. The next day is always hard. It is hard going to sleep with that bad feeling of not knowing what you’re going to do the next day. Because you know the next day is going to be the same day again and again. For Murad, like many of the other participants receiving asylum support, the days often felt like they blurred into one. With a lack of temporal structure, due to the restrictions placed on him by the Home Office, his weeks passed with little punctuation, with no access to paid employment and with only restricted access to leisure spaces. This period of time can be described as what Griffiths (2014) refers to as “suspended time”. Whilst the context of Griffiths’ analysis was the brutality of UK immigration removal centres, “suspended time” captures what the participants experienced whilst awaiting a Home Office interview and subsequent decision; the stasis and monotonous nature of the temporal straitjacket. Often, those in this position could do nothing but fall into prolonged periods of inactivity and boredom, not able to legally access employment or further education opportunities. The suspension of time also prevented the participants from synchronising their days to the structures of wider society. This is summarised by the social anthropologist, Shahram Khosravi (2014), when they state that: Prolonged waiting, for papers or deportation, means “not being in-time with others”. For many others, Mondays represent “moving forward”, the first day of a meaningful week of work. In contrast, for undocumented migrants, Mondays mean “remaining at the same point”. Their time is not that of “ordinary” people. (Khosravi, 2014, para. 4) Participants regularly discussed how they felt out of sync with the rhythms of the rest of society. As noted by Gershuny (2005), “busyness” in these neo-liberal times is tantamount to a personal badge of honour, antithetical to

28 Chris Webster and Khaled Abunaama

perceived idleness regardless of whether it is enforced or not. For some participants, this was more severely felt than for others. Murad described his time in Huddersfield under Section 95 support as the “worst time in my life”. He described long periods of depression and isolation whilst waiting for the Home Office to inform him when his asylum interview would take place. Through the application of Section 95 support, necropolitics and temporal politics are intertwined and have a devastating impact on how people seeking asylum access sociable spaces of leisure. This is summarised by Murad when he outlines the effect of Section 95 support on his everyday life: I’m so social, if you leave me in a house in one room and I can’t do anything and I’ve just £37, do you think I can enjoy myself? I want to go out. £37 is just for eating, that’s it … It doesn’t get you far. For Murad, the slow material violence of Section 95 support is tied to temporal violence because it ensures that time spent waiting is as isolating and unsociable as possible. The combination of Section 95 support with open-ended waiting results in participants, such as Murad, imprisoned in their house. In turn, time spent waiting equates to time being subjected to the slow violence of the State. For one participant who spent years in the UK as an undocumented migrant attempting to live “off-the-grid”, time was more than temporarily suspended. As time is the medium by which we travel through our life-course, time for him felt stuck to the point of non-existence. Meanwhile, time for the people around him was moving on, however fractiously that may have been. Unable to get back into the system without facing the risk of deportation, he had to weigh up the costs of “feeling stuck in time” against choosing to make himself “visible” in the system with the hope of moving forward, one way or another, in time and in life.

Football inside the “straitjacket of time” Whilst all the participants expressed a desire to not spend their time “in limbo” but in more “productive” ways, the structural limitations prevented them from doing this. Instead, the participants pointed to the leisure space of FFA as a medium in which they could negotiate this period of suspended time with “something to look forward to”. The social significance of “something to look forward to” should not be overlooked. Having something to look forward to provides a temporal marker within a week that is otherwise unmoving. This is particularly the case during the period of time that the participants spent negotiating the “temporal straitjacket” of the asylum process. The routine aspect of FFA (every Sunday and Thursday) provides participants with temporal markers that they can use to claw through slow, dead, heavy and unpunctuated time. This was summarised by Mazen when he reflected on the significance of playing football on a weekly basis, especially during the period he was waiting for his case to be heard:

Football spaces and temporal politics

29

if you have nothing to do, like absolutely nothing, you are just waiting for Monday to go to pick up your money and to buy your food. So, if there is something going on Sunday, like something you like, like football, you can’t wait for it. This is significant because, for Mazen, the temporal markers of waiting are partially transformed from “waiting for the unknown”, or the dreaded, to something more positive. In turn, the temporal markers offered by FFA allows the participants to regain some degree of control over the speed of which time is experienced, rather than the Home Office being the sole arbiter of time. However, the temporal markers offered by FFA were still pertinent in the lives of the participants who had received temporary leave-to-remain. Khaled, the second author, spoke at length about the significance of football in order to mentally pull himself through the precarious nature of his part-time job in a restaurant within a busy metropolitan city centre that he barely knew. In the following quotation, Khaled conveys the emotional significance of “looking forward to football” as a way of countering the restrictions placed on him by not only the Home Office, but his employer too. I would just think “Damn, today is Wednesday, tomorrow I get to play football, the hell with it, tomorrow I get to play football, screw this place, screw it all, but let me get through today and then it’ll be okay”. Furthermore, Khaled would often tell his employer that he could not work on certain days because of prior commitments, treasuring the space of FFA by not giving his employer the power to also control his personal pleasure and leisure time. Arguably, for many of the participants like Khaled, the synchronicity of time at football is opposite to the asynchronicity of time of his daily life. Whilst football games at FFA are not formally timed in the same way league matches are, participants are still in tune with one another through the natural tempos and rhythms of the football game. Like most sports, football games have flows, they require people to be in tune with each other, to move at similar speeds, to attack, defend and counter in unison. Football matches are underpinned by multiple rhythms, and players are required to read and respond to those rhythms. A key part of this synchronicity is shaped by more adept footballers reading the tempo to slow it down or speed it up, to ensure that all players get time on the ball and feel equally engaged. As the football space is not exclusive to refugees and those seeking asylum, it enables participants to share a sense of time (through space) with people from the “host community”. Whilst there is no fundamental differences between footballers who are going through the asylum process and those who are not, the structural realities outlined above construct temporal inequalities that leave migrants feeling separated spatially, temporally, physically and mentally. Participating in football is a weekly opportunity to experience and exercise agency over

30 Chris Webster and Khaled Abunaama

temporal flows as a shared experience. Thus, FFA becomes a significant space for players to “share” time during a period of their lives that is ultimately conditioned by Section 95 of the Home Offices’ draconian asylum-seeking policies. Moreover, the space of FFA also contests many of the participant’s concerns about “time” spent waiting for a substantive asylum feeling directionless, as many expressed how the leisure space would act as a partial antidote to what is often described as “meaningless time”. For Samir, who only had very limited access to college at the time of conducting the research, FFA became one of the main spaces for him to meet people and learn English. When I come to play football with you it’s good for me. I get to practice English but I meet people too. When I stay in my house, I think it’s no good for me. I study for just one day at college and sometimes I go to charity on Thursday. We have maybe one hour of English. Samir’s reflections on FFA being “meaningful” and “productive” time were heavily supported in discussions with Yahya and Hayder, who found themselves in similar positions in regards to access for education. They each articulated how accessing FFA as a leisure space partially filled the void that was hollowed out by the stickiness of dead time as they could practice conversing in English beyond the rigidity of formal education. Consequently, many of the participants saw FFA as a space “beyond” football that allowed them to partially “progress” towards their social and educational goals in spite of the restrictions placed on them by the Home Office.

Flick of a switch: frantic time Whilst the participants expressed how their time was predominantly experienced as “dead”, “frozen” or “slow”, many expressed how the Home Office maintained the power to unexpectedly rupture it at any given moment. First, the rate of change, increase and amendments to immigration policies since 1993 means that immigration law is in a constant state of flux (Squire, 2009). This complexity often leaves those moving through the system in a state of dizziness and confusion. It could thus be argued that this frenzied approach to immigration policy-making is a macro-level form of deterrence. Second, frantic temporalities are also experienced by migrants on a micro, yet significant, level. For instance, time spent inside a detention centre is often experienced as slow, dead, punitive time, though it can be suddenly ruptured by the removal and deportation of people within a 72-hour window (Griffiths, 2014). This is an extreme example of how the Home Office is able to flick the switch or turn the dial from slow to fast. The increased speed is conducive to a sense of panic and renders the person particularly vulnerable due to having limited access to adequate support at such short notice.

Football spaces and temporal politics

31

Another key example of the Home Office “flicking the switch” on how time was experienced by the participants usually occurred when asylum seekers were successful in being granted refugee status. Even though they continue to receive Section 95 support (accommodation and weekly allowance) for a “grace period” of 28 days (Doyle, 2014), within this time they are also expected to find appropriate accommodation and employment (or access other forms of welfare from the Job Centre). Participants often described the initial jubilation of being granted legal safety by the Home Office as being short lived, as they suddenly found themselves in the equally precarious position of having the little support they were receiving removed, with limited access to any follow-up social support or financial aid. Here we see a very different form of temporal control from the Home Offices’ implementation of a short, precise and definite timescale of a 28-day “grace period” in direct contrast to the long, blurred and indefinite time experienced whilst waiting for an asylum interview and decision. Participants described how time went from slow to anxiety-inducing fast, becoming a race against “clocktime” to find a suitable job to pay for somewhere new to live. The move from one temporal extreme to another is where power deployed by the Home Office is most effective. It could be suggested further that the sharp transition period from “slow” to “fast” is a continuation of Mayblin et al.’s (2019) analysis of “slow” violence. Whilst spending time with the participants, I explored with them how they managed this period of frantic time. They described moving from a scenario where they were deliberately kept passive in their lives by the Home Office, forced to “idly” wait for a substantive interview or asylum decision, to one where they were expected to take full control as quickly as possible. The lack of support and guidance during this time leaves many susceptible to destitution. For example, during a walking interview with Mazen, he decided to take me to the city centre Job Centre to show me where he first accessed public funds as a refugee. This became a segue into a broader discussion about the 28-day grace period. The following is an excerpt taken from the walking interview with Mazen: You don’t know where you’re going—by then like, if I didn’t have connections, I would have been lost if you know what I mean? Not many landlords are going to give refugees or somebody who is not working and on benefits the chance to rent. Because you might be late to pay your rent and housing benefit isn’t that reliable. So it’s hard to find someone that will allow you to rent their house. Even the companies don’t like the housing benefits people. So my friend from football got a visa before me so I stayed with him for a bit. It is worth noting the relationship between FFA and Mazen’s ability to negotiate the frenzied time of the 28-day “grace period”, and how a friend of his at FFA allowed him to stay with him in order to stop him becoming destitute. Although this does not directly contest the temporal power wielded by the State, the

32 Chris Webster and Khaled Abunaama

meaningful connections that Mazen made through football enabled him to placate the effects of the “clock-ticking-down” on his 28-day “grace period”. In this sense, the friendships that were established at FFA were useful in mitigating the panic and anxiety induced by the Home Office.

Conclusion Whether it is slowing down or increasing the speed of the asylum process, it is clear that the State is a key arbiter of time for lives lived in the asylum system. The UK Home Office not only controls the speed of time to suit its own political ideologies, whims and targets, but additionally, does so whether it correlates with the needs of the persons claiming asylum or not. Temporal control thus enables the Home Office to shape the lives and circumstances of asylum seekers, in both tangible and intangible ways, to either deter them from accessing their basic entitlements to security and safety, and/or to slowly (and fatally) erode their hopes, desires, health and well-being. The Home Office achieves such de-humanising outcomes through two key periods of time: 1) time spent in “limbo” during the asylum process and 2) the immediacy of deportation and/ or frenzied nature of setting up a new life within a 28-day window. The Home Offices’ temporal power is not just confined to these two junctures, but sadly continues to be expressed throughout the lives of refugees (those granted asylum) in both macro and micro ways. For instance, whether it is in terms of waiting for an appeal hearing, applying for indefinite leave-to-remain, citizenship or, at any moment in time, being vulnerable to shifts in immigration policies, procedures and the everyday lingering threat of detention and/or deportation. Yet the Home Offices’ control over time is by no means absolute. As we argue in this chapter, the leisure space of FFA is significant to participants as it provides a platform for them to express their individual agency and re-structure the meaning of their time from “dead time” to “shared time”. Many of the participants whose testimonies we include in this chapter claim that FFA enabled them to take back control of time for themselves, outside of the restrictions placed upon them by the Home Office’s asylum rules, to play football, make friends, learn new skills and to experience their bodies as more than objects of asylum, but as human subjects with lives to live.

References Adam, B. (1990) Time and social Theory. Cambridge: Polity. Adam, B. (1995) Timewatch: The social analysis of time. Cambridge: Polity. Álvarez-López, V. (2019). Uncomfortable stains: cleaning labour, class positioning and moral worth among working-class Chilean women. The Sociological Review, 67 (4), 847–865. Auyero, J. (2012) Patients of the State: The Politics of Waiting in Argentina. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Football spaces and temporal politics

33

Back, L. and Sinha, S. with Bryan, C., Baraku, V. and Yembi, M. (2018) Migrant City. Routledge: London. Brewer, K. (2018) Asylum decision-maker: it’s a lottery. BBC News. Available at: https:// www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-43555766. (Accessed: 20th October 2019) Cwerner, S. B. (2001) Times of migration. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 27 (1), 7–36. Cwerner, S. B. (2004) Faster, faster and faster: the time politics of asylum in the UK. Time & Society, 13 (1), 71–88. Davidson, N. (2014) Pirates, Punks and Politics: FC St. Pauli: Falling in Love with a Radical Football Club. York: SportsBooks. Doyle, L. (2014) 28 days later: experiences of new refugees in the UK. Final report. London: Refugee Council. Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison. London: Allen Lane. Gershuny, J. (2005) Busyness as the badge of honor for the new superordinate working class. Social Research, 72 (2), 287–314. Griffiths, M., Rogers, A. and Anderson, B. (2013) Migration, time, temporalities: review and prospect. COMPAS research resources paper. Available at: https://www.compas. ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/RR-2013-Migration_Time_Temporalities.pdf. Griffiths, M. (2014) Out of time: the temporal uncertainties of refused asylum seekers and immigration detainees. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40 (12), 1991–2009. Hynes, P. (2011) The Dispersal and Social Exclusion of Asylum Seekers. Bristol: Polity Press. Ingold, T. (1995) Work, time and industry. Time & Society, 4 (1), 5–28. Khosravi, S. (2014) Waiting. Migration: A COMPAS Anthology. B. Anderson and M. Keith (eds.), COMPAS: Oxford. Landes, D. S. (1983) Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press (Harvard University Press). Lewis, H. (2015) Music, dancing and clothing as belonging and freedom among people seeking asylum in the UK. Leisure Studies, 34 (1), 42–58. Magee, J., Caudwell, J., Liston, K. and Scraton, S. eds. (2007) Women, Football and Europe: Histories, Equity and Experiences. Oxford: Meyer and Meyer. Mayblin, L., Wake, M. and Kazemi, M. (2019). Necropolitics and the slow violence of the everyday: asylum seeker welfare in the postcolonial present. Sociology, 54 (1), 107–123. Mbembe, A. (2003) Necropolitics. Public Culture, 15 (1), 11–40. Ozolina-Fitzgerald, L. (2016) A state of limbo: the politics of waiting in neo-liberal Latvia. The British Journal of Sociology, 67 (3), 456–475. Parker, S. (2018) “It’s ok if it’s hidden”: the discursive construction of everyday racism for refugees and asylum seekers in Wales. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 28 (3), 111–122. Rotter, R. (2010) “Hanging in-between”: experiences of waiting among asylum seekers living in Glasgow. PhD, Social Anthropology. University of Edinburgh: Scotland. Schwartz, B. (1974) Waiting, exchange and power: the distribution of time in social systems. American Journal of Sociology, 79 (4), 841–870. Schwartz, B. (1975) Queuing and Waiting: Studies in the Social Organization of Access and Delay. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Squire, V. (2009) The Exclusionary Politics of Asylum. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Standing, G. (2011) The Precariat: The Dangerous New Class. New York: Bloomsbury. Thompson, E. P. (1967) Time, work-discipline, and industrial capitalism. Past and Present, 36: 52–97.

34 Chris Webster and Khaled Abunaama Tomlinson, J. (2007) The Culture of Speed: The Coming of Immediacy. London: Sage. Wilson, A. (2004) “Four Days and a Breakfast: Time, Space and Literacy/ies in the Prison Community.” In Spatializing Literacy Research and Practice, edited by K. M. Leander and M. Sheehy, 67–90. New York: Peter Lang. Yuval-Davis, N., Anthias, F. and Kofman, E. (2005) Secure borders and safe haven and the gendered politics of belonging: beyond social cohesion. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 28 (3), 515–535.

Chapter 3

A spatial-phenomenological analysis of asylum-seeking women’s engagement in a cycling recreation program Shahrzad Mohammadi Introduction My first contact with refugee accommodation dates back to 2015, when I visited the most populated shared accommodation center in the German city of Freiburg to watch the training sessions of a football project for refugee kids. After a short chat with a trainer, I realized that the majority of the kids in the project spent most of their lives at the center. In fact, some of them were even born in that accommodation center. At the end of the training session, while the kids were leaving, a group of men entered the playground and started playing basketball. The most striking point about my visit was the absence of women, not only close to the playground but also outside of the buildings. The accommodation center was located inside the city but felt like an extremely isolated place. The fences that enclosed it created a prison-like atmosphere that minimized the residents’ connection with the outer world. Many scholars, inspired by Agamben (1998) and Auge (1995), referred to refugee camps and accommodation centers as ‘zones of indistinction’ or ‘nonplaces’ (see e.g., Diken & Laustsen, 2005; Diken, 2004), where asylum seekers ‘lead a life in a permanent state of exception’ (Agamben, 1998). Conversely, a growing body of research criticizes the dominating description of refugee camps as spaces of exceptions and refugees as ultimate ‘biopolitical’ subjects (see e.g., Owens, 2009; Turner, 2016). For example, Fresia and Von Känel (2016) argued that ‘camp life could never be completely reduced to bare life and refugees are not passive victims’. Hartmann (2017), in her study on the situation of women in refugee centers in Germany, acknowledged various restrictions and limitations that refugee centers impose on women. However, she reminded us that reducing people living in those spaces to victims neglects the variety of everyday experiences and people’s creativity and agency in shaping them. Similarly, Ghorashi et al., (2018, 373) indicated how the experience of living in the liminal space of asylum seeker centers provides ‘an intensified doubleness of impossibility and possibility for action’. Their findings revealed the possibility of transforming non-places into those in which existential meanings can emerge (even if partial). As a matter of fact, even institutionalized spaces, like refugee accommodation DOI: 10.4324/9780429341045-4

36 Shahrzad Mohammadi

centers with often strict regulations, can be subject to appropriation and transformation by various social agents. Implementing a phenomenological analysis, this chapter aims to reflect on the lifeworld ‘existentials’—spatiality, corporeality, temporality and relationality (Van Manen, 1990; Merleau-Ponty, 1962)—of four asylum-seeking women who have lived in refugee accommodation centers in Germany and engaged in a physical activity-based recreation program (Bike Bridge) as participants and/or volunteers. It aims to examine their urban spatial experiences—both within and outside of the accommodation centers—and the ways they have contested, negotiated and appropriated those spaces through their leisure pursuits. My analysis is structured and guided by Lefebvre’s spatial triad model, which conceptualizes space dialectically through its perceived, conceived and lived dimensions.

The social production of space Henri Lefebvre (1991), in his book The Production of Space, argued that space is a social product, which affects spatial practices and perceptions. He theorized a tripartite production of space that is dialectically interconnected: spatial practice (perceived space), representations of space (conceived space) and representational space (lived space). Spatial practice refers to the cohesive patterns and places of social activity, including daily routes and routines that produce and reproduce space (Lefebvre, 1991, 38). Representations of space are the conceptualized space of scientists, planners, urbanists and dominant social groups (Lefebvre, 1991, 38). These spaces have a substantial role and a significant influence in the production of space: ‘A conceived space is a place for the practices of social and political power; in essence, it is these spaces that are designed to manipulate those who exist within them’ (Lefebvre, 1991, 222). Representational space, on the other hand, is the space of inhabitants and users. It is the passively experienced space, which the imagination seeks to change and appropriate (Lefebvre, 1991, 39). It is, thus, both the space of the experienced and the space of the imagination, as lived. These lived spaces are realms where dominant meanings, uses and understandings of space are challenged, negotiated and changed through practice by all those who do not have the power to create and demarcate their own spaces. The spatial triad model helps us to clarify the social patterns that produce the abstract space; ‘urban spaces of state-regulated neo-capitalism characterized by their commodified exchange value and their tendency to homogenization’ (Leary-Owhin, 2015, 69; Lefebvre, 1991, 49–53), which Lefebvre attempted to transcend. He presented the idea of differential space that would dissolve the social relations of abstract space and generate new, heterogeneous relations that accentuate difference and ‘shatter the integrity of the individual body, the social body, the corpus of human needs and the corpus of knowledge’ (Lefebvre, 1991, 52).

Analysis of engagement in a cycling program

37

Lefebvre views different forms of social construction, such as class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality and age, as central to the production of space. It is exactly these characteristics that the homogenizing tendency of the abstract space tends to erase. Differential space, however, inclines to preserve and accentuate those social constructions, making sure the right to the city involves not only the right to public space, but also ‘the right to be different, the right not to be classified forcibly into categories determined by homogenizing power’ (Borden et. al., 2001, 7). Lefebvre further emphasizes the centrality of the body in the process of producing differential space: ‘the “quest for a counter-space” must arise from individual bodies themselves, through the appropriation of space and the exercise of the ability to invent new forms of space’ (Stewart, 1995, 615). The centrality of the body in Lefevbre’s conception of social space, however, remains obscure and unmarked by any kind of social categories, as he did not provide any detailed explanation of the subject of his philosophy—‘Which body are we talking about?’ or ‘Whose body?’ (Kinkaid, 2020, 168). In order for us to understand the role embodied difference plays in Lefebvre’s conception of spatial politics, we need to approach his work through a phenomenological lens (Kinkaid, 2020). Inspired by Kinkaid (2020), I draw on critical phenomenology, particularly on the work of Merleau-Ponty (1962), to study Lefebvre’s conception of social space from the perspective of minority subjects. Kinkaid (2020, 168) argued that ‘a critical phenomenology of social space serves as a starting point for articulating the ways that different kinds of bodies—marked by race, gender, sexuality, disability, and other forms of social difference— encounter space differently, embodying and enacting its ruptures and contradictions’. Critical phenomenology goes beyond classical phenomenology by ‘engaging with social and political analyses of particular, historically situated social relations’ (Guenther, 2013, xxviii), and by foregrounding ‘issues of social justice, of racial inequality, of gender and sexuality, of incarceration’ (Salamon, 2018, 17). In this regard, Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological perspective is more concerned with embodiment and attempts to understand the production of meaning, space, time, action and intersubjectivity through the first-person experience of embodied subjects situated in space (Kinkaid, 2020). Combining phenomenological and spatial perspectives, the study aims to shed light on the ways in which bodies marked by gender, race and ethnicity experience spaces differently, and negotiate and strive to produce a counterspace. The chapter is organized as follows: first, a brief description of the research context and methodology is provided. Then, drawing on Lefebvre’s spatial triad model, I discuss the perceived and conceived spaces of refugee accommodation centers. Lastly, I examine the women’s lived experiences of partaking in Bike Bridge and investigate the ways they appropriate and negotiate spaces through active leisure.

38 Shahrzad Mohammadi

Context of the study According to the statistics provided by the city of Freiburg, in 2017, 3236 people were living in urban refugee accommodation centers in Freiburg. Of this number, 2390 people were accommodated in so-called community accommodation for refugees (Gemeinschaftsunterkunft) and 846 people in privately rented apartments (Wie Viele Flüchtlinge Leben in Freiburg ?, n.d.). After their registration, asylum seekers are obliged to live in the community accommodation centers for a maximum of 24 months for the duration of the asylum procedure. After two years, there is a legal possibility to move into a privately rented apartment (if available) (Wie Wohnen Flüchtlinge? n.d.). My five months of ethnographic fieldwork in the most populated community accommodation center back in 2015 led to the initiation of Bike Bridge in the eco-friendly city of Freiburg. Bike Bridge is a non-governmental and voluntarybased community leisure organization targeting, primarily, (newly arrived) female asylum seekers and refugees. The main objectives of Bike Bridge are to combat social isolation of refugees and asylum-seeking women, foster their spatial and social mobility, and enable community cohesion, mainly through recreational biking. In summer 2016, Bike Bridge offered a pilot course near the most populated refugee center in Freiburg, with ten participants and ten volunteer trainers. Bike & Belong cycle courses are the main activity of the organization, where women learn how to ride a bicycle with the support of volunteers. Bike Bridge also organizes various collective recreational activities like open trainings, bike excursions and picnics for locals, newcomers and their families, as well as communal cooking events and multicultural festivals. In the fifth year after the initiation of Bike Bridge, it organizes leisure activities in a number of cities in Germany (Freiburg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Hamburg). To date, over 500 asylum-seeking and refugee women have taken part in the leisure activities provided by Bike Bridge in different cities. Additionally, over 50 women with a forced migration background have contributed in the program as volunteers and co-creators of leisure practices for other female refugees.

Methods and reflexivity To investigate the ways the women in this study make meaning of their lives lived in the asylum system, and to understand their lived bodily experiences, I engaged a ‘double-hermeneutic’ whereby I decoded and interpreted the meanings that the women impressed upon their experiences (Smith et al., 2009). During this process, I tried to temporarily push aside my judgements, ontological assumptions and previous experiences to probe the ‘is-ness’ of the phenomenon further (Finlay, 2014). I strived to be as open and curious as possible to the participants’ accounts and descriptions, while also being reflexively mindful of the ways my own position, personal background and field experiences as a co-founder and co-coordinator of Bike Bridge, a recreational road

Analysis of engagement in a cycling program

39

cyclist and a Middle Eastern female researcher with a (voluntary) immigration background might influence the process of knowledge production. Therefore, I kept a reflective journal throughout the research process that assisted my reflections and interpretations. However, as Merleau-Ponty states, a complete and absolute phenomenological reduction is impossible: ‘we are caught up in the world and we do not succeed in extricating ourselves from it in order to achieve consciousness of it’ (1962). To collect data for the study, I conducted conversational interviews (McConnell-Henry et al., 2010; Quinney et al., 2016) with four female asylum seekers aged between 19 and 45 from Afghanistan and Somalia. A conversational (unstructured) form of interview was selected in order to implement inductive epistemology to the fullest extent (Smith et al., 2009). Since the primary concern of phenomenology is to provide a detailed account of individual experiences, I deliberately kept the sample size small. This allowed me to develop meaningful points of similarity and differences across cases (Smith et al., 2009). Besides the willingness of the participants, two important criteria for selecting the narrators were their ability to voice their lived experiences in Dari or English and an enduring engagement (at least two years) in Bike Bridge as participants and/or volunteers. All narrators were Muslims. One was married and had children, one was separated and two were single. All the women were living in refugee accommodation centers in either Freiburg or its surroundings at the time of the interviews. All the participants were informed about my multiple roles at Bike Bridge, and my role as a researcher and the purpose of the study were thoroughly communicated during the recruitment of participants for the study and prior to the interviews when they gave their written consent to partake in the study. The interviews were conducted over an extended period of two years (2018–2019). To develop more detailed and multifaceted accounts, I interviewed three of the women multiple times. Based on the women’s preferences, two interviews were held in their living spaces in the accommodation centers and five interviews (including the three follow-ups) were conducted in my apartment. I interviewed the Afghan participants in Dari and the Somali women in English after explaining the purpose of the study. Prior to the interviews, I offered the women the right to withdraw at any time during or after the interviews. All interviews were recorded in audio and, in accordance with ethical standards, anonymity was promised prior to each interview and pseudonyms were used. Although my pre-existing relationships with the women benefited the interviews by speeding up the process of initiating trust and developing rapport, it also caused dilemmas. The challenge was to integrate the pre-existing knowledge about the participants that was gained during my contribution in Bike Bridge as a coordinator and volunteer trainer—and not a researcher— into the data collection process. To overcome this challenge, as suggested by McConnell-Henry et al. (2010), I framed the interview questions with my

40 Shahrzad Mohammadi

pre-existing knowledge and discussed them with the participants. By doing so, I openly acknowledged any presumptions and tried to reduce the risk of the participant leaving something out of the story in the belief that I already know certain information (McConnel-Henry et al., 2010). The interviewer–interviewee power relationship was fluid during the interviews. Sharing characteristics such as gender, socio-cultural experiences, ethnicity and language (with two participants) provided a comfortable atmosphere to exchange information and stories. Additionally, during the interviews conducted in English with the two Somali women, the power relations were evened up by the fact that English was neither the native language of myself as the researcher, nor the participants. Therefore, the women were not in the position of linguistic subordination in the interview process (Bourdieu, 1996). As mentioned above, in my purposive sampling, I made sure to select research participants who have a good command of English or Dari, being mindful of the crucial role language plays in qualitative inquiries in general, and in phenomenological investigations in particular. Although my ‘insider’ status was emphasized by the women—particularly when they shared stories about their homelands—by such statements as ‘you understand what I’m talking about … we share a similar cultural background’, I found myself occupying the space between the ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ positions (Dwyer & Buckle, 2009). Listening to the women as they talked about their forced migration trajectories, I realized that I could not directly relate to their migration journeys and (re)settlements. My voluntary immigration and settlement as a postgraduate student differed significantly to theirs. Furthermore, I have neither lived in a refugee accommodation— despite my weekly visits to a camp for five months in 2015—nor was I fully aware of various legal, social and spatial restrictions imposed on people holding asylum seeker’s and/or refugee’s status. Listening to the women’s stories, I also recognized how being ‘different’ on a bike (wearing a veil/hijab) has such a great influence on the ways the women perceived and lived the (public) urban spaces. The aforementioned information and perspectives were new to me, triggering my curiosity even more and broadening my horizons. By openly communicating this with the women, I tried to show them that their experiences and stories could create a better understanding for those who have never been in their situation, including me. By doing so, the women became more motivated to share experiences in detail and assert their own knowledge/power as ‘knowledgeable informants’ in the interviews (D’Cruz, 2000). During the interviews, the women would also show me that they did not want to be merely passive givers of information, by raising questions about my homeland and experiences in Germany: ‘Did you also come to Germany as a refugee? Did you learn how to ride a bike here? Do women ride a bike in Iran?’ This exchange of information made the atmosphere more relaxed and evinced the dynamic power relations within the interviews.

Analysis of engagement in a cycling program

41

Findings and discussion Perceived and conceived spaces: everyday lives in the refugee accommodation centers The settlement in a women-only accommodation center permitted the two Somali women, Rojin and Najva, to experience a sense of relief. Their precarious journeys to Germany took over a year. Rojin, a 19-year-old woman, fled her homeland after being forced by her parents to become the fourth wife of an elderly man. On the way to Germany she had a few short stops in Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan and Chad, as well as a few temporary settlements in Libya, Italy and Switzerland. Upon her arrival to Germany she spent a few months in an initial reception center (Erstaufnahmeeinrichtung) before she was finally accommodated in a women-only dormitory out of Freiburg. Rojin perceives the accommodation as a ‘safe’ place where she can finally have some level of control over her life: I don’t know the [German] language yet, nor have I many friends out there [outside of the accommodation]. But I feel safe and comfortable here. That’s all that matters to me now … I can plan my life the way I want, not the way my parents and the community wanted it back in Somalia. During the week, she spent most of her time out of the center as she attended language classes in Freiburg. Her everyday mobility was facilitated by the government covering the transportation costs while she was taking part in the official language courses. This granted right to access free transport has also made it easier for her to join the Bike Bridge program. Unlike Rojin, everyday spatial practices of Najva, a 29-year-old separated woman from Mogadishu, were legally restricted, since her asylum-seeking application was not yet approved when I interviewed her for the first time. Due to her uncertain legal status, she was neither allowed to attend the official German classes nor had access to free transport. Despite the legal and financial barriers, she managed to travel twice a week, for over an hour, to Freiburg to take part in the Bike & Belong course. I got to know her while visiting a Bike & Belong training session in 2018. She piqued my curiosity because she was the only participant sitting on a bench, observing others and not really partaking in the training. I started our short conversation by asking her if she would like to join the training, to which she replied: ‘I would love to! But I had an operation 10 days ago and my doctor has forbidden me to ride a bike at least for two weeks’. At the end of the Bike & Belong course, when I interviewed her, I raised a couple of questions about our first conversation. I wanted to find out what

42 Shahrzad Mohammadi

inspired her to travel to Freiburg and join the trainings despite being on her post-surgery recovery: It was so much fun joining the training. Even when I was only sitting and watching other women learning how to ride. The atmosphere was so good and everyone was friendly and helpful. I also thought it’s the best way to get out of the Heim [refers to the accommodation center]. When I asked her how she felt about living in the accommodation, she said: It felt great in the beginning, when I was new here [Germany]. After a very long and rough journey, I was able to settle. I still feel comfortable, but sometimes I get bored of the slow pace of my life here … I used to work as a nurse in a hospital in Somalia. Now I have to wait and see what the future holds. But I am optimistic. The two Afghan narrators also experienced boredom and a temporary depressive mood in the refugee accommodation. Nikoo, a 45-year-old married woman from Herat, explained: ‘I sometimes just get bored of spending most of my time in the accommodation, doing the household chores and hearing other women talking about their problems in the kitchen … It makes me feel down’. To escape those negative feelings, as suggested by her husband, she tried to learn how to ride a bicycle: Before attending Bike Bridge, I tried to learn biking with the help of my husband. I wanted to be able to leave the Heim even for a few hours per day and join my husband in his bike tours around the city. Rahil, a 24-year-old single woman, joined Bike Bridge in 2018 as a volunteer to do something ‘meaningful’ in her spare time: I was a midwife in Afghanistan. I’ve tried to find a similar work here in Germany but haven’t been successful so far … Spending a lot of time indoors made me feel depressed. So, I decided to join Bike Bridge to have fun, find friends and at the same time enable other women to learn cycling. As suggested by scholars (see e.g., Turner, 2016) and indicated in the accounts of the women, living in the refugee camps and accommodation involves a temporal dimension besides a spatial dimension: Just as they are lodged spatially between the open and the closed, camps exist between the temporary and the permanent. From the outset, camps

Analysis of engagement in a cycling program

43

are understood as having a limited, although sometimes indeterminate, duration. (Hailey, 2009, 4) Asylum-seeking applicants who have not yet been granted a protection status in Germany are often practically confined to the accommodation centers/camps for extended periods of time, and face various limitations on the right to housing, work, education and free movement. In fact, as Hartmann (2017, 111) argued: ‘this conceived dimension of the production of space(s) that fuels the original exclusion logic – the distinction between the ones inside and outside the centers, between the so-called refugees and the citizens’. Despite periodically experiencing boredom and depressive moods, however, the four women in the study perceived the accommodation centers as transit zones. They repeatedly accentuated the temporariness of their lives in the liminal space of the centers and envisioned a better life outside of the accommodations. This was manifested, for instance, during the first interview with Najva, which took place in my apartment. She stated: as soon as I get my residence permit, I’ll try to find a job and a small apartment like here. I’ll move out of the Heim and try to build a good life. How much rent do you pay for your apartment? To distract themselves from negative thoughts and feelings caused, among other things, by their temporary suspensions, spatial and legal restrictions, and lack of social contact with the outer world, the women were actively looking for leisure opportunities outside of the accommodations (see also Hurly, 2018; Waardenburg et al., 2018). Transforming spaces of suspension and isolation to spaces of solidarity Despite the spatial and temporal peculiarities of the camps, the participants were able to re-appropriate those spaces and create spaces of solidarity and empowerment through their leisure pursuits. Inspired by those women who learned cycling through Bike Bridge, a number of refugee and asylum-seeking women in the accommodation centers have also shown interest in partaking in Bike Bridge. Nikoo explained how she was asked by over ten women in her accommodation to register them in the program: I told them about the great experience that I had in Bike Bridge and how cycling has improved my mood. Many women in the accommodation are looking for such positive and fun experiences. So they asked me to speed up the registration process for them since there is always a long waiting list for those who would like to join.

44 Shahrzad Mohammadi

Similarly, Najva narrated how a few Somali women in her accommodation become motivated to learn cycling after seeing her using her bike as a means of transportation: Once three Somali women asked me if they could borrow my bike and help each other to learn cycling when I am not using it. I saw them a couple of times in the Heim, trying to learn cycling. They couldn’t make it. So I suggested them to join Bike Bridge. Two of them attended the same course where I was volunteering as a Kinderbetreuerin [child caregiver]. Najva volunteered in a couple of Bike & Belong courses as a child caregiver in 2019 after learning cycling through Bike Bridge in 2018. She perceives volunteering as a way to enable other refugee and asylum-seeking women to join the program, be physically active and have fun: When I join Bike Bridge last year, some women in our Heim were also interested to learn cycling but weren’t able to join the courses. They didn’t have access to Kinderbetreuung [childcare]. This year, when I heard Bike Bridge is looking for volunteers for Kinderbetreuung, I registered my name. I wanted to help other women to join, learn something and have fun.

Figure 3.1 A volunteer trainer helps a participant to master the skill of cycling. Source: courtesy of Felix Groteloh

Analysis of engagement in a cycling program

45

The narratives also outlined how encouraging others to join the program goes beyond the spatial boundaries of the accommodation centers. The participants would also inform and motivate female family members like sisters, cousins and in-laws, who often lived outside of the accommodations or in other cities, to participate in different leisure practices available to them. Rahil and Najva are cases in point. Rahil motivated her sister-in-law to join the program as a volunteer and contribute to Bike Bridge alongside her in 2019. Najva recommended her friend (an asylum-seeking woman from Somalia) in Frankfurt take part in the trainings of Bike Bridge offered in Frankfurt and learn cycling. ‘Making space’: reclaiming public space and challenging stereotypical views If a woman rode a bike in my country, the community would say, that girl or woman is immodest and indecent … in our community, if people talk behind a girl’s back, then that’s a problem. She will lose her reputation! (Najva)

In the participants’ homelands, socio-cultural constraints and community pressures discouraged women to ride bicycles. Those hurdles, as explained by the four narrators, often restrict women’s mobility and their leisure time (physical) activities in urban public spaces, such as parks, playgrounds and streets (see also Mohammadi, 2019; Ravensbergen, 2020), and confine them to the private sphere of their households. In this regard, Green et al., (1990, 131) stated that ‘a significant aspect of the social control of women’s leisure is the regulation of their access to public places, and their behavior in such places’. The studies of Moghadam (2002) and Masood (2017) on women’s status in Afghanistan and Pakistan respectively, provide a clear insight into how women’s mobility and their access to public spaces have long been regulated through the gender-based system of honor and shame: The honor of a household is inextricably linked to the reputation of the women who live there. The reputation in turn is sealed by the public display of shame. Shame is an index of female reputation; just as honor is an index of male … having shame involves having, or displaying the requisite reticence in public places. Shame is therefore connected to women[’s] association with the domestic domain of the house itself, and sometimes involves almost complete female seclusion. (Mitchell, 1996, 423) One way to manage the reputation of individual women is through the collective sanction of local gossip that links individuals to wider society (Mitchell, 1996, 424). The effectivity of gossip in dictating certain behaviors has been reported in various research in both Western and non-Western

46 Shahrzad Mohammadi

contexts (see e.g., Masood, 2017; Ehrkamp, 2013; Pitt-Rivers, 1961). It was also clearly manifested in the accounts of the participants in the study. A partial removal of the perceived barriers and the communal pressures postimmigration, therefore, has facilitated the women’s access to public space, and provided opportunities for their cycling for recreational and transportation purposes (see also Ravensbergen et al., 2020). Nikoo, Rojin and Najva narrated how some inhabitants of their accommodations and members of their ethnic groups look up to them because they have learned how to ride a bike in Germany and are using them on a daily basis. However, the remoteness from the country of origin does not fully liberate women from the community pressures. As some scholars (Dwyer, 1999, 2000; Freeman, 2005; Radcliffe, 1990) have demonstrated, female migrants’ bodies are also patrolled by their ethnic groups in receiving countries and are used to mark community boundaries. This was unfolded in the narrative of Nikoo. She believed not everyone in her accommodation is pleased to see a Muslim woman with a veil biking around the city: once an Afghan man in the Heim stopped my husband and criticized him for allowing me to wear jeans and cycle around the city. He believed cycling is not an appropriate activity for a Muslim woman. But we just ignore such comments in general here [in Germany]. The findings in this section draw attention to the significance of socially constructed women’s morality and the spatialization of moral codes of behavior in shaping women’s everyday mobility, notably in their respective homelands but also in diaspora (Freeman, 2005; Silvey, 2000). In this sense, accommodation centers can be sometimes perceived as a site of surveillance and enactment of traditional gendered norms. However, those spaces, along with urban public space, can concurrently be sites of everyday resistance for some women to challenge and negotiate the patriarchal ideas through their embodied spatial practices like cycling. The merit of cycling in this context is that it produces a unique urban subjectivity. As mentioned by Furness (2014, 322), ‘it transforms “out there” to “right here”, inasmuch as it disarticulates autonomous mobility from the privatized experience of the automobile and rearticulates it to a more visceral experience of the urban’. Besides the gender-based stigmas discussed above, the women reported another important issue, namely racial/ethnic-based stereotypes, which affected the ways they experienced urban public spaces in the receiving country. Contemporary political, media and public discourses in Western Europe tend to produce a homogenous space (abstract space), where all female members of different racial and ethnic groups and nationalities (Muslims, Turkish, Kurdish etc.) are lumped together and portrayed as the victims of their culture (Ehrkamp, 2010, 2013; Razack, 2008; Reddy, 2008).

Analysis of engagement in a cycling program

47

Figure 3.2 A Bike Bridge participant learns how to ride a bike with the support of a volunteer in Freiburg. Source: courtesy of Felix Groteloh

This is particularly notable in the case of migrant women who are Muslims and wear the veil (Koyuncu Lorasdag˘ı, 2009). Muslim women’s spatial practices of veiling in public are often regarded as proof of migrants’ lack of integration or commitment to liberal democracy (El Hamel, 2002; Ehrkamp 2010, 2013). This was also evident in the accounts of the women in this study. Rojin recalled a situation where she was approached and commented on by a white middle-aged man because she was riding a bike while wearing a veil: Once I cycled to the local supermarket. While I was parking my bike in front of it, a man approached me, raised his thumb and said, ‘it is great that you cycle’. I think he said that because I wear a hijab. Here people are not used to seeing Muslim women with a hijab on a bike. Najva recounted a similar experience when her language teacher once told her that she is not a ‘typical Eastern woman’ because she participated in activities like riding a bike and volunteering in Bike Bridge. However, all the participants believed that they challenged the implicit and explicit stereotypical views on ‘Eastern women’, ‘Muslim women with a hijab’ and ‘refugee women’ in the host community, by normalizing activities like cycling in public space and volunteering, while adhering to their

48 Shahrzad Mohammadi

religious beliefs and wearing a hijab: ‘we make a good impression on them [Germans]. We can be like them, even if we wear a hijab’ (Rahil). In the Lefebvrian sense, these women try to contest and bodily re-appropriate the abstract space of the host community—with its homogenizing tendency—and produce differential spaces and embodiments.

Conclusion Through my contribution and regular contact with a couple of accommodation centers in Freiburg, I was able to see the efforts of many women— and men—to escape the disorientation, boredom and negative feelings experienced in a liminal space. Many inhabitants of the centers have actively tried to appropriate not only the isolated space of the centers but also the urban public spaces. Combining Lefebvre’s spatial theory with a critical phenomenology in the study enabled me to divulge the multidimensionality of those struggles. It provided a valuable framework to reflect on the spatial politics of non-normative embodiment, and the ways the bodies of refugee women—marked by race, ethnicity and gender—experienced spaces of refugee accommodation centers and urban public space, negotiated and strived to produce a counter-space through their leisure pursuits. The accounts of the participants in the study indicated how they re-negotiated the traditional gender norms experienced in their homeland, and in the refugee’s accommodation centers in the host country. They reclaim urban public spaces through their embodied spatial practices. Concurrently, by normalizing activities like cycling and volunteering while adhering to the practice of veiling, they challenged the implicit and explicit stereotypical views on ‘Eastern women’, ‘Muslim women with a hijab’ and ‘refugee women’ in the local community. In this sense, they attempted to bodily reappropriate the abstract space of the host community—with its homogenizing tendency—and produce differential spaces and embodiments. In fact, the spatially and socially isolated space of refugee centers have become spaces of solidarity, where women inspire, encourage and enable each other to participate in available leisure opportunities.

References Agamben, G. (1998). Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford University Press. Auge, M. (1995). Non-Places: Introduction to An Anthropology of Supermodernity (J. Howe, Trans.). Verso. Borden, I., Kerr, J., Rendell, J., & Pivaro, A. (2001). The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Social Space: A Strangely Familiar Project. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bourdieu, P. (1996). Understanding. Theory, Culture & Society, 13(2), 17–37. doi:10.1177/026327696013002002.

Analysis of engagement in a cycling program

49

D’Cruz, H. (2000). Social work research as knowledge/power in practice. Sociological Research Online, 5(1). http://www.socresonline.org.uk/5/1/dcruz.html. Diken, B., & Laustsen, C. (2005). The Culture of Exception: Sociology Facing the Camp. Routledge. Diken, B. (2004). From refugee camps to gated communities: biopolitics and the end of the city. Citizenship Studies, 8(1), 83–106. doi:10.1080/1362102042000178373. Dwyer, C. (1999). Contradictions of community: questions of identity for young British Muslim women. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 31(1), 53–68. doi:10.1068/a310053. Dwyer, C. (2000). Negotiating diasporic identities. Women’s Studies International Forum, 23(4), 475–486. doi:10.1016/S0277-5395(00)00110–00112. Dwyer, S. C. & Buckle, J. L. (2009). The space between: on being an insider-outsider in qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 8(1), 54–63. Ehrkamp, P. (2010). The limits of multicultural tolerance? Liberal democracy and media portrayals of Muslim migrant women in German. Space and Polity, 14(1), 13–32. Ehrkamp, P. (2013). ‘I’ve had it with them!’ Younger migrant women’s spatial practices of conformity and resistance. Gender, Place & Culture, 20(1), 19–36. doi:10.1080/0966369X.2011.649356. El Hamel, C. (2002). Muslim diaspora in Western Europe: the Islamic headscarf (hijab), the media and Muslims’ integration in France. Citizenship Studies, 6(3), 293–308. Finlay, L. (2014). Engaging phenomenological analysis. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 11(2), 121–141. doi:10.1080/14780887.2013.807899. Freeman, A. (2005). Moral geographies and women’s freedom: Rethinking freedom discourse in the Moroccan context. In Ghazi-Walid Fallah & Caroline Nagel (Eds.), Geographies of Muslim Women: Gender, Religion and Space. The Guilford Press. Fresia, M., & Von Känel, A. (2016). Beyond space of exception? Reflections on the camp through the prism of refugee schools. Journal of Refugee Studies, 29(2), 250– 272. doi:10.1093/jrs/fev016. Furness, Z. (2014). Bicycles. In P. Adey, D. Bissell, K. Hannam, P. Merriman, & M. Sheller (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Mobilities. Routledge. Ghorashi, H., de Boer, M., & ten Holder, F. (2018). Unexpected agency on the threshold: asylum seekers narrating from an asylum seeker center. Current Sociology, 66(3), 373–391. doi:10.1177/0011392117703766. Green, E., Hebron, S., & Woodward, D. (1990). Women’s Leisure: What Leisure? Macmillan Education. Guenther, L. (2013). Solitary Confinement: Social death and Its Afterlives. University of Minnesota Press. Hailey, C. (2009). Camps—Guide to 21st-century Space. MIT Press. Hartmann, M. (2017). Spatializing inequalities: The situation of women in refugee centers in Germany. In S. Buckley-Zistel & U. Krause (Eds.), Gender, Violence, Refugees (Vol. 37, pp. 102–126). Berghahn. Hurly, J. (2018). ‘I feel something is still missing’: leisure meanings of African refugee women in Canada. Leisure Studies, 38(1), 1–14. Kinkaid, E. (2020). Re-encountering Lefebvre: toward a critical phenomenology of social space. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 38(1), 167–186. doi:10.1177/0263775819854765.

50 Shahrzad Mohammadi Koyuncu Lorasdag˘ı, B. (2009). The headscarf and ‘resistance identity-building’: a case study on headscarf-wearing in Amsterdam. Women’s Studies International Forum, 32(6), 453–462. Leary-Owhin, M. E. (2015). A fresh look at Lefebvre’s spatial triad and differential space: a central place in planning theory? Presented at 2nd Planning Theory Conference. University of the West of England. doi:10.13140/RG.2.1.2368.8406. Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Original work published in 1974. Masood, A. (2017). Negotiating mobility in gendered spaces: case of Pakistani women doctors. Gender, Place & Culture, 25(2), 188–206. McConnell-Henry, T., James, A., Chapman, Y., & Francis, K. (2010). Researching with people you know: issues in interviewing. Contemporary Nurse, 34(1), 2–9. doi:10.5172/conu.2009.34.1.002. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). The Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge & Kegan Paul. Mitchell, J. P. (1996). Honour and shame. In A. Barnard & J. Spencer (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology. Routledge. Moghadam, V. M. (2002). Patriarchy, the Taliban, and politics of public space in Afghanistan. Women’s Studies International Forum, 25(1), 19–31. Mohammadi, S. (2019). Social inclusion of newly arrived female asylum seekers and refugees through a community sport initiative: the case of Bike Bridge. Sport in Society, 22(6), 1082–1099. doi:10.1080/17430437.2019.1565391. Owens, P. (2009). Reclaiming ‘bare life’?: Against Agamben on refugees. International Relations, 23(4), 567–582. doi:10.1177/0047117809350545. Pitt-Rivers, J. (1961). The People of the Sierra. University of Chicago Press. Quinney, L., Dwyer, T., & Chapman, Y. (2016). Who, where, and how of interviewing peers: implications for a phenomenological study. SAGE Open, 6(3). doi:10.1177/2158244016659688. Radcliffe, S. A. (1990). Ethnicity, patriarchy, and incorporation into the nation: female migrants as domestic servants in Peru. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 8(4), 379–393. doi:10.1068/d080379. Ravensbergen, L. (2020). ‘I wouldn’t take the risk of the attention, you know? Just a lone girl biking’: examining the gendered and classed embodied experiences of cycling. Social & Cultural Geography, 1–19. doi:10.1080/14649365.2020.1806344. Ravensbergen, L., Buliung, R., & Laliberté, N. (2020). Fear of cycling: social, spatial, and temporal dimensions. Journal of Transport Geography, 87, 102813. doi:10.1016/j. jtrangeo.2020.102813. Razack, S. (2008). Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims from Western Law and Politics. University of Toronto Press. Reddy, R. (2008). Gender, culture and the law: approaches to ‘honour’ crimes in the UK. Feminist Legal Studies, 16, 305–321. Salamon, G. (2018). The Life and Death of Latisha King: A Critical Phenomenology of Transphobia. NYU Press. Silvey, R. M. (2000). Stigmatized spaces: gender and mobility under crisis in south Sulawesi, Indonesia. Gender, Place & Culture, 7(2), 143–161. doi:10.1080/713668869. Smith, J. A., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2009). Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis: Theory, Method and Research. SAGE. Stewart, L. (1995). Bodies, visions, and spatial politics: a review essay on Henri Lefebvre’s The Production of Space. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 13(5), 609–618.

Analysis of engagement in a cycling program

51

Turner, S. (2016). What is a refugee camp? Explorations of the limits and effects of the camp. Journal of Refugee Studies, 29(2), 139–148. doi:10.1093/jrs/fev024. Van Manen, M. (1990). Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action Sensitive Pedagogy. Albany, NY: SUNY. Waardenburg, M., Visschers, M., Deelen, I., & Liempt, I. (2018). Sport in liminal spaces: the meaning of sport activities for refugees living in a reception centre. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 54(8), 938–956. Wie viele Flüchtlinge leben in Freiburg? [How many refugees live in Freiburg?]. (n.d.). https://www.freiburg.de/pb/,(anker849232)/838582.html#anker849232 Wie wohnen Flüchtlinge? [How do refugees live]. (n.d.). https://www.fluechtlingshilfe-bw. de/praxistipps/handbuch/inhalt-des-handbuchs/unterbringung/wie-wohnen-fluechtlinge.

Chapter 4

Thick leisure Waiting time in a migratory context Donatella Schmidt and Giovanna Palutan

Premise The chapter1 deals with solidarity processes of active citizenship that involve refugees in marginal urban spaces in Rome, Italy. In particular, we consider the relation between the dimension of leisure, as interpreted by activists and volunteers, in relation to the dimension of waiting among migrants in-transit, refugees and asylum seekers.2 The study’s context encompasses a series of informal locations supported by activists of the Baobab Experience association, where refugees are provided food, provisional shelter and basic services, and are invited to fill the time not spent in bureaucratic paperwork, with “quality” time. Refugees find themselves in a suspended time condition, which includes the juridical administrative dimension – characterized by prolonged waiting and an overall indeterminacy of their status, “a perception of life as being stuck in a stagnant present” (Pinelli, 2016: 28); limitations to geographical mobility caused by internal EU regulations and marked by single country border closures; material deprivation due to the precariousness of street life; and affective deprivation due to loosening family ties. Attempts to reconstruct glimpses of routine within informal encampments are periodically disrupted by police raids resulting in refugee dispersal and the seizure of their belongings. In short, refugees living in Baobab-supported informal encampments have scarce control of their space, and have plenty of dilated time. In response to this, activists committed to the refugee cause have proposed initiatives – besides offering food, shelter, clothing and legal advice – that might convert the waiting time of refugees into meaningful time. Jointly with other organizations, as well as with the refugees, activists have set up an array of projects that include recreational activities (sightseeing, cultural visits, food events), sports (soccer, basketball, marathons and a mobile gym) and educational courses (art workshops, Italian and English classes, CV writing), launching such slogans as: “We also want roses” and “Welcome with dignity”. In the discussions below, we will reflect on the concept of waiting time, introduce the milieu in which activists and refugees undertake their activities, illustrate some leisure practices, and we will consider the category of leisure in reference to specific literature on the topic. DOI: 10.4324/9780429341045-5

Waiting time in a migratory context

53

Context of the study The context of our field research is represented by provisional camps – via Cupa, piazzale Maslax, piazzale Spadolini – where refugees can find essential services. These camps have a story: in the early 2000s a group of refugees opened a cultural centre and an Eritrean restaurant and, in collaboration with the municipality, they managed a housing unit for refugees. This compound, known as the Baobab Centre, became a reference point for those coming from the Horn of Africa. During the 2015 refugee emergency crisis, the Baobab Centre became a reference point for the so-called migrants in-transit heading to central European countries. Consequently, Baobab Centre experienced a flow of roughly 35,000 migrants who stopped there to seek assistance before continuing their journey. Unable to tackle such emergency alone, the Baobab Centre called on citizens to help them, who responded, thus enabling an articulated solidarity network. By the end of 2015, the Baobab Centre was formally closed down by the municipality because of its hygienic conditions. However, some volunteers who served in the Baobab Centre decided to continue the hospitality practices, supporting migrants in-transit camping out in provisional public spaces in the Tiburtina station area. For this purpose, they founded an association called Baobab Experience. Nevertheless, frequent police evictions forced refugees to move around the station to find a new setting for their encampment.3 Via Cupa is a long and narrow side street in what was formerly a manufacturing area […] It is late summer, and meals have just been served: some young refugees are busy helping volunteers, others are sipping tea, others still are engaged in a sort of ball game. (Fieldnotes, September 2016) In 2016, the encampment, located in via Cupa near the Tiburtina station, just in front the Verano monumental cemetery, lies along the gates of the previous Baobab Centre. As the Baobab Centre was closed down, tents were put up on the street and lined with mattresses; the restaurant kitchen became inaccessible and hot meals had to be supplied by volunteers through a network of local providers; and mobile legal and medical basic services were provided by dedicated associations. In the fall of 2016, the municipality cleared via Cupa, with the police ordered to disperse the majority of refugees in the surrounding area. Slowly a new encampment was set up in piazzale (square) Maslax,4 a semi-circular space, previously a parking lot owned by the State Railways, closed to vehicle traffic by street blocks. There were tents pitched all around, no chemical toilets and no services; later, a long white gazebo, equipped with an electric generator, was donated. Prepared food was carried by hand in large containers, by activists and private citizens: Late afternoon as light gives way to the shadows eighty tents appear even flatter looking on the asphalt of what was formerly a large parking lot.

54 Donatella Schmidt and Giovanna Palutan

Hints of smoke coming from hot drinks mixed with those of lit fires produce an atmosphere of calm that makes you think of campers enjoying their time together. Obviously, this is not the case. (Fieldnotes, February 2018) At the end of 2018 the police enforced another dispersal: the gazebo along with tents and blankets were torn down. People were once again scattered. The new provisional venue was even more precarious: activists could only provide basic needs outside the Tiburtina railway station in piazzale Spadolini. People were allowed to spend the night in their sleeping bags under a canopy near an out-of-use entrance to the station, while in the cold winter months they could move inside: In piazzale Spadolini passengers are waiting under the canopies as buses come and go. Some young refugees are waiting for dinner lying on their mats, others are listening to music on their mobile phone, others still are lazily playing with a grey worn-out ball, while some guys are training with the mobile gym behind a small wall. (Fieldnotes, August 2019)

The refugees From our fieldnotes, and according to a legal advisor serving for the association, the refugees who benefit from Baobab’s services belong to two macro-categories: migrants in-transit from a physical point of view and migrants in-transit from a juridical point of view.5 The former category refers to people, mainly coming from Eritrea and South Sudan, who arrived in Italy through the central Mediterranean route, heading to central and northern Europe; they stopped in Rome just to receive temporary assistance (food, legal advice, medical attention) and support to continue their journey, thus avoiding traffickers that benefit from them. Migrants-in-transit from a juridical point of view refers to a series of shifting juridical categories, which implies both social and housing precariousness. First of all, the category of asylum seekers. Since police headquarters in Rome only take few applications a day, applicants are forced to return several times before being able to present their documentation. Then, those whose international protection request was denied, repeat their application. Another category is the so called “dubliners”, both incoming and outcoming. Incoming refers to people who were sent back to Italy, since their fingerprints were previously taken there but whose procedure was interrupted because of their departure. Outcoming refers to refugees who went directly to other countries to ask for international protection. If denied, they could make another attempt to obtain it in Italy. The whole process may take years.6 Coming back to our case study, refugees in the via Cupa camp were migrants in-transit coming from the Horn of Africa; in piazzale Maslax and in piazzale Spadolini, where

Waiting time in a migratory context

55

people moved after police dispersal, their origin was more heterogeneous.7 Obviously, life in a camp is no easy life; lining up for food, being exposed to thefts and cohabitation with foreigners may trigger fights and tension. All of this in addition to the fatigue of a long journey, the uncertainty of the future, and the stress of police routine checks and dispersal.

On the concept of waiting: “who is able to act on time and who is acted upon” It is important to explore how and when this is experienced as a passive waiting or when this is an active waiting for something. (Janeja and Bandak, 2018: 2)

One of the main features that emerged from a survey of the literature on informal urban camps inside the borders of contemporary Europe, is that they are inhabited by refugees who face structurally imposed forms related to their juridical status and to the required bureaucracy. Such is the case, for instance, of asylum seekers in Oranienplatz in Berlin (Fontanari 2017, 2019), of migrants in the Calais Jungle (McGee and Pelham, 2018), of people searching for international protection in Athens (Rozakou, 2012), of Palestinians in Jakobskirken in Oslo (Bendixsen and Eriksen, 2018) and of migrants in-transit in Rome (Palutan and Schmidt, 2020). Whoever has conducted research inside informal camps may have noted how waiting pervades everyday life. These camps appear as waiting zones, which are at the same time inside society (being located within the perimeter of the cities) and outside society (since they occupy their structural margins) (Queirolo Palmas, 2017).8 Before proceeding any further it is worth clarifying what we intend with the concept of waiting, referring to Janeja and Bandak’s (2018) definition: Waiting may here be seen as an imposed form of sanctioning used to slow down movement towards Europe, for instance, a means to ward off people and keep them out by making them linger and await decisions beyond their control. (Janeja and Bandak, 2018: 6) European societies assume on themselves the right to decide who is in or who is out of the koinè, the community, which is underlined by continuous evictions of local police (Fontanari, 2017: 31). In short, refugees find themselves in a situation of waiting that is beyond their control. However, we argue that waiting time cannot be reduced only to an externally imposed category since, as Gasparini (1995) pointed out, it “deserves specific analysis because of the wealth of meanings which can be attributed to it from the actor’s point of view” (Gasparini, 1995: 29). This means that actors may display a diverse positioning towards waiting time. According to the context, the situation and their personal history,

56 Donatella Schmidt and Giovanna Palutan

they may resort to creative resources that counter balance external constraints. Janeja and Bandak (2018) introduce the distinction between waiting for, which refers to passive waiting, and waiting to, which refers to active waiting. The latter implies, for instance, letting oneself be taken by playful, physical or cultural activities (Lewis, 2010), as well as participating in awareness-raising events and political activism (Fontanari, 2017). Here, we will focus on the latter dimension of waiting by asking ourselves, what are the attributes of the waiting time as presented by the above-mentioned authors? Is it liminal? Dilated? Meaningless? Powerless? We will try to answer such questions while bearing in mind our field of research, and compare it with similar case studies throughout Europe. In their research with Palestinian undocumented migrants living in an informal camp in Oslo, Bendixsen and Eriksen (2018) use the term “liminal”, depriving it, however, from the creative potential of the concept of liminality present in Victor Turner’s work (1982). In their research, liminal time is marked by a lack of opportunities, which forces migrants to “an eternally timeless, liquid present” (Bendixsen and Eriksen, 2018: 104). In encampments in Rome, time is dilated insofar as the present is stretched to the point that it squeezes the past and blurs the future. It is made up of repetitive actions (lining up for food, recharging phones, checking documentations, rolling and unrolling sleeping bags), which fill up the daily routine, while everyday thoughts, given the uncertainty of the context, do not dare to go beyond the present (Schmidt and Palutan, 2018). For undocumented migrants in Norway, time is meaningless because they cannot have an ordinary life, being prevented from work, education and starting a family (Bendixsen and Eriksen, 2018). Finally, indefinite waiting in informal camps enhances feelings of powerlessness and refugees’ lack of control on their lives (Bendixsen and Eriksen, 2018; McGee and Pelham, 2018). As McGee and Pelham underscore in their fieldwork research in the Calais Jungle, waiting is powerless, since the categorization as illegal aliens and the uncertainty of their juridical state deprives them of resources that the rest of society takes for granted (McGee and Pelham, 2018). Bendixsen and Eriksen (2018) linger on a binary opposition between camp time – which is slow and directionless – and the accelerated time of neoliberal derivation in the surrounding society, which is perceived full of movement, action and purpose. In short, two different temporal horizons. However, drawing from our own research in the Baobab encampments we may ask ourselves, who is really living a situation of accelerated time? Is it society at large with its bustling everyday routine or people who come from far away and strive to be included within the new context? The latter left behind an ordinary life with the hassles of working, bringing up children and maintaining stable relationships. However, the long journey has moved them far from their home and ordinary life, and has made them suffer to seek acceptance in another country. Their suffering is caused by their being extra-ordinary and not ordinary people. Basing our argument on our field research, it seems we find it appropriate to introduce the concept of structural suspension of time. This refers to a suspension at the juridical, relational, educational and working level –

Waiting time in a migratory context

57

towards an indefinite time span that turns out to be structural. The following section will focus on the structural suspension of time as counterbalanced by leisure practices capable of transforming suspended time into active time endowed with meaning and purpose. We will consider the waiting-to dimension and neglect, at least herein, the waiting-for dimension.

The Baobab hospitality model: findings and discussion The core of activists is composed by a heterogeneous group of people in terms of age, education, occupation and nationality who share a strong civic commitment. A series of different subjects – that includes private citizens (such as students, interns and retired people), associations, parishes, restaurants and bakery owners – have joined the Baobab spirit and its bottom-up model of hospitality. Our field data reveal that activists perceive the Baobab’s hospitality model as a contested social and political terrain in which political practices of inclusion are produced and claims made by refugees receive attention and advice.9 Such a hospitality model privileges the horizontal rather than the vertical dimension of relationships; it aims to create networks with neighbourhoods and city entities and associations to ensure its survival; it reveals a fluidity in terms of the variety of roles covered by activists and refugees; and finally, it uses social media to organize daily activities, and inform and raise awareness in the citizenry. In short, the hospitality model seems to have the capacity to transform “a group of strangers thrown together haphazardly by accidental circumstances” (Malkki, 1997: 87) into a group of people that share the same experience of precariousness and, as such, should find collective responses. Three observations can be made on the hospitality model. Firstly, the horizontal dimension: every material good, service or recreational activity is not seen by activists and volunteers as a largesse or an imposition, but rather as a proposal that goes beyond the provided service itself. The aim is to establish a relationship based on trust, the basis of a possible reconstruction of the migrant within the new context. Secondly, there is a civic and political commitment that arises as a response to a system that effectively leaves out groups of people who, not falling into the typologies defined by the reception system, remain on the street. Committed activists and volunteers have mobilized grassroot citizenship based on solidarity and human recognition, encouraging reflections on the exclusion processes underway in Italy and in Europe. Given these premises, the leisure that this chapter focuses on becomes a means to such purpose. This position is expressed by the coordinator of Baobab sport activities: Baobab is not just welfarism, but a political claim for rights. Food and clothes are not enough: we would like to give these people something more. (Interview to Valerio, August 23, 2019)

58 Donatella Schmidt and Giovanna Palutan

A member of Casetta Rossa, an association supporting Baobab Experience from the very beginning, has the same position: Our idea is to go a little further: I don’t just give you something to eat or to dress, that’s ok. I give you something more, I want to give you a chance. One step further toward your autonomy: the Italian language course, the garden you grow, creative workshops. (Interview to Maya, August 26, 2019) Another Baobab activist highlights the difficulty in pulling out the camp refugees from their state of structural suspension, stressing how leisure may be a means to trigger a new attitude towards life: Apart from the malaise and all of the hardships of the journey that was not easy at all – they were often tortured, they saw people killed – then they arrive, find laws, racism, and in addition they have nothing to do. You might get carried away by passivity. But if you get over it and get involved, you accept to play, you start joking. Those who allow themselves [to] be more involved are those who are most capable of solving their situation. (Interview to Viola, November 2, 2017) In line with such a stance, Katerina Rozakou (2012), in her fieldwork research in a refugee reception center in Athens, points to a similar hospitality model. Therein refugees were assisted by a politicised group of volunteers who rejected the dominant official state discourse on hospitality, rhetorically derived by the ancient Greek concept of philoxenia. Instead, they stressed practices of sociality that appealed to a common humanity (Rozakou, 2012). Rozakou is critical of the official hospitality model and, more in general, of bureaucratic forms of humanitarian assistance (Rozakou, 2017, Fiddian Qasmiyeh, 2016). In Italy, however, the official State discourse on hospitality is less marked, leaving room for a variety of interpretations. McGee and Pelham (2018), working with grassroot associations in the Calais Jungle, have looked at sports and arts as key resources to escape everyday routine in the Jungle, and the increasing importance of activists who oppose “the oppressive violence of the French state authorities” (24), fostering a “sense of humanity” and raising the human rights issues. Elena Fontanari (2017), serving as an activist in support of political refugee protesters in Oranienplatz, Berlin, points out how the everyday work of supporters, NGOs and churches play “a crucial role in establishing relations with asylum-seekers” (Fontanari, 2017: 37), relying on imagination and creativity to build social spaces of resistance against restrictive national asylum policies. In short, the spirit of the model of such civic commitment in all the abovementioned venues refers to grassroots citizenship based on solidarity, which privileges a horizontal rather than vertical relationship oriented towards the marginal and the weak. Imagination, creativity and agency present in all these

Waiting time in a migratory context

59

European experiences, strive to build “social spaces that intend to materialize alternative visions of society” through actions that “challenge state-based definitions, boundaries and lines of power” (Rozakou, 2016: 186).

Meaningful leisure and Baobab Experience activists Activists have always made it a point to go beyond providing basic needs and offering qualitative time to refugees. Visits to Rome’s monuments and museums should be seen under this light. Sports activities, such as soccer matches and basketball games, as well as participation in marathons and non-competitive races, organized by neighbourhood sports associations, serve the same purpose. Workshops, supported by external associations with their expertise, break the daily routine of camp life, inviting refugees to spend their time socializing and sharing.10 Obviously, such leisure activities are just some of the various socializing moments of camp life; sipping hot beverages with friends, enjoying music and soccer matches through mobile phones, cooking food on camp fires and sharing dishes with activists or occasional volunteers are all informal leisure activities that contribute in creating intimacy and a feeling of home making.11 The following notes – drawn from excerpts of guided visits, sports events and artistic workshops – deal with more structured and purposeful initiatives proposed by activists and joined by refugees. Guided visits were considered a must from the very beginning of Baobab Experience. Showing our city to young men, often forced to remain here for months or even years, is so important … The city will be then perceived as less foreign and more friendly. This is the underlying spirit of going beyond the horizon of the encampment, the police headquarters, and the railway station: we turn them into tourists for a few hours. (Baobab Experience Facebook, February 6, 2018)12 We spent the day in one of the most popular running events in Rome: the non-competitive race dedicated to Miguel Sanchez. And not to miss out on anything we also went to ice skating and falling on ice […]. We often think about what we have in common. The whole Sunday together tells it well: the race towards small and large goals to be reached cut together, the need to break the ice to overcome mistrust, the precarious balance and the facing the fear of falling while holding hands. (Baobab Experience Facebook, January 23, 2018) A suitcase-book as a symbol of travelling and freedom, detachment and exile. A story through images embodied in the suitcase ready to migrate in the difficult journey away from home. The book was intended “to bridge past and future, being both a heavy burden and a springboard”. ( Baobab Experience Facebook, September 12, 2019)

60 Donatella Schmidt and Giovanna Palutan

Art is certainly not universal but becomes a means of communication. Showing refugees places that are meaningful for locals, showing some of the beauty to people who have travelled through ugliness and danger, is an invitation to share what is part of one’s upbringing and surroundings. There is a tension towards intimacy gained through the complicity of art. Anna Horolets (2015), writing on Polish migrants exploring the West Midlands, stresses that “recreational mobility” with a better knowledge of places contributes “to uncertainty reduction and thus may lead to migrants’ empowerment” (Horolets, 2015: 5). The Baobab visits can foster the self-confidence of refugees through a slow walking mobility that allows an appropriation of bits of urban space, turning them into meaningful places and contributing to a process of “re-constructing one’s identity in a new environment” (Horolets, 2015: 6). In brief, we assume that leisure spent in guided visits has multiple potential outcomes: by sharing activities, it reinforces reciprocal ties, fosters trust between volunteers and refugees, helps in perceiving oneself within the new space of the capital, and invites refugees to make an intellectual effort to capture alien forms of art. Taking part in a sports event, be it a marathon or a soccer match, implies accepting the challenge of leaving the encampment premises, of going beyond seclusion and loneliness and getting in touch with others. The performative body may act as a mediator between the individual and social environment. In bearing fatigue, one can acquire more self-confidence which, in turn, may have an impact on personal attitudes towards problem solving. By means of physical exercise, such as weight-lifting in the mobile gym or running a marathon, one gets rid of negative thoughts and opens up the way to transform mere physical exercise into an exercise charged with meaning. Better knowledge of one’s body reminds us of De Martini Ugolotti’s (2015) research on second-generation migrants performing capoeira and parkour in the public space, in the city of Turin. Therein, the negotiation between the predominantly male body and the public space becomes explicit, offering the participants a chance to imagine themselves as members of the city (De Martini Ugolotti, 2015: 27). One of the art workshops was dedicated to the creation of a suitcase-book, libro-valigia, a series of images on migration, peace and travel experience, produced by a group of refugees, the Thea Association and Baobab Experience. The suitcase-book artwork became the prize awarded for the 2019 Peace Run Award. The creative moment consisted of personal narratives illustrated through visual representations. Narration was approached through warm up exercises, yoga and African music; all intended to gain self-confidence and trust in each other.13 Later, during a public ceremony, the suitcase-book was handed to Rafael de la Rubia, a Chilean exile and founder of the World March for Peace. As emphasized by Dieterich-Hartwell and Koch (2017), creative arts can serve as a “bridge that gently guides refugees to a stepwise integration in the host country” (Dieterich-Hartwell and Koch, 2017: 1–69). Hence, for those people who happen to spend part of their life in a neglected peripheral area of a large urban setting, a work of art can be charged with meaning that goes beyond anyone’s expectations.

Waiting time in a migratory context

61

Debating on the concept of leisure Now our guiding question should be addressed: how can waiting, suspended time, be turned into leisure time endowed with “thickness” and meaning? In this section we strive to uncover the process through which leisure becomes a means that may lead people into the “waiting to” dimension of time. A selection of references is worth mentioning herein to clarify the conceptual framework in which we move. Mata Codesal et al. (2015), in the editorial of the special issue of Leisure Studies devoted to migrants and leisure, invites us to go beyond the functional perspective, which sees leisure as a tool of inclusion – that is the role it “can play in integration into a new society” (Mata Codesal et al., 2015: 1). The authors state that a linear approach, where an action is in function of a result, blurs the complexity of the role of leisure. Instead, they prefer to focus on self-expression and meaning-making. This line of reasoning can be taken up, seeing refugees’ ability to accept the challenge and engage in leisure practices. In the same special issue, Hannah Lewis emphasizes the capacity of leisure in community making (Lewis, 2015). She analyzes dancing and musical events where the basic requirements are not objects of material culture but body skills, in contexts where refugees’ personal belongings are limited to a minimum. For Lewis, music and parties should not be considered peripheral events in the resettlement process; rather, they can be pivotal to counter act community dispersal and to negotiate a sense of belonging (Lewis, 2015). Music and dance allow individual expression, which simultaneously acts as a release from the pressures of the “precarity and depersonalizing effects of the asylum system” (Lewis 2015: 45) and as a means of individual recognition and empowerment. In summary, dance and music are leisure tools that stress the sense of belonging to a community and leave room for individual personality to emerge; they have the transformative capacity to change waiting time into meaningful time. Our interest in Lewis’ work is her opening up the way to explore the potential of agency in leisure activities. However, in concrete terms, how is this transformation made possible? Victor Turner (1982) suggests a way. In his well-known book From Ritual to Theatre, drawing on classic writings on games (Huizinga, 1938; Caillois, 1958) and from an author like Csikszentmihalyi (1975), Turner reflects on the experience of flow of events in leisure moments. This experience is marked with distinctive features, first of all the fusion between action and consciousness, made possible by focusing one’s attention on a limited field of stimuli. Consciousness should be restricted and oriented towards a circumscribed focus of attention where the past and future can wait and only the “here and now” acquire relevance. With the term “simplification” Turner (1982) refers to the process, in leisure moments, where all that is considered as irrelevant to the context, i.e. the here and now, is excluded. Another distinctive feature of the experience of flow is that the perception of the present, the here and now, is

62 Donatella Schmidt and Giovanna Palutan

intensified to a maximum: “the background noise”, that is anything negligible to the rules of the game or the competitiveness of the living moment, is eliminated from the attention sphere. Although awards and motivations certainly play their part, they are not the most important aspects in the flow of events, rather it is the lively experience itself that is central (see Turner, 1982: 57–58). By the same account, Adriano Favole (2016), rephrasing Caillois’ (1958) considerations on the qualitative attributes of games, looks at them as a free and voluntary activity, which implies desire and willingness to play. The deep concentration required by the game leads to what Favole defines “state of incandescence”, a term referring to a frame of mind of maximum ductility and openness. Such mental attitude – towards others, the inner self and the context – can play an important role in making decisions when the game is over. Paraphrasing Favole’s expression, and extending it to all leisure activities, playing has creative effects on reality since, like volcano lava, produces a fertile ground.

Beyond leisure: concluding remarks In this chapter we sought to go beyond the position of Janeja and Bandak (2018) who stress the powerless dimension of waiting time due to the administrative and bureaucratic constraints imposed on refugees. Drawing from our research, leisure events – which include art, games, sports – create the premises where the agentic potential of Baobab activists and refugees is encouraged, fostering a more positive position vis-à-vis time. From a waiting time loaded with frustration into a waiting time that may lead to new possibilities. Leisure activities can open up a flow that goes from the outside to the inside of the encampment and vice-versa, unfolding connections with places in the city and generating networks that allow refugees to leave the physical and mental space of the encampment behind. Our argument on the concept of leisure stems from a contextually defined milieu where a suspension of the juridical status, and an indeterminacy of institutional responses, force people of the Baobab encampments to a prolonged limbo, where life decisions cannot be fully addressed and where a limitation of geographical mobility leads to a continuous rephrasing of a person’s trajectory. As a consequence, time devoted to work, family, civic engagements and leisure may lose their meaning. Family members are often far away, there are no stable jobs, social rights are minimal and civic duties are postponed.14 Given such premises, dedicated leisure activities may be a catalyst. They heighten self-confidence gained by the regenerative potential that sports offer, the cathartic capacity to narrate one’s past through art, the imagination triggered by exposure to historical heritage in Rome, and are also a means to reappropriate one’s own time. In this light, the expression “We also want roses” – that is, the commitment and willingness of activists to go beyond basic

Waiting time in a migratory context

63

needs – which impregnates all initiatives, acquires “thickness”. Although the activist’s goals are clear – diverting refugees away from the concerns that absorb their mental energy – the outcome may be unexpected, since one can never foresee where the transformative capacity of people that engage, and allow themselves to be engaged, in sharing an experience of leisure and solidarity may lead. As Anne Sigfrid Grønseth (2016) suggests in her introduction to Being Human, Being Migrant: This is an agency that stems from the vulnerability, pain, fantasy and hope, that can allow migrants to transcend what they have left, the boundaries they newly encounter, and the ways in which they creatively craft lives of their own. (Grønseth, 2016: 3)

Notes 1 This chapter stems from a wider ethnographic research started in 2016 within the Food and Refugees group (FOR), University of Padua, which, in 2019, was granted a HERA Joint Research Programme with the collaborative project Food2Gather, exploring foodscapes as public spaces for integration. The data on leisure were collected with methods combining observation and participation in hospitality activities, as well as photoeliciting and interviews with Baobab activists. In addition, the Baobab Facebook page is considered a source of data. This essay is the result of collegial work, and collegial writing process. However, Donatella Schmidt is mainly responsible for the following sections: On the concept of waiting; The Baobab hospitality model: research findings and discussion; and Meaningful leisure and Baobab Experience activists. Giovanna Palutan is mainly responsible for the following sections: Premise; Context of the study; Debating on the concept of leisure; and Beyond leisure: concluding remarks. 2 From a juridical perspective, the people in the encampments are heterogeneous. However, in our article we adopt the term refugees to include all migrants forced to leave their countries – migrants in-transit, asylum seekers and environmental migrants – to seek freedom and a future elsewhere. 3 Informal settlements with limited or no access to essential services, such as water, electricity and gas, are spread across the entire national territory, in particular in Rome, Sicily and on the national borders. In these camps, asylum seekers find provisionary shelter asylum seekers of different typologies excluded from the reception system, as well as beneficiaries of international protection who still did not find alternative accommodation (see: Medicine Sans Frontiers, Report Fuori campo, February 2018, 2, 36: https://www.medicisenzafrontiere.it/news-e-storie/p ubblicazioni/fuori-campo-secondo-rapporto/). 4 The place (originally piazzale Chiaromonte) was renamed piazzale Maslax by activists in memorial of a 19-year-old Somali man who spent some time at the via Cupa camp before being able to reach his sister in Belgium. Sent back to Rome because he was fingerprinted in Italy (Dublin III Treaty), he was hosted in an official reception center, where he entered into depression and, later, committed suicide. 5 Interview to Giovanna, part of Baobab Experience legal team, December 10, 2019. 6 Between 2016 and 2018 there was an exponential increase of the outcoming category, since Italy is considered a guarantee country, with most cases actually

64 Donatella Schmidt and Giovanna Palutan

7 8

9 10

11

12

13

14

accepted by the court. On policies regarding asylum seekers and the Italian juridical framework see Pinelli, 2016: 30–34. Besides from the Horn of Africa, there were people from Mali, Gambia and Nigeria. The overall context is the so called “European refugee crisis” initiated in 2015. In 2016, due to the Dublin III Treaty, several European cities, such as Rome, Paris, Athens and Budapest, were forced to house emergency camps, which became at the same time the recipients of constant police clearance intervention and of activists’ bottom-up hospitality reception initiatives. Since the Baobab model of hospitality practices is still ongoing and under constant rephrasing, and since our research is still in progress, we decided to use the present and not the past tense throughout our essay. Examples include the bread baking workshop, the Mediterranean gardens with aromatic herbs in piazzale Maslax, photo lab followed by an exhibition and several art workshops. Concerning marathons and non-competitive races, examples include The Running of Miguel, an annual race to recall the poet and marathon runner Miguel Sanchez, a desaparecido under Argentina’s dictatorship (https://www.lacorsa dimiguel.it); the 6 km run in memory of Stefano Cucchi, who died during a police interrogation; the Half Marathon Via Pacis and the Peace Run, part of a larger network including several cities in the world (https://theworldmarch.org/it/). The feeling of home making, derived from moments of informal socialization and leisure activities, often emerged from the people present in the encampments. For instance, refugees that moved to other locations or to other European countries never lost touch with Baobab activists, visiting the camp whenever possible and helping to organize activities and events. Participant observation, carried out in the course of five years, substantiated the overall appreciation of solidarity practices by those housed in the encampment. On this subject, see Schmidt and Palutan, 2018. Concerning leisure and refugee experience, in-depth interviews and photo-eliciting still need to be conducted. From the very beginning, Baobab activists used Facebook as a privileged means of communication with activists, refugees and volunteers, and with the larger digital community (https://m.facebook.com/BaobabExperience). As a result, the urban space where they act, and the digital space in which the narration of these activities is displayed, appear deeply intertwined. For this reason, we choose to also take Facebook excerpts as a comment on leisure activities, seeing them as a narration of the solidarity practices enacted in the camp. Such excerpts are written with the aim to reach a wider public by means of digital technologies. According to danah boyd, such digital public is called “networked publics”, that is publics that are “simultaneously the space constructed through networked technologies and the imagined community that emerges as a result of the intersection of people, technology, and practice” (boyd, 2011). Interviews to the founder of the Thea Association, who conceived and coordinated the suitcase-book workshops (Rome, November 2, 2019 and February 23, 2020). At the same time, even a simple wall might turn into a non-conventional effective narrative for passers-by, arousing in them thoughts and emotions. For instance, Alice Pasquini, an internationally renowned street artist, painted part of an abandoned building in the via Cupa camp with the intention to offer beauty in a place of neglect, thus changing its look: “It is the magic of leaving an artwork in a lively context: it was born in that place, and designed for it”. See her website: https://www.alicepasquini.com/portfolio/rome-it-baobab. Such dilated time became comprehensible to all of us during the COVID-19 lockdown, when we were obliged to make a personal experience of an indefinitely prolonged present.

Waiting time in a migratory context

65

References Boyd, D. 2011. “Social network sites as networked publics: affordances, dynamics, and implications”, in Networked Self. Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites ed. by Z. Papacharissi, New York: Routledge, 39–58. Caillois, R. (2001)1958. Man, Play and Games. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1975. Play and intrinsic rewards, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 15:3, 41–63. De Martini Ugolotti, N. 2015. Climbing walls, making bridges: children of immigrants’ identity negotiations through capoeira and parkour in Turin, Leisure Studies, 34:1, 19–33, doi:10.1080/02614367.2014.966746. Dieterich-Hartwell, R., Koch, S. C. 2017. Creative arts therapies as temporary home for refugees: insights from literature and practice, Behavioral Sciences, 7:4, 69, doi:10.3390/bs7040069. Bendixsen, S., Hylland Eriksen, T. 2018. “Time and the other: waiting and hope among irregular migrants”, in Ethnographies of Waiting: Doubt, Hope and Uncertainty by A. Bandak, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 87–112. Favole, A. 2016. “Giochi e culture: antropologia di una finzione condivisa” [Games and Cultures: Anthropology of a Shared Fiction], Lecture at Dialogues on Man Festival, Pistoia, Italy. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. 2016. Refugee-refugee relations in contexts of overlapping displacement, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, https://www.ijurr. org/spotlight-on/the-urban-refugee-crisis-reflections-on-cities-citizenship-and-thedisplaced/refugee-refugee-relations-in-contexts-of-overlapping-displacement/. Fontanari, E. 2017. It’s my life. The temporalities of refugees and asylum-seekers within the European border regime, Etnografia e ricerca qualitativa, 1:January–April, 25–54, doi:10.3240/86886. Fontanari, E. 2019. Lives in Transit: An Ethnographic Study of Refugees’ Subjectivity across European Borders. Routledge, London and New York. Gasparini, G. 1995. On waiting, Time & Society, 4:1, 29–45, doi:10.1177/ 0961463X95004001002. Grønseth, A. S. 2016. “Introduction”, in Being Human, Being Migrant. Senses of Self and Well-Being (ed.) A. S. Grønseth, New York: Berghahn Books, EASA Series, 23, 1–26. Horolets, A. 2015. Finding one’s way: recreational mobility of post-2004 Polish migrants in West Midlands, UK, Leisure Studies, 34:1, 5–18, DOI: 10.1080/ 02614367.2014.962590. Huizinga, J. (1946) 1938. Homo ludens. A Study of the Play Element in Culture. London, Routledge & Kegan. Janeja, M. K., Bandak, A. 2018. “Introduction: worth the wait”, in Ethnographies of Waiting: Doubt, Hope and Uncertainty (ed.) A. Bandak, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 1–40. Lewis, H. 2010. Community moments: integration and transnationalism at ‘refugee’ parties and events, Journal of Refugee Studies, 23:4, 571–588. Lewis, H. 2015. Music, dancing and clothing as belonging and freedom among people seeking asylum in the UK, Leisure Studies, 34:1, 42–58, doi:10.1080/ 02614367.2014.966744.

66 Donatella Schmidt and Giovanna Palutan Malkki, L. 1997. “News and culture: transitory phenomena and the fieldwork tradition”, in Anthropological Locations. Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science (eds) A. Gupta, J. Ferguson, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 86–101. Mata-Codesal, D., Peperkamp, E., and Tiesler, N.C. 2015. Migration, migrants and leisure: meaningful leisure? Leisure Studies, 34:1, 1–4, doi:10.1080/02614367.2015.992620. McGee, D., Pelham, J. 2018. Politics at play: locating human rights, refugees and grassroots humanitarianism in the Calais Jungle, Leisure Studies, 37:1, 22–35, doi:10.1080/02614367.2017.1406979. Palutan, G., Schmidt, D. 2020. “Food and refugees in Rome. Humanitarian practices or agency response?”, in Food Identities at Home and on the Move: Explorations at the Intersection of Dwelling and Belonging (eds) R. Matta, C-E. Suremain, C. CrennLondon: Bloomsbury Publishing, 131–154. Pinelli, B. 2016. “Fantasy, subjectivity and vulnerability through the story of a woman asylum seeker in Italy”, in Being Human, Being Migrant. Senses of Self and Well-Being (ed.) A. S. Grønseth, New York: Berghahn Books, EASA Series, 23, 27–45. Queirolo Palmas, L. 2017. Nuit debout. Transiti, connessioni e contestazioni negli accampamenti urbani dei rifugiati a Parigi, Mondi Migranti, 2, 207–227. Rozakou, K., 2012. The biopolitics of hospitality in Greece: humanitarianism and the management of refugees, American Ethnologist, 39:3, 562–577. Rozakou, K. 2016. Socialities of solidarity: revisiting the gift taboo in times of crisis, Social Anthropology, 24:2, 185–199. Rozakou, K. 2017. Solidarity #Humanitarianism. The blurred boundaries of humanitarianism in Greece, Etnofoor, 29:2, 99–104. Schmidt, D., Palutan, G. 2018. All’ombra del baobab. Rifugiati, emergenza e considerazioni sul dono alla periferia di Roma, Dada: Rivista di Antropologia post-globale, 1, 211–246. Turner, V. W. 1982. From Ritual to Theatre. The Human Seriousness at Play. New York: PAJ Publications, 20–60.

Website references https://it-it.facebook.com/BaobabExperience/posts/1615254405217972?__tn__= K-R https://www.medicisenzafrontiere.it/news-e-storie/pubblicazioni/fuori-camposecondo-rapporto/ https://baoababexperience.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/report-attivitacc80-retelegale-migranti-in-transito-roma_novembre-2017.pdf https://www.alicepasquini. com/portfolio/rome-it-baobab.

Chapter 5

“We’re the (global) North Bank …” Transnational fandom, forced migration and football consumption Chris Stone

Introduction: a football fan from Kurdistan We’re the North Bank, we’re the North Bank, we’re the North Bank, Highbury. We’re the Clock End, we’re the Clock End, we’re the Clock End, Highbury.

To the tune of ‘Roll me Over in the Clover’, this ritualised nostalgic refrain is regularly recited throughout matches at Arsenal Football Club’s stadium as a call and response from the two ends of the ground. Referencing their previous ‘home’, Highbury Stadium, it is oral wallpaper to the spectacle being experienced by Kurdish asylum seeker, Dekor, on his first visit to see his favourite football club live. Unlike the majority of the crowd with whom he is watching the match, he does not have years of football attendance from which he has learned the social mores of match day musicianship. His socialisation into football fandom was through televised matches in the Middle-East, and as a consequence he is less familiar with the embodied practices of the stadium crowd. Growing up in Iran during the 1990s, Dekor’s childhood was spent trying to sneak into the local store/café to watch top English Premier League matches. The fervour with which he attached himself to Arsenal in those formative years has become an overwhelming identity since arriving in Britain. As a Kurd making what was seen to be a less than legitimate livelihood from the relative benefit of living close to the Iraq/Iran border, his misdemeanours left him with little option but to flee from the authoritarian regime. Imagining a more liberal and liberating life in Western Europe, he arrived in Britain with no knowledge of the asylum system other than the extremely limited information given to him by the smuggler he had paid to help get him here. During the ten years he has lived in this country as an asylum seeker he has accumulated much in the way of Arsenal memorabilia – a replica shirt, Arsenal sweatbands, bandana and baseball cap. One wall of his room, in the house he shares with six other refugees from other parts of the Middle East and Africa, is covered in images of Arsenal players, team photos, posters of the club crest and DOI: 10.4324/9780429341045-6

68 Chris Stone

a red and white Gunners scarf. In amongst it all, helping to create a tragicomic montage of devotion, are fading photographs of his parents, his brother on his wedding day and Dekor as a child playing with his siblings. In the privacy of this temporary home, he displays his (new) identity with pride. It is an identity that embraces Western appearance and challenges his nationally enforced Muslim upbringing. Whilst respecting the requirements of Ramadan and the festivity of Eid, he is not strict in his following of Islam. He is more than happy to dismiss the religious strictures about alcohol to go to the pub to watch his team, if he can scrape together enough money for a drink. On this occasion, sitting in a Turkish café in north London prior to Arsenal’s match, his concerns echo that of many other supporters about their star player’s contract talks more than the impending European clash. Sitting amongst other Arsenal supporters, dressed in similar replica shirts, he does not look out of place. He chats casually with them, his broken English unproblematic for fellow fans with similar opinions about their team. It is the same team that is being announced to the cheering crowd that accompanies his bewildered arrival at the stadium. Dekor sinks into the spectacle, drawn towards the incandescent glow of the pitch as other spectators swarm around him searching for their seats. This section of the Emirates Stadium is largely comprised of season ticket holders and, for this game, there is a complacency amongst the surrounding supporters that verges on indifference. Small groups will occasionally take up the lead of an isolated voice amongst them, ‘Who’s that team we call the Arsenal, who’s that team we all adore …’ and ‘We won the League … At White Hart Lane … We won the League at White Hart Lane …’. Dekor had only just arrived in the UK when Arsenal did last win the English Premier League and, on this, his first visit to see his beloved team live, he is not well versed in the rituals of football fandom. He does not know the songs. He is unaware of the apathy which the regulars around him seem to have for their team. His connection with Arsenal is televisual. It is media fuelled. It is a one-toone relationship with the players as personalities, as celebrities and as skilled performers of an activity he knows well. The make-up of an Arsenal crowd has, for many years, reflected the cosmopolitanism of the capital city, the reserved sensibilities of increasingly bourgeois Islington inhabitants mixing with the multicultural neighbourhoods of north London more widely. The number of Kurdish people in attendance at the Emirates Stadium is unknown, but tonight the number is at least one higher than usual. The awestruck silence with which Dekor first entered the stadium has been replaced with vociferous instructions loudly directed towards his heroes on the pitch. ‘Sagna, SAGNA! Pass. PASS, Sagna.’ The Arsenal full back seems to be the target for most of his concerns. Bemusement spreads through the more passive members of the surrounding audience. He is a lone voice, convinced of his impact on the scene ahead of him, unaware of the distraction he has become.

Fandom, forced migration, football consumption

69

His credentials identify him as a tourist. His enthusiasm begrudgingly excused. He is also initially identified as different. He is not doing things in the right way. In some this is manifest as prejudiced ‘humour’ stereotyping him as a possible terrorist, ‘What’s he got in that backpack?!’ As the crowd grow more frustrated at the lack of penetration on the pitch and restlessness itches its way into the sedated stadium, however, his impassioned involvement emboldens others. Still he berates Bacary Sagna, the Arsenal defender. With typical terrace wit, another lone voice in the crowd mockingly mimics him, ‘For fuck’s sake Sagna, PASS!’ There is amused laughter in the surrounding seats. A further single shout: ‘Yeah, c’mon SAGNA!’ Dekor recognises the sarcasm in the air and revels in the unconventional impact he is having on those around him. He has now become the cheerleader for this corner of the stadium as resignation of his presence sets in, ‘At least he gives a shit … not like this lot.’ He may not be fitting in to the conventions of support, but he is being accepted for what he is in the eyes of those around him: a ‘tourist’ whose passion for Arsenal is unorthodoxly infectious. Consequently, at the final whistle other supporters are shaking his hand, wanting their picture taken with him; he has become a celebrity himself.1

The (re)presentation of everyday football lives and forced migration research The example above is unusual in that Dekor’s opportunity to attend an Arsenal match came about through his participation in a piece of research that took a participatory, ethnographic based approach (see Stone, 2013; 2018).2 This combination of participatory research methods located within an ethnographically inspired methodology was an attempt to overcome the colonialism inherent in the history of the latter approach. As a white male with no personal experience of forced migration, the original research design felt very much akin to traditional anthropological exploration of the ‘dark-skinned other’ (hooks, 1990). That is not to say that it was approached in this manner, but such critiques are, in many ways, unavoidable. As a social researcher I am operating within a constructivist paradigm informed by a critique of ethnocentrism and hetero-normative masculinity within football culture. Not least is this supported by the likes of Bradbury (2013), Burdsey (2011) and Scraton et al (2005), but is, furthermore, central to the operational ethics of Football Unites Racism Divides (FURD), the organisation within which the research was an embedded project. Moreover, at the time of the research, forced migration was not a significant distinction within community-sport development – refugees and asylum seekers simply being part of a minority ethnic other. The research itself thus gave voice to forced migrants by responding to what they themselves expressed about the role football (had) played in their lives. Such voices emerged as a consequence of the

70 Chris Stone

underlying ethnographic approach, which allowed me to get to know refugees and asylum seekers who had varying levels of interaction with the many support agencies and community organisations in the city, including FURD. And for whom existing football provision was either not relevant or invisible. Dekor’s voice was loud at times when in the company of people who shared his kind of passion for football, but he liked to keep his own counsel regarding his status as an asylum seeker. The opening section is written to reflect this; his performance emerging as I experienced it and presented in an aesthetic style that I feel reflects the situation in a way that is suitable for the academic audience.3 I first met Dekor at an English Language class. As part of the engaged, participatory research approach, I had volunteered to deliver a session to a class of refugees with a football theme at a time leading up to the FIFA World Cup. The mixed class, in terms of gender, nationality and English language ability, responded positively to the topical and, as they were all very much aware, culturally important subject matter – none more so than Dekor. He had recently moved to Sheffield from north Wales, where he was initially dispersed on arriving in the UK, and wanted to know more about football in the city – where he could play, how he could join a team, whether he could he get tickets to see a match. In response to similar questions emerging through the research process and in recognition of the fact that the organisation were not necessarily meeting the specific needs of asylum seekers within the wider BAME populations with whom they worked, FURD organised a number of opportunities specifically aimed at refugees and asylum seekers; screenings of live matches during the World Cup, weekly recreational football sessions, tickets to see local professional football in partnership with Sheffield United, and support from the local county FA for those wanting to form a team or join existing clubs. Dekor was one of more than 50 refugees that I got to know throughout the three-year research project, engaging with many at the conversation clubs, English language classes, drop-in support sessions around the city and football activities organised by FURD, both as part of extant work with BAME communities and as a consequence of the participatory action research approach. Approximately 12 of these individuals became key informants as a result of their commitment to the research project in various ways – amongst others, the manager of Iraqi Forever, a football team formed to represent the local Iraqi diaspora with whom I played and helped enter the local football flexi-league; inaugural members of the FURD Belonging Group, which formed around a desire to play regular recreational football and for whom the organisation were able to organise a weekly session4; and regulars at the weekly Conversation Club, which provided refugees with a social meeting point, who showed a desire to chat with me about the Premier League, local football and the English national team. Dekor was one of the most committed in terms of his desire to play football and consume it. Furthermore, in acknowledgment of qualitative

Fandom, forced migration, football consumption

71

research being a co-production between researcher and researched, and that this, the final text, is the product of a complex creative process informed by the ‘realities’ of the field as perceived by the author and the revelations that the ‘subjects’ choose to make in creating those ‘realities’ over time, Dekor’s involvement was strongly defined by a mutual identification with Arsenal FC. The rest of this chapter proceeds by first locating football consumption and forced migration within the context of wider debates around negotiated football identities within a globalised culture. Exploring Dekor’s performative football identity further reveals his agency within the context of hospitality as transgression (Derrida, 2000) and the social milieu of ‘traditional’ masculine football supporter culture.5 This is significant on two levels. It locates forced migrants within a consumer space that, despite economic difficulties, allows the expression of a particular identity. Secondly, that identity, expressed as it is through football fandom, challenges the expectations of other fans and their willingness to welcome the other through the confidence with which Dekor performs his version of ‘doing football’ (Stone, 2007). The original research was designed as an exploration into the mutual sense of belonging that may be created through an interest in football. It was a challenge to the often-held uni-directional discourse of integration as the sole responsibility of the (often castigated) migrant, rather than a negotiated achievement between different parties involved (see Spencer, 2011). In this sense it reflects the understandings ‘of hospitality’ opened up by Derrida (2000). As will be discussed, hospitality is part of the foundation for cosmopolitan idealism. Furthermore, it is often seen, similarly to concepts such as integration and social inclusion, as a one-way interaction through the host’s power to invite the guest into their lifeworld. The persistence of such hospitality is related to the maintenance of ‘peaceable’ co-existence, and must be extended to social interactions with the associated communities beyond the immediate guest–host relationship. In the case of football fandom, this is subject to the discursive practices through which fan identities are expressed and the hierarchies of belonging (Back et al, 2012) act as a means of distinction within fan communities and networks. Discussions about ‘authenticity’ and taxonomies (or continua) of fandom that try to define (and more often than not restrict) understandings of fan identities pervade the (football) fan literature. It is important to note that, as Nash (2000) points out, these are not fixed but are subject to individual and communal revision over time and across different stakeholders (including fan academics). That said, how a different kind of fan (however that may be defined) is made welcome (or not) within a specific (part of) a fan community is related to the interplay of dominant discourses about fan practices, alongside wider social perspectives within those communities and the power of different actors to perpetuate or challenge them. In the case presented here, I had the power to create the situation described in the opening vignette, whereby Dekor was invited to join me on one of my regular visits to the Arsenal stadium.6 It might also be seen as reciprocation for

72 Chris Stone

Dekor welcoming me into his lifeworld as we got to know one another through the course of the research and shared our mutual passion for football and Arsenal FC – the research itself thus enacting the concept ‘of hospitality’. The consequence is that I got the transformative ethnographic experience (Mauro, 2019) of witnessing a live Arsenal match – something very ordinary and familiar to me – through the eyes of an-other. I fully acknowledge that the resulting version of events, as textually represented here, is of my fallibilistic making (Hammersley, 2005), but is the consequence of getting to know Dekor over three years and watching football with him on numerous occasions and in various environments. It is neither realist nor anti-realist. It is presented in a way for the reader to rhetorically join us in the immediacy of the situation and hopefully gain a better understanding of Derrida’s (2000) reading of hospitality as a negotiation between citizen (resident football supporter) and stranger (forced migrant football fan).

Forced migration and transnational football consumption The chances for refugees to exhibit their fandom tend to be restricted to sites beyond the stadium itself due to economic constraints7 – a situation not dissimilar to many other contemporary consumers of football. Nonetheless, the example of Dekor illustrates how ‘leisure can be a prime context for someone to express who they are …’ (Bouwer & van Leeuwen, 2017:79). In fact, it can ‘enable people to maintain valued identities whose original foundations have vanished’ (Roberts, 2013:262). This is important because ‘In the process of forced migration, people can lose everything that represented and anchored their social identities’ (ColicPeisker & Walker, 2003:341). Dekor’s social identity prior to leaving his homelands was, amongst other things, predominantly that of a borderland trader and football fanatic. The skills and personality traits attached to the former element of his social identity may well have been utilised to good effect in his new country of residence. However, the loss of surrounding social structures and networks vital to his survival, as well as a lack of understanding of the bureaucratic and social systems in the UK, mean that his football-based identity provides continuity and a semblance of self-control. An Arsenal-based identity, alongside his lost personal connections with family and friends, is what is revealed in the ‘backstage’ (Goffman, 1959) of Dekor’s private everyday. However, it is the ‘frontstage’ performances of this identity that reinforce a subjectivity to challenge the common-held discourses of victimhood (Sigona, 2014) that pervade understandings of forced migrants. There is not space to review prevalent discourses surrounding forced migration, a summary of which introduces previous work (see Stone, 2018). More importantly here is to highlight that asylum seekers and refugees come from varying backgrounds, with multiple interests and different levels of education and experience. Such backgrounds do not cease to exist at the point of being

Fandom, forced migration, football consumption

73

forced to migrate, though they are bureaucratically cleansed. As Colic-Peisker and Walker (2003:342) explain, being ‘issued’ the title of ‘refugee’ ‘gives them certain welfare and social entitlements, but is a vacuous, purely administrative identity and cannot replace aspects of people’s social identities.’ For some, this includes a social identity of which football fandom forms a part. Football fan identities have never been static and are contested within the cultural milieus through which such identities are performatively expressed. Furthermore, the ‘administrative identity’ attached to refugees places their subjectivity in a conditional relationship with the hospitality on offer. Dekor’s positionality as an Arsenal supporter in Sheffield and a Kurdish asylum seeker in the UK provides an opportunity to explore the negotiated relationship between social and political identities through an understanding of leisure and consumption. Due to the global reach of the English Premier League, many refugees and asylum seekers arrive in the UK having developed a relationship with, and gained knowledge of, English football clubs. Like any other ‘transnational fans’, such relationships are often predicated on availability of live broadcasts and the particular rivalries amongst successful clubs at the time of being socialised into football consumption (Hognestad, 2006; Millward, 2011; Reimer, 2004). For Dekor, it was Arsenal and Manchester United that were regularly being shown in the café where he grew up, at a time when the two clubs dominated English football. The difference between the transnational fan practices on which existing research has been conducted and those of forced migrants is the restrictions related to their legal status in pursuit of a popular leisure activity such as following a football club. This is most keenly felt in terms of the financial cost of such practices, which is prohibitive to refugees and asylum seekers. In a consumer society the inability to express one’s identity through consumer practices leads to cultural exile (Bauman, 1998). The intention here, as in the other chapters in this book, is to provide examples of how refugees circumscribe their given ‘administrative’ identities and, as de Certeau (1984) might contend, find their own ‘ways of operating’ within cultural fields.

Forced migration and transgressional football consumption Extant literature concerning refugees’ relationship with the cultural field of football focuses on the recreational and competitive participation in the sport (Spaaij et al, 2019). However, as Woodhouse and Conricode (2016:947) have highlighted in their exploratory research around individuals seeking asylum, ‘[Participants] reported a desire to be seen primarily as a fan,’ as a way of ‘at least partially dispensing with the label of asylum seeker.’ In support of my own findings (Stone, 2013), football is for many forced migrants a significant part of their interaction with others and their self-definition. Opportunities for refugees and asylum seekers to express their fandom arise in everyday contexts in a similar fashion to anyone else, such as that illustrated by Stone (2017), but the

74 Chris Stone

opportunity to consume football matches – which has always been a significant part of football fandom as a communal leisure activity – is mostly limited to terrestrial television broadcasts. Dekor occasionally contravenes his Muslim upbringing and goes to the pub in order to watch an Arsenal match on satellite television. He uses some of what little money he has to buy a beer unless, in a reflection of his football viewing practices when he was younger, the place is crowded enough to avoid having to. Other options are available: I watch on Internet, in library … I have to book one hour … and then I go to other side, you know, where there are some computer in other room, other side … on Saturday is busy, very busy … can only have one hour, so I go other computer at half time. Watching football in this way is both an isolating experience and a communal one. Viewing a match live online forms a digital connection with hundreds of thousands of other fans whilst simultaneously creating a detachment from the immediate surroundings. It restricts Dekor’s performance of his fan identity but reinforces the performative elements as he discusses the finer details of the match, team selection and tactics with other online fans. For a more embodied communal experience there are other places to watch matches. There is some café, they have television at back. They always show Champions League. Is only small but full of people … Somalia … Arab … all types of people … and they get crazy. You know, some supporting Chelsea and some support Barcelona. Everyone shouting, arguing, but not really [serious]. This is a space in a very multi-cultural part of the city, a neighbourhood into which successive migrant groups have moved. Here, the businesses cater for such a diverse customer base. They also reflect a cultural heritage of the people who run the restaurants and cafés; where perhaps a more ‘absolute hospitality’ (Derrida, 2000) is on offer than that provided by the ‘hospitality industry’, of which pub-based sport consumption is very much a part. For Dekor, a more conditional hospitality, seemingly provided by the transactional requirements of buying a beer in return for watching the match, is preferred as he seeks a position of ‘otherness’ on his own terms by virtue of his presence as a non-traditional pub goer rather than as part of a collective cultural other in a venue catering for such minorities. His character is one of sociability, his enthusiasm for life infectious – these are, to borrow from Blackshaw (2017:47–48), the subjective ‘assets’ chosen to hone in the face of the ‘fate’ of forced migration. A less spectacular rendition of the performance described in the opening section of the chapter is rehearsed time and again in the pub he occasionally visits to watch the football. His ethnicity may position him as an

Fandom, forced migration, football consumption

75

outsider, but the working-class sensibilities of those around him in this traditionally white, male space are welcoming enough to someone who can talk football with the locals despite his obvious difference – in terms of being a Kurd amongst Brits and a ‘Gooner’ amongst ‘Blades’. He knows how to ingratiate himself, skills necessary to survive in his previous livelihood. In a similar situation as that described by Back et al (2001), regarding the presence of black fans within Millwall Football Club’s supporter culture, the pub regulars, representing a cross-section of prejudice towards migrants, accept Dekor as their migrant; as a ‘contingent insider’ (Back, 1996). He is just one person and in no way threatening to their way of life, unlike the othered masses living in certain parts of the city. In this space, they are uninterested in his status as an asylum seeker and more concerned with his preference for a global football brand, such as Arsenal, over a possible allegiance to one of the local football clubs in the city. The conflation of the refugee, the asylum seeker with other forms of migration, has become problematic. It has become a pejorative term associated with a challenge to ‘traditional’ national cultures and values, driven by islamaphobic and nationalist discourses. Dekor’s acceptance, despite initial resistance, is informative of how ordinary encounters between strangers are negotiated when very different discourses are involved – when ideology and ignorance are combined with humanity and hospitality. The 1951 Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees is ostensibly indebted to Kant’s (1983[1795]) formulation of universal hospitality conceived around the foreigner’s right to protection in extreme circumstances. The extent to which this provides adequate conditions for refugees to uphold their human rights is contested due to his distinction between Besuchsrecht and Gastrecht – the latter being a more permanent right to visit than the former (Benhabib, 2004; Derrida, 2000). Thus, much of the critique revolves around how nation states have been able to use this distinction to restrict the rights of refugees in comparison to those recognised as (permanent) citizens; making Kant’s notion of universal hospitality seem anything but appropriate to all.8 Derrida (2000) draws a distinction between conditional and unconditional hospitality. The latter corresponds to Kant’s universal ethical ideal or the ‘Law of hospitality’, whereby anyone should be made welcome regardless of who they are or where they come from. This is then governed by statutory ‘laws of hospitality’ put in place to prevent the abuse of such unconditional hospitality. Summarising Derrida’s (2000) argument, La Caze (2004:316) states that, ‘the Law of absolute, unconditional hospitality demands that we transgress all the laws of hospitality and the laws of hospitality transgress the Law of hospitality.’ For there to be unconditional hospitality, the host must welcome in a foreigner, a stranger, a guest, without any qualifications, including having never been given an invitation – for that in itself is a conditional relationship based on the power to decide such an offer. Prior to any guest arriving, the host has control and holds authority over those guests permitted entry to her ‘home’. Derrida (2000:55) writes that

76 Chris Stone

hospitality cannot be ‘without sovereignty of oneself over one’s home’, but limits and conditions are set in place. As such, these conditions betray the law of absolute hospitality. absolute hospitality requires that I open up my home and that I give not only to the foreigner, but to the absolute, unknown, anonymous other, … and take place in the place I offer them, without asking of them either reciprocity (entering into a pact) or even their names. (Derrida, 2000:25) If a new arrival, or guest, is welcomed inside without condition, the guest becomes the master of the home. In other words, Derrida claims that, ‘we thus enter from the inside: the master of the house is at home, but nonetheless he comes to enter his home through the guest—who comes from outside’ (Derrida, 2000:35). In welcoming the guest, as Westmoreland (2008) puts it, a tension arises. In order to be hospitable, the host must give up security, authority, and property and promise benevolence. The guest becomes the host. For our discussion here, the transgression is such that other fans, in the stadium or the pub, are no longer themselves, or rather the often-dominant version of themselves that is performatively constructed through a national and political anti-immigrant culture. Their prejudices are revoked, temporarily at least. They are no longer playing host to the forced migrant other. They are the guests in their own ‘home’ whilst the ‘other’, without invitation, performs an uncompromising version of his football-supporting self. These guests are not the ironic spectators of a distant spectacle of suffering (Chouliaraki, 2013), taking some moral stance in an act of kindness or pity. Their (unintentional) humanity is expressed through an everyday encounter with the ‘other’ that is both challenging (to their performative prejudice) and acceptable due to its transgressional nature – though they may never know that. The (peaceable) relationship between football fans is unconditional for the duration of the match, in that it is anonymous and time limited. For Dekor, it is an opportunity to ‘strengthen the internal coherence of [his] own life story’ (Bouwer & van Leeuwen, 2017:84), through the negotiation of unconditional and conditional hospitality due to the expression of a leisure-based identity more powerful than his acquired label of refugee. O’Gorman (2006:56) suggests ‘Hospitality exists within lived experience; it is a gift given by the “host” to the “guest”, and then shared between them … [It] is an act of generosity … which turns a stranger into a friend for a limited period of time.’ As Derrida (2000) argues, ‘host’ and ‘guest’ are not immutable characters, and the lived experience of football consumption is a creative process, the varying elements of which fans have differing levels of power to influence. The confidence with which Dekor performs his (unconventional) Arsenal identity, both in the stadium and in the pub, pushes other elements indicating his ‘difference’ into the background and invites others to become part of his performative football milieu.

Fandom, forced migration, football consumption

77

Football consumption, forced migration and the art of living Dekor is an Arsenal fan. Dekor is an asylum seeker. In the legislatory world of academic literature, Dekor is a case study. He provides a case which highlights the role that football fandom can play for individuals seeking asylum to challenge the identity ascribed to them. Dekor is no victim. He is living a life in very difficult conditions (as an asylum seeker in the UK) but conditions that offer him freedom from the tyranny of his previous existence. The art of living this life in a way of his choosing is through the leisure world of football fandom and the performance of an Arsenal-based fan identity built on years of non-‘traditional’ football consumption. His commitment to the production of himself as a globalised football fan allows him to be incorporated into the social body of local (masculine) football culture on his terms. In many ways, he is no different to many thousands of other transnational fans who consume a Premier League football club from afar, sharing opinions online and performing their football identities within their own micro-cultures. Like Dekor, they are fans for whom the opportunity to see their heroes live is extremely restricted. That does not stop them, or him, being Arsenal fans. It does not stop him from expressing that fandom when he has the opportunity and the means. This is not dissimilar to the situation of football fans disenfranchised by the more dominant modern consumer model seen positively by Brooks (2019) but cautioned against by scholars such as Williams (2006); football fans with whom Dekor finds company in the pub. Fans that are economically excluded from attending matches for various reasons, but whose leisure lives take shape in front of screens showing matches in their local pub. It is these everyday encounters that sustain and are sustained by any notion of football culture (Stone, 2007; 2017). They are also sustained by a hospitality that is unconditional, in the sense that the commitment to a football or Arsenal identity overrides preconceptions based on ethnicity and conflated notions of (forced) migration such that the symbolic homeliness of football that fans seek for all number of reasons is opened up to the anonymous other – for the duration of a peaceable exchange. Hospitality is often seen as something given by those who can to those in need. For forced migrants, this interpretation leads to a sense that hospitality is withheld by those informed by an unsympathetic public discourse or provided as charity to a group of individuals presumed to have ‘lost everything’. Reading ‘hospitality’ through the eyes of Derrida (2000) and applying it to football consumption is to recognise that whilst ‘traditional (masculine) fan’ discourses remain strong, the performativities associated with such a leisure pursuit are in constant negotiation, and that hospitality is defined by transgressive processes that challenge common-held understandings of the concept. Recognising that social interactions in leisure contexts between extant community members and newcomers (of any kind) begin with the concept of hospitality, and that such encounters are an act of negotiation and transference of power, allows us to explore forced migrants’ agency in the process – within micro-cultures of fandom at least. The relationship

78 Chris Stone

between and influence of micro-cultures on wider discourses relies on increasing opportunities for difference to be experienced. Blackshaw (2017:15) invites Leisure Studies to re-imagine the philosophical tools through which marginalised groups (the poor) ‘are designated, delegitimised, assigned their place, and have their leisure classified and tied down to a function, which inscribes them and their worlds into the dominant order of things.’ Leisure is not an object that you have or not but a way of being in the world – the art of living. Through an ethnographic-based methodology combined with active participatory elements that responded to the desires of forced migrants involved in the study, rather than merely reporting as fact their footballing life-worlds, this research aimed to both raise awareness of how football plays a part in the lives of refugees and asylum seekers, and actively address the power inequalities and barriers that maintain forced migrants’ position as part of the ‘new footballing poor’, to adapt Bauman’s (1998) turn of phrase. In so doing it responds to Blackshaw’s (2017) application of Rancière (2004), in arguing that Leisure Studies theorists have fallen into the trap of failing to recognise the part they play in ‘solidifying’ the place of the ‘poor’ within the circumstances of their own existence. His contention is that ‘what sociologists need to grasp is that actually existing reality and the ability to transform it lies not in their theories or their research but in the collective passion of individuals’ (32). This research harnessed that collective passion, both for football and for challenging existing inequality that is still all too often ‘fetishised’ within studies of otherness. It also recognises that ‘non-playing participation through consumption of sports [can] promote other forms of social connectedness’ (Agergaard, 2018:49 – emphasis added), temporarily at least. There is no doubt that Dekor is an Arsenal fan. He has made his home in the global north bank of contemporary football culture through a leisure life-world that has helped, in Blackshaw’s (2017) perspective, his becoming someone in the world. He already was someone in the world. In his world. Prior to departure. Prior to becoming another administrative object of the UK Border Agency. Dekor has drawn on his experience of following football, and adapted and exaggerated elements of it, in order to keep becoming someone – and keep defining (part of) his world on his terms. And although his performative self often transgresses the norms of football fan culture within the different contexts in which he now performs his fandom, he has become a confident ‘host’ in his home of football. A home in-between permanence and transience; moving between ‘absolute’ and ‘conditional’ hospitality; visible to his ‘guests’, invisible to policy concerns.

Notes 1 The original research from which this vignette is taken was carried out in 2012. However, during a more recent social meeting with Dekor at a match outside of the research process, you could replace the name of Sagna with Kolasinac, as the cyclic nature of football support reflects continuities in fan behaviours.

Fandom, forced migration, football consumption

79

2 This chapter is based upon participatory research project, ‘Football – A shared sense of belonging?’ carried out by community organisation, Football Unites Racism Divides (FURD), in Sheffield, England. Further details can be found at https://furd.org/content/research. 3 Debates about the (re)presentation of research continue to prevail, particularly within ethnography. The choice of present tense in the opening section is purposeful because, as part of a constructivist paradigm, it ‘inherently asserts an understanding that this is a step-by-step reconstruction … exploratory, tentative, hypothetical, potentially fallible’ (Salemanski, cited by Chee, 2015). Chee goes on to discuss the use of the historical present, critical present, epistolary present and diaristic present, all of which are applicable to ethnographic writing, particularly when recreating a moment in time that, for an asylum seeker, much of whose past has been discarded and whose future remains unresolved, arguably exists only in the present. 4 See Stone (2013; 2018) for further exploration of the FURD Belonging Group. 5 See King (1998), Millward (2011) and Brooks (2019) for critical discussions about, and defining characteristics of, ‘traditional’ forms of masculine supporter culture. 6 Inevitably my familiarity with the neighbourhood surrounding the stadium influenced our pre-match behaviour, but the decision to eat in a Turkish café was made through dialogue between us as we strolled the crowded streets. Similarly, the performance in the stadium was a negotiation between our different histories of football fandom. This, and the reactions of fans sitting nearby, contribute to the mutual construction of the match-going text recreated here. 7 Through a partnership with the local professional football club, Sheffield United, the research project did provide numerous opportunities to attend live matches with groups of forced migrants, including Dekor on some occasions. This chapter is informed by observations carried out on such occasions as a form of ‘triangulation’. 8 It must be recognised that Kant’s philosophy, dating from the late 18th century, had a normative concern for the visited, as indigenous people became the subject of colonial ‘discovery’, as much as those seeking refuge on foreign lands. He recognised that hospitality worked in both directions and was open to abuse through colonial power differentials.

References Agergaard, S. (2018) Rethinking Sports and Integration: Developing a Transnational Perspective on Migrants and Descendants in Sports. Abingdon: Routledge. Back, L. (1996) New Ethnicities and Urban Culture: Racisms and Multiculture in Young Lives. London: UCL Press. Back, L., Crabbe, T. & Solomos, J. (2001) The Changing Face of Football. Oxford: Berg. Back, L., Sinha, S., & Bryan, C. (2012) New hierarchies of belonging, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 15:139–154. Bauman, Z. (1998) Work, Consumerism and the New Poor. Buckingham: OUP. Benhabib, S. (2004) The Rights of Others. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blackshaw, T. (2017) Re-Imagining Leisure Studies. Abingdon: Routledge. Bouwer, J. & van Leeuwen, M. (2017) Philosophy of Leisure: Foundations of the Good Life. Abingdon: Routledge. Bradbury, S. (2013) Institutional racism, whiteness and the under-representation of minorities in leadership positions in football in Europe, Soccer and Society, 14 (3):296–314. Brooks, O. (2019) Football, Fandom and Consumption. Abingdon: Routledge.

80 Chris Stone Burdsey, D. (2011) ‘They think it’s all over … it isn’t yet! The persistence of structural racism and racialised exclusion in twenty-first century football,’ in D. Burdsey (ed.) Race, Ethnicity and Football: Persisting Debates and Emergent Issues. London: Routledge. Chee, A. (2015) In defense of the present tense. Literary Hub [online]. https://lithub. com/in-defense-of-the-present-tense/. Chouliaraki, L. (2013) The Ironic Spectator: Solidarity in the Age of Post-Humanitarianism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Colic-Peisker, V. & Walker, I. (2003) Human capital, acculturation and social identity: Bosnian refugees in Australia, Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 13:337–360. de Certeau, M. (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Derrida, J. (2000) Of Hospitality. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Middlesex: Penguin. Hammersley, M. (2005) ‘The rhetorical turn in ethnography,’ in C. Pole (ed.) Fieldwork: Volume IV – Analysis, Outcomes and Reflections. London: SAGE. Hognestad, H. (2006) Transnational passions: a statistical study of Norwegian football supporters, Soccer & Society, 10 (3–4):358–373. hooks, b. (1990) Yearning: Race, Gender and Cultural Politics. Boston: South End. Kant, I. (1983 [1795]) ‘To perpetual peace; a philosophical sketch,’ in T. Humphrey (trans.) Perpetual Peace and Other Essays. Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing Company. King, A. (1998) The End of the Terraces: The Transformation of English Football in the 1990s. London: Leicester University Press. La Caze, M. (2004) Not just visitors: cosmopolitanism, hospitality, and refugees, Philosophy Today, 48 (3):313–324. Mauro, M. (2019) The man with the leaking bucket: ethnography, journalism, and the quest for the transformative self, Cultural Studies ERROR Critical Methodologies, 20(6), 515–523. Millward, P. (2011) The Global Football League: Transnational Networks, Social Movements and Sport in the New Media Age. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Nash, R. (2000) Contestation in modern english professional football: the independent supporters association movement. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 35 (4):465–486. O’Gorman, K. (2006) Jaques Derrida’s philosophy of hospitality, The Hospitality Review, (October):50–57. Rancière, J. (2004) The Philosopher and his Poor. Durham & London: Duke University Press. Reimer, B. (2004) ‘For the love of England: Scandinavian football supporters, Manchester United and British popular culture,’ in D. L. Andrews (ed.) Manchester United: A Thematic Study. London: Routledge. Roberts, K. (2013) ‘Leisure and the life course,’ in T. Blackshaw (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Leisure Studies. London: Routledge. Scraton, S., Caudwell, J. & Holland, S. (2005) ‘Bend it like Patel’: centring ‘race’, ethnicity and gender in feminist analysis of women’s football in England, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 40 (1):71–88. Sigona, N. (2014) ‘The Politics of Refugee Voices: Representations, Narratives, and Memories,’ in E. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, G. Loescher, K. Long & N. Sigona (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Refugee & Forced Migration Studies. Oxford: OUP.

Fandom, forced migration, football consumption

81

Spaaij, R., Broerse, J., Oxford, S., Luguetti, C., McLachlan, F., McDonald, B., Klepac, B., Lymbery, L., Bishara, J. & Pankowiak, A. (2019) Sport, refugees, and forced migration: a critical review of the literature. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 1:47 (online). Spencer, S. (2011) The Migration Debate. Bristol: Policy Press. Stone, C. (2007) The role of football in everyday life. Soccer & Society, 8 (2/3):169–184. Stone, C. (2013) Football – A shared sense of belonging? Sheffield: FURD. https:// furd.org/uploads/files/Final_Research_Report-_low_res.pdf. Stone, C. (2017) Football: spectacularly insignificant or unspectacularly significant? Soccer & Society, 18 (4):445–461. Stone, C. (2018) Utopian community football? Sport, hope and belongingness in the lives of refugees and asylum seekers, Leisure Studies, 37 (2):171–183. Westmoreland, M. W. (2008) Interruptions: derrida and hospitality, Kritike, 2 (1):1–10. Williams, J. (2006) ‘Protect me from what i want’: football fandom, celebrity cultures and ‘new’ football in England, Soccer & Society, 7 (1):96–114. Woodhouse, D. & Conricode, D. (2016) In-ger-land, In-ger-land, In-ger-land! Exploring the impact of soccer on the sense of belonging of those seeking asylum in the UK, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 52 (8):940–954.

Part II

Displaced bodies and intersecting inequalities

Chapter 6

Leisure provision for LGBTIQ+ refugees Opportunities and constraints on building solidarity and citizenship across differences in Brazil Nadyne Venturini-Trindade Introduction In the early 2000s, “LGBTIQ+ refugees”1 gained visibility when international aid agencies began to support asylum and refugee claims with sexual orientation and gender identity as the primary drivers of migration (Patton and Sanchez-Eppler, 2000). Subsequently, a growing number of scholars explored the connections between the narratives and experiences of space, time, identity and embodiment among “LGBTIQ+ asylum applicants” (Gray and McDowall, 2013; Heller, 2009; Luibhéid, 2008; Murray, 2014). Though unintentionally, by focusing on the experience of refugees in the United States, Canada, Australia and Western European countries, these analyses reinforced the idea that countries in the so-called Global North are natural destinations for “LGBTIQ+ refugees”. Over the past decade, the obstructive nature of migration policies in Western European countries has intensified the search for alternative migration routes (Andrade, 2019a). Global South–South migrations increased (França and Fontgaland, 2020) and Brazil transitioned from being one of the main global sources of “LGBTIQ+ asylum applicants” to become a country that now welcomes an increasing number of requests from “LGBTIQ+ refugees” (Carvalho, 2013; UN, 2020). This change is a result of specific policy developments that began to come into effect from 2010, when the country overhauled its legislation to guarantee the legal recognition of trans identities and same-sex marriage within its domestic and immigration policy. More recently, one of the most accentuated migration fluxes into Brazil resulted from the economic crisis affecting Venezuela (Lima et al., 2017). Brazil is not the main destination for Venezuelans, who, for the most part, relocate to Colombia. Nevertheless, LGBTIQ+ individuals make up a significant number of Venezuelan refugees in the country and travestis represent the majority under this umbrella term (Fonseca, 2020). The term travesti has its roots in the colonizers’ fixation with gender binaries (i. e. two clearly defined sexes and two genders premised on these sexes), and the DOI: 10.4324/9780429341045-8

86 Nadyne Venturini-Trindade

understanding that one needs to dress according to the rigid gender dichotomy. While travesti was originally a pejorative adjective to gender non-conforming individuals, nowadays the term has been re-worked into a political noun by Latin American activists to describe individuals who were assigned male at birth and cross-gender, cross-sex and cross-dress, presenting different expressions of femininity (Rizki, 2019; Ferreira, 2017). Since Brazil has a free and universal health system and the national HIV/AIDS programme is considered the strongest in Latin America, the path to health care can be crucial for this population, especially for HIV-positive individuals and people undergoing, and wishing to undergo, transgender hormone therapy.2 Yet, the improvement of gender and sexual rights in Brazil in the context of forced migration has to be considered in relative terms. Travestis who are part of the Venezuelan diaspora experience different forms of exclusion, harassment and social vulnerability when accessing public and private services in Brazil (Jarrín, 2016; Sampaio, 2019). This is because social hierarchies, based not only on race and class (Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada, 2019) but also on sexuality and gender identity, are determining factors for the experience of violence in Brazil (Oliveira and Polidoro, 2018). Moreover, over the past few years, Brazil has registered the highest rates of violence against, and homicides of, trans and gender-diverse people in the world (Benevides and Nogueira, 2020). With the striking growth of genderbased violence, the term gendercide has been used as an alternative to the term femicide,3 since it encompasses covert nuances of violence affecting both cisgender and gender-nonconforming women. LGBTIQ+ advocacy organizations in Brazil play a pivotal role in mobilizing against rights violations and violence in the context of forced migration (Andrade, 2017; Vianna and Lacerda, 2004). For example, at the national level, policy advocacy organizations such as the Association of Queer and Transgender People (Associação Nacional de Travestis e Transexuais), Rede Trans Brazil (RedeTrans), Gay Group of Bahia (Grupo Gay da Bahia) and Dignity Group (Grupo Dignidade) are active campaigners and articulate defensive activities to influence and inform the public opinion in favour of legal, social and cultural reforms for LGBTIQ+ individuals (Hutta and Balzer, 2013). Other non-profit organizations employ intersectional approaches when assessing the needs of the “LGBTIQ+ community”. For instance, Casa Miga is a nongovernmental organization offering exclusive shelter for the “LGBTIQ+ refugee” population in Manaus. Pana is a refugee support programme developed by a partnership between Cáritas Brazil/Switzerland and the United States Department of State. Pana focuses on the experiences of minority refugee communities (such as women, LGBTIQ+ people and indigenous communities), offering opportunities for community building and access to health care and education. Most of the advocacy efforts employed by these organizations focus on tackling the increased risk of abuse and denial of access to fundamental goods and services. Some of the strategies involve local and national

Leisure provision for LGBTIQ+ refugees

87

information campaigns partnered with government authorities and transnational humanitarian aid organizations (i.e. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)) to challenge stigmatization and negative public opinion towards “LGBTIQ+ refugees”. Furthermore, based on principles of distributive justice, LGBTIQ+ initiatives offer alternatives to mainstream shelters and support programmes in areas such as health care, housing, education, employment and leisure (i.e. “LGBTIQ + refugee”-only spaces and programmes providing additional services and support across key areas of social assistance). These principles are implemented through a focus on “LGBTIQ+” issues in the contexts of refugees, and the assessment of material and symbolic conditions influenced by economic and social differences of individuals. Intervention at various levels of organizational and technical complexity has been central to building protection alternatives to “LGBTIQ + refugees”, around which public policies are formulated and target audiences are identified. However, the conundrum with this approach to social justice is that it conceivably reinforces the categorization of the individuals as “LGBTIQ + refugees” (Andrade, 2019b). In regards to leisure participation, many social groups with migrant backgrounds encounter limited opportunities to engage in cultural, sporting and recreational activities in Brazil. The intersections of gender, sexuality, race and nationality intensify the processes of exclusion in this area (UNDP, 2017). For example, the Refugees World Cup and the Refugee Friendly Club Program (Programa Clube Amigo do Refugiado), the most prominent sport and leisure provisions in the country for refugees, illustrate the constraints for inclusive and democratic access. These initiatives are men-only programmes that use football as a vehicle to promote social inclusion and participation in sports events, club memberships and local leisure communities in São Paulo. Researchers looking at the uses of leisure and sport in the context of forced migration in other countries have critically discussed the taken-for-granted assumptions about the benefits of these initiatives (Spaaij et al., 2019). It is understood that specific frameworks (i.e. a welcoming and interactive atmosphere in the projects) have the potential to promote community protagonism and socialization (Doidge, Keech and Sandri, 2020). Less is known about the barriers to attract and retain the so-called “hard to reach” participants with a migrant background (gender and sexual minorities, women and young girls, people with disabilities, indigenous communities) in these programmes. Thus, the specific challenges that limit the access of refugees to privately and publicly funded programmes in this area remain unexplored. This chapter examines the opportunities and constraints of co-developing a leisure project with Venezuelan refugees who self-identified as travesti and victims/survivors of sexual violence in Boa Vista—Brazil. We describe the case of Roda Dialógica, an initiative funded in 2017 through a partnership between the Federal University of Roraima and United Nations (UN) Women Brazil. The prevention project consisted of weekly, trauma-based, group therapy sessions

88 Nadyne Venturini-Trindade

and monthly cultural workshops aimed to explore the versatility and cultural significance of rodas (circles) in Brazil. Through a descriptive approach, this chapter dialogues with Brazilian and international literature, exposing theoretical debates and empirical data to discuss forced migration, leisure and sportbased programmes for “LGBTIQ+ refugees”.

Methodology Primary data collected for this qualitative study was obtained with approval from the Federal University of Paraná Ethics Committee (protocol number 2.106.792). This chapter reflects on the second phase of the three-year participatory action research (PAR) project focused on gendercide prevention in Boa Vista.

Context Boa Vista is the capital city of Roraima and occupies the top spot of the ranking of gender-based homicides in Brazil (Human Rights Watch, 2017). As in other areas of the North and Northeast of the country with higher rates of social inequality, travestis experience an increased risk of suffering violent attacks on the streets (Mendes and Silva, 2020). In the context of refuge, travestis and women face an increased risk of not reporting crimes they have suffered or witnessed—such as robberies, assaults, kidnappings and rape— because of the fear of deportation. The issue is even more critical when the victims are sex workers and/or subjects of human trafficking (Ferreira, 2017; UNHCR, 2017). The gendercide prevention project aimed to address the effects of discrimination (transphobia, homophobia and xenophobia at the interpersonal and institutional level) and social marginalization (poverty, lack of job prospects and sex work hierarchies) in the context of forced migration. It used circles (rodas) as a framework to enable horizontal, and effective, participation in trauma-based group therapy sessions and cultural workshops. The extensive use of talking circles to structure communications and decisionmaking processes is found in different indigenous traditions in the Americas (Brown and Di Lallo, 2020). African-Latin versions of circles use embodied experiences, combining unique forms of popular dance (the rueda del casino in Venezuela and the roda de coco in Brazil) and music (the rueda de tambores in Venezuela and the roda de samba in Brazil) as a vehicle of resistance and cultural identity. In Brazil, rodas use music, poetry, art and movement, and historically they have been linked to social and political movements of resistance. The extensive use of talking circles (rodas) in group therapy aims to create an atmosphere of interconnectedness, mutual respect and intergroup identity. Beyond a group therapy context, variations of talking circles are used as pedagogical tools in educational settings, and other types of rodas are an identifying element in different Brazilian

Leisure provision for LGBTIQ+ refugees

89

cultural manifestations (i.e. roda de samba, roda de coco, roda de poesia, roda de capoeira and roda de altinha). In the first phase of Roda Dialógica, the prevention programme was primarily focused on providing weekly, trauma-based, group therapy sessions to discuss alternatives with participants. Participants and practitioners explored prevention strategies, personal experiences and peer-supported activities during the encounters. The project also included monthly workshops that explored many formats of rodas of music, traditional dances, martial arts and sporting manifestations. These activities were included in the scope of the programme with the intention of building mutual trust and intersectional solidarity among participants and practitioners. In the first year, the programme relied on previous community-level preventive and peer-supported humanitarian interventions developed in the region to tackle sexual violence. The evidence around what prevention and support interventions are effective for recovery from sexual violence is scant, and most of the existing research focuses on domestic violence (DeGue, Hipp and Herbst, 2016; Hegarty et al., 2016; Kosciw et al., 2018). With very little understanding of the specific patterns of violence against sex workers and the experience of gender non-conforming individuals seeking refuge, funders designed the project following a rationale of intervention that did not correspond to the lived realities of the target group. Despite the assumed shared experience of participants as “travesti refugee sex worker”, there were discrepancies in terms of the participants’ perceptions of susceptibility to suffering gender-based violence. Some of them were engaged in sex work in Venezuela, while others had recently started to work in Brazil. Accordingly, participants had been exposed to various degrees of abuse, harassment and violence, on the streets and at work, and not all of them had spent time in mixed and/or single-sex shelters. A lack of adherence to the programme raised the need to redefine the format of the intervention. Between May 2018 and December 2019, the project underwent a formative evaluation process that intended to explore the popularity of leisure interventions among participants and discuss the incorporation of self-defence technique workshops in the scope of the prevention strategies.

Participants and data gathering Participants (36 Venezuelan travestis), practitioners (two psychologists, one community leader, one Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor and one university professor) and funders of the project (one representative from UNHCR and one from Federal University of Roraima/Caritas Brazil) engaged in a 19-month formative evaluative process that followed the theoretical and methodological process of Fourth-Generation Evaluation (FGE), developed by Guba and Lincoln (1989) and adapted by Wetzel (2005). FGE is an alternative to traditional evaluation frameworks, which use parameters and objectives of evaluations predefined by funders, managers

90 Nadyne Venturini-Trindade

and external evaluators. Instead, FGE is a participatory evaluation process that uses the claims, concerns and issues raised by different interest groups as the basis for an interactive negotiation focused on change in community projects (Guba and Lincoln, 1989). The goal is to reach a compromise, especially when consensus among interest groups is not possible. FGE can be used to expose and clarify different views, and provide insights for advocacy strategies (Wetzel et al., 2017). Inductive data analysis (Lincoln and Guba, 1985; 1989) was developed as part of the FGE process. Each researcher read the data sets independently and coded the transcriptions and field notes, aggregating the central themes, concepts, ideas, values, problems and questions proposed by each interest group during the data collection. Secondly, researchers discussed the coding process and the generation of themes in collaborative group meetings (Wetzel, 2005; Fine, 2007). The peerchecking process was intended to challenge the interpretations of data and the construction of themes. Researchers agreed on the re-conceptualization of themes and distribution of the codes and extracts of the data.

Results This study aimed to explore the opportunities and constraints of adopting an activist research approach in the context of a leisure project for Venezuelan travesti refugees in Boa Vista, Brazil. The results from the FGE’s progressive analysis are divided into two overarching themes: (a) attentiveness to the needs of the community and (b) the development of a community of practice.

Attentiveness to the needs of the community There was an inherent tension between the proponents of the project and the participants at the beginning of the participatory evaluation process. Participants wanted to spend more time exploring Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu techniques and focusing on self-defence possibilities of this martial art. This choice evoked concerns from the proponents of the initiative (practitioners and funders), who challenged the acceptability of violent resistance as a permanent component of the prevention project. When self-defence technique workshops were offered in the first stage, it consisted of five monthly rodas of capoeira (Afro-Brazilian) and Brazilian JiuJitsu (Japanese-Brazilian) that focused on the historical and cultural background of these practices in the 16th and 20th century. These martial arts were selected based on their national and international recognition, their intercultural roots and history of popular resistance against oppression and physical violence. The negotiation stage was developed to resolve two revindications: (a) to increase the offer of self-defence techniques workshops (participants) and (b) to expand and integrate activities into the existing scope of the gendercide prevention programme (practitioners and funders group). This process intended to

Leisure provision for LGBTIQ+ refugees

91

find a compromise between funders, practitioners and participants, and the varying ideas about the role of leisure in the scope of the programme. We need more of what brings happiness and relaxation after a sad day because we are more than just physical and emotional fears. (Participant 7, Focus Group 6) The project is for the community and we need their ideas to make it, but we must have a foresighted approach to make sure ideas will not fade away and that we sustain it financially. (Practitioner 2, Negotiation 1) For some refugees, the support networks may be composed of compatriots, family members and speakers of the same language, but for “LGBTIQ+ refugees”, their sexualities and gender identities can be factors in the breakdown of such dynamics of coexistence and identification (Andrade, 2017; 2019a). For participants of the programme, learning new skills and having informal conversations with the practitioners was described as a moment of comfort and distancing from the burdens of everyday life. Hence, the encounters outside of the trauma-based group therapy sessions, and the option to take part in the workshops, created an opportunity for engagement in less structured interactions with other participants and the practitioners. Despite validating participants’ subjective meanings attributed to these leisure encounters, practitioners exposed concerns with the politics of funding, pointing to structural barriers and unwarranted maintenance of community-led sports and leisure initiatives. There are multiple causes for the discontinuity of public and private investments in the area of sport and leisure in Brazil (Castro, Starepravo and Souza, 2018; Almeida et al., 2018), however, social projects have the disadvantage of having to demonstrate quantifiable social outcomes, such as employability rates and wages, educational attainment, and improved health and criminality index indications to funding agencies (Trindade, 2017). Successful funding is often dependent on the process of “fact-building” (Webb and Richelieu, 2016, p.447), and particularly the ability to collect retrospective quantitative evidence of social change. Small sport and leisure programmes with a focus on qualitative indicators of mental health and wellbeing, gender diversity and community building at the local level are hindered by this approach to funding. In the context of FGE, the discussions between the interest groups pointed to the paradoxical nature of participatory evaluation and how power imbalances between funders, practitioners and participants were perceived and resisted. Our long-term plan is to fund prevention projects that have an evidence base behind them as in the case of this trauma-based therapy initiative with the refugees. (Funder 1, Negotiation 1)

92 Nadyne Venturini-Trindade

We shared the experiences and you [funders] can hear us saying “we want to resist violence using our voice but also our bodies”. Now it is up to you to say if it is legit. It is your choice, isn’t it? (Participant 3, Negotiation 1) I am hearing that self-defence is also redressing and raising the head for the participants. I believe this is what we [funders and practitioners] intended when we talked about reframing victimization in this project and I see how it could work. (Practitioner 1, Negotiation 3) The early format of the prevention project had conceptual biases and protection gaps, which failed to recognize the axes of exclusion affecting sexual and gender diverse people, and particularly, travesties seeking refuge. Funders rationalized their discourses by appealing to the prestige of evidence-based interventions in humanitarian settings, which do not recognize the role of leisure (Hasmi, Gross and Scott-Young, 2014) or self-defence interventions (Rosenblum and Taska, 2014) as an appropriate coping strategy in the context of forced migration. The existing “evidence” on the use of leisure in the context of forced migration is based on the experiences of adult, cisgender (mostly male) and heterosexual individuals (Stepputat and Sørensen, 2014), and gives primacy to well-established sports activities (organized team sports, especially football) (Spaaij et al., 2019). Thus, even when sport and leisure activities are offered based on utilitarian claims, the existing evidence on “what works” and “why” has to be redefined in different contexts. The narratives from the participant and the practitioner challenge the glass ceiling in participatory development. The question about the legitimacy of participant’s preferences is elucidative of the refusal to conform to the criteria proposed by funders. It also reinforced the importance of recognizing how participants re-signified their participation in the project, and how they developed a particular interest for a specific activity despite the diversity of sport and leisure experiences offered in the programme.

Developing a learning community When “LGBTIQ+ refugees” cannot report other motivations for refuge and asylum request, they are often under the pressure of performing their sexualities and gender identities to “prove” their case to local authorities (Andrade et al., 2020; Lewis, 2014). However, a public performance of entangled sexual and gendered identities outside the cis-heteronormative imaginary can increase one’s risk of violence and hostility from locals and compatriots (Andrade, 2019a). With the chances of experiencing more harassment and mistrust navigating the legal system and everyday life, many refugees will suppress gender identity and sexuality as a cause of migration.

Leisure provision for LGBTIQ+ refugees

93

In the Venezuelan diaspora, the pervasive effects of political and economic aspects allow travestis to make their refuge claims around other grounds. Outside [of the project] it can be a lose–lose game for us because we are travestis and clandestine. (Participant 1, Focus Group 1) Physical, sexual, economic and emotional abuse can increase one’s vulnerability to mental and physical health issues (Asquith, Roberts and Bartkowiak-Théron, 2017; Misztal, 2011; Oliviero, 2018). There is a substantial indication that gender and sexual minorities are part of a socially vulnerable group (McCann and Brown, 2018; Rodgers, Asquith and Dwyer, 2017) and, in the context of forced migration, these experiences can be compounded with the lack of legal status or right to remain in the country. Comparatively, health disparities among cisgender and gender nonconforming individuals include higher rates of HIV prevalence among transwomen (Baral et al., 2013), self-injury and suicidality (Marshall et al., 2016), body dissatisfaction (Jones et al., 2016), social anxiety (Millet, Longworth and Arcelus, 2017) and eating disorders (McClain and Peebles, 2016). Participants compared the experiences in safe and unsafe spaces, stressing the importance of the shared experience of group therapeutic circles as an opportunity to create self-awareness, self-worth and to foster dialogue, whereas the self-defence activities encouraged solidarity and bystander interventions. Participants were able to relate to one another, to create collective narratives and to differentiate the meanings of their learning experiences beyond the stereotypical assumptions about the uses and limits of selfdefence. The therapy helps with the expression of our difficulties and reminds me that I am someone who deserves respect being who I want to be. (Participant 23, Focus Group 1) When we are fighting, we are not hoping to overpower anyone on the streets. We are acting and learning how to protect one another in practical ways. (Participant 12, Negotiation 2) These results are corroborated by other studies that stressed how selfdefence programmes can complement trauma-based psychotherapy (Brecklin and Middendorf, 2014) and can create an integrated body experience (Rosenblum and Taska, 2014). The combination of reflexive knowledge and know-how in a community of practice ensures that the self-defence techniques are linked to situational judgements, rather than merely embodied performances.

94 Nadyne Venturini-Trindade

We can be more hands-on with self-defence and talk more often about preventative strategies like looking around and becoming attentive even when they are all gathering in the street corner.4 (Practitioner 1, Negotiation 3) I used to face a lot of fear and embarrassment on the streets talking to clients, people walking by and so on … but the idea of always having a plan B with a friend, an escape route or giving a shout made me remember that I am not alone. (Participant 4, Focus Group 6) The physical and emotional closeness enabled during self-defence training and group therapy highlighted the participants’ experiences of everyday risk and uncertainties, feelings of contingent safety and the implications of these categories to participants’ livelihoods. With a situational approach to self-defence activities, participants and practitioners had an opportunity to challenge “othering” narratives and explore sameness in the context of embodied experiences and informal conversations. This further contributed to challenging the views about travesti’s contact with violence as either unconventional (when compared to victims of domestic violence) or inevitable (as sex workers), replacing it with a commitment to mutual care and responsibility.

Discussion Access to sport and leisure activities is frequently associated with collective and individual empowerment and wellbeing. These activities are also a significant part of public participation, and can be used as tools for social recognition and inclusion and the exploration and expression of collective identities. Some scholars contend that many forms of social injustice can be manifested and reproduced through leisure, having different consequences for specific social groups (Long, Fletcher and Watson, 2017). Others will argue that a transformative agenda in sport and leisure is dependent on the development of socially critical interventions that aim to guarantee access and participants’ autonomy in the context of sport and leisure participation (Luguetti et al., 2017; Meir and Fletcher, 2019). Drawing on Paulo Freire’s (Freire, 2005) concept of liberation and Enrique Pichon-Rivière’s (Pichon-Rivière, 2009) concept of operating groups, this section explores the challenges and opportunities to re-define the scope of the prevention project with participants. The discussion is divided into four overreaching themes: (a) emerging ethics of care; (b) building solidarity and citizenship across differences; (c) limitations of existing approaches to leisure activities in the context of forced migration; and (d) future directions.

Leisure provision for LGBTIQ+ refugees

95

An emerging ethics of care Empowerment is promoted as a panacea for many forms of violence, discrimination and social exclusion. Its corollary, self-reliance, is a contested concept in academia (Shor and Freire, 1987; Budgeon, 2014). Socially critical scholars have opposed the individualistic narratives about empowerment, claiming that empowerment has to be social and emerge from collective learning, action and existence in the world (Pichon-Rivière, 2009). For Freire (2005), there is an intimate connection between empowerment and group identity. Using the example of social class, he claimed that emancipation is a result of a collective, comprehensive, mutual and contagious reflection on shared experiences, culture and struggles to obtain political power. Roda Dialógica was designed to address the deleterious effect of gender and sexual violence in the context of forced migration. The circle talks were used as a tool to promote an intimate, horizontal and considerate dialogue between the practitioners and the participants. Despite the empathetic concern imbued in the conception of the project, there were barriers to distributive justice (Fraser, 2007). In the context of FGE participatory evaluation, the response from the project’s proponents to participants’ expectations about the changes in the project revealed a paternalistic vein regarding the conceptualization, limits and scope of the interventions. Firstly, funders opposed the incorporation of weekly sessions of selfdefence in the project due to the “lack of evidence” of their effectiveness in the context of gendercide. Evidence was limited to quantifiable standards and failed to capture how participants experienced different elements of the prevention project (group therapy and self-defence), and how they perceived the value of the interactions with the individuals with which they interacted. Secondly, the position of funders was indicative of the stratification between those who allocate the resources, the means and the objectives of the interventions, and those who receive, implement and participant in the programmes. In this regard, practitioners faced a conflict of interests, sharing support to the proposal of participants but holding concerns about securing the funding for the project. This was due to the perceived higher value of structured psychotherapy in comparison to leisure provision in the context of humanitarian crises, as well as the lack of recognition and funding of integrative practices that fall aside to the medicalized approach to trauma management. Feminist scholars have contested the de-valuing narratives about selfdefence training in the context of preventive programmes. Hollander and colleagues (see Hollander, 2009, 2014, 2016; Hollander and Cunningham, 2020) critically respond to some of the arguments against the effectiveness of violent resistance in the context of gender-based violence. Other researchers also challenged the allegations that self-defence strategies place the prevention duty on the victims of violence and can potentially aggravate the

96 Nadyne Venturini-Trindade

outcome of violent attacks and victimization processes (Brecklin and Middendorf, 2014; Brecklin and Ullman, 2005; Thompson, 2014). Oppression is perpetuated by the “culture of silence” (Freire, 2005, p.23). This means that people’s needs, desires, questions and capabilities are muted and hidden to preserve the privileges of others. An emerging ethic of care in the context of this project was made possible through the use of dialogue as a method to find meaning, purpose and value among groups. In addition, the ethic of care was a tool to contest discursive practices (victimizing or essentialist), to reconstruct realities and redefine the limits (material and symbolic) between those who are perceived as recipients and the providers. Building solidarity and citizenship across differences Pichon-Rivière (2009) developed the concept of operational groups to refer to a collective of people who are related in time and space, and articulated by their internal representation. People in operational groups are explicitly or implicitly proposing themselves to a task and interact in a network of roles. For the Argentinian psychiatrist, the benefits of group interventions are maximized when the objective (rationality) and subjective (affectivity) dimensions are collectively explored. Nevertheless, he argued that the task of co-learning and co-creating involves working on the group’s overreaching goals as much as on the shared anxieties, fears and pleasures. In Roda Dialógica, participants explored the sense of social disconnection that resulted from a recurrent need to negotiate the multidimensions of identity experiences (i.e. person seeking asylum, sex worker, travesti) when interacting with Brazilians and other Venezuelan refugees. At the same time, they were able to connect through their shared experiences with violence, harassment and the politics of asylum. The complementarity of Pichon-Rivière’s (2009) concept of the operational group and the Freirean idea of liberation is in their shared focus on participation and collective reflection. Using a decolonial lens, Freire (2005) was opposed to assistentialist solutions due to their anti-dialogical facets. Assistencialism was criticized due to its potential to impose mutism and passivity, especially when solutions were presented to the individuals instead of discussed with the individuals. Alternatively, Freire proposed a framework for social transformation by which community self-management and participation would enhance critical awareness and artistic creativity. Both Freire (Shor and Freire, 1987) and Pichon-Rivière (Pichon-Rivière, 2009) focused on people’s capability of creating social change through democratic dialogue. When the interest groups in this study were exposing their issues in the negotiation stage, they built a collective image and shared stories that reflected needs, insecurities, paths of exclusion and interpretations of social justice. The paradoxes between interest groups and their inherent interdependency were

Leisure provision for LGBTIQ+ refugees

97

explored as an opportunity to enact solidarity based on the recognition of both shared and conflicting interests. The ongoing examination of the risks (and fears) about the changes followed a dialectical spiral with the resolutions (Pichon-Rivière, 2009). Thus, with each new situation faced by the interest groups (i.e. challenges to secure long-term funding, recruitment of Brazilian women to join the project), previous resolutions were reevaluated in light of the emerging prospects. These re-evaluations encompassed and surpassed the previous resolutions, reinforcing the need to embrace impermanence in the context of transition and the project’s redefinition. Actively involving participants in this process aimed to move beyond the perspective of “offer and access” to leisure activities to promote shared ownership, co-responsibility and reciprocity in the process of changing the programme. Limitations of existing approaches to leisure activities in the context of forced migration The necessary condition for a social project is to attract and retain the target audience. Sufficient conditions refer to the processes and strategies that aim to develop and deliver social outcomes over time. There are two myths about the necessary and sufficient conditions in the sphere of leisure and sport for social transformation (Coalter, 2007; Coakley, 2015). The first myth is the assumption that such activities are highly attractive and desired by the target audience, and the mere provision of the activities will continue to appeal and retain participants over time (necessary condition). The second myth is the belief that the mere provision of leisure opportunities can promote emancipation and social justice (sufficient conditions). The experience with Roda Dialógica stresses the limitations of interventions conceptualized with an instrumentalist and policy-driven framework. Resource constraints and the secondary status of leisure and sports provision in the migration policy and funding agenda have been described as a significant barrier to the sustainability of programmes (Hartley, Fleay and Tye, 2017). At the same time, the development of effectiveness and efficiency parameters for programmes related to traditional health, economic and social outcomes are dependent on longitudinal and qualitative research and, consequently, long-term funding. The rationalization of resource allocation can be even more pervasive for numerically disadvantaged groups (children, women, LGBTIQ+, elderly and disabled people) who are, at times, dependent on special measures and policies to access goods and services in the context of forced migration (FiddianQasmiyeh, 2014; Nolin, 2016). In addition to these structural challenges, individual and interpersonal barriers, such as limited sport experience and skill (Mohammadi, 2019), body dissatisfaction (Jones et al., 2017) and concerns about the transphobic response from other people (Caudwell, 2020), are some of the issues that deserve further attention in the context of leisure and recreational sports provision for gender diverse participants.

98 Nadyne Venturini-Trindade

Understanding the perpetuation of these challenges, we contend that tackling oppression with leisure and sport provision demands a provisional methodology focused on reflexivity, integrative participatory processes and a renewed commitment to social justice (Azzarito, 2019; Luguetti et al., 2017). In addition, proposed solutions must go far beyond leisure to address the fundamental issues behind the reproduction and intensification of social inequalities in the context of forced migration. Conclusion and future directions This chapter discusses the emerging tensions and opportunities with the development of a leisure intervention with Venezuelan travestis. This study explored the use of iterative dialogues to unfold conflicts, issues, shared objectives and emotions to co-create a framework for change. The analysis suggests that the use of dialogic and formative evaluation to co-design leisure provisions facilitated processes of participatory development and research with this refugee community, allowing the redefinition of narratives about impossibilities. In this sense, the theoretical and methodological application of FGE, as presented here, could be applied in other contexts. Future studies could explore FGE as a tool to address other intersectional challenges in the context of forced migration. This approach can be used to explore other barriers to participatory citizenship based on the access to material and symbolic resources (i.e. taken-for-granted meanings and social-cultural activities), including leisure participation. Using FGE requires going beyond the incorporation of the ideas from interest groups. The ultimate goal is to create a form of consensus that is achieved through tension and compromise instead of social conformism, agreement and disengagement. The adoption of this praxis-oriented approach, such as FGE, can be a lengthy process that challenges the expectations of funders, policymakers and other social actors that hold a position of privilege. Groups in a position of relative disadvantage (in this case, the participants) need to be supported in the process of sharing claims, disagreements and revindications as a way to avoid alienation and intimidation. Hence, the use of this framework might be particularly suitable to activist agendas challenging wellestablished policy categories (Bakewell, 2008), theoretical perspectives (Stepputat and Sørensen, 2014), social representations (Sánchez-Eppler and Patton, 2000) and focusing on the need to address power differences in society (Parry, Johnson and Stewart, 2013). Finally, given the paucity of studies in the phenomenon of forced migration in Latin America (Andrade, 2017, 2019a, this chapter calls for other researchers and practitioners to critically reflect on emerging possibilities to integrate sport and leisure activities in social projects with refugees in Brazil, and other underrepresented areas across the globe. Specifically, it encourages dialogue with other social actors who are moving beyond the taken-for-

Leisure provision for LGBTIQ+ refugees

99

granted assumptions about the use and promotion of leisure activities to benefit socially disadvantaged communities.

Notes 1 LGBTIQ+ refers to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Travesti and other gender non-conforming identities. In this chapter, the categories “refugee” and “LGBTIQ+” are recognized as historical and culturally situated constructions, hence the use of quotation marks to refuse the idea of “essence” or “shared experience” among individuals (Malkki, 1995). 2 More on the intersections between the high rates of HIV infection among travestis and the desire to access free gender-affirming health care can be seen in Fonseca (2020) and Nascimento (2016). 3 The South African sociologist Diana E.H. Russell coined the term femicide to contest the neutrality present in the expression “homicide”. The concept was initially formulated to contain the different types of violence that pose a risk of immediate or potential death (Vásquez, 2009). Russell understood that these deaths are not isolated or episodic cases, but inserted into a culture in which society naturalizes gender-based violence and limits the free and healthy development of girls and women. In Spanishspeaking Latin American countries, the terms gendercide and transcidio are used as alternatives to the term femicide when describing violence based on gender identity and expression. 4 Sex work is legal in Brazil and groups of travestis occupy busy street corners at night to work.

Acknowledgements I would like to warmly acknowledge Dr Eliane Costa and Ms Jeane Xaude for their invaluable help with field data collection and evaluative analysis. I sincerely thank all the participants in this research and the activists we engaged with during the research process for their commitment and helpful feedback at all times.

References Almeida, B. S., Barboza, S. B. E., Mezzadri, F. M., & Souza, D. L. (2016). Do sports mega-events boost public funding in sports programs? The case of Brazil (2004– 2015). International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 53(6), 685–705. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/1012690216680115. Andrade, V. L. (2017). Imigração e sexualidade: solicitantes de refúgio, refugiados e refugiadas por motivos de orientação sexual na cidade de São Paulo. Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianopolis. Andrade, V. L. (2019a). Refúgio por motivos de orientação sexual: um estudo antropológico na cidade de São Paulo. Florianopolis: Edufsc. Andrade, V. L. (2019b). Gay African Refugees in Brazil: a Diaspora? In Harjinder Singh Majhail & Sinan Dogan (Eds.), World of Diasporas: Different Perceptions on the Concept of Diaspora. Leiden: Brill (pp. 86–91). Andrade, V. L., Danisi, C., Dustin, M., Ferreira, N., & Held, N. (2020). Queering Asylum in Europe: A Survey Report. Falmer: Sogica. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/kn6af.

100 Nadyne Venturini-Trindade Asquith, N., Roberts, K., & Bartkowiak-Théron, I. (2017). Policy Encounters With Vulnerability. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Azzarito, L. (2019) Social justice in globalized fitness and health: Bodies out of sight. London: Routledge. Bakewell, O. (2008) Research beyond the categories: The importance of policy irrelevant research into forced migration. Journal of Refugee Studies, 21(4), 432–453. Baral, S. D., Poteat, T., Strömdahl, S., Wirtz, A. L., Guadamuz, T. E., & Beyrer, C. (2013). Worldwide burden of HIV in transgender women: a systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 13(3), 214–222. Benevides, B. G. and Nogueira, S. N. B. (2020) Assassinatos contra travestis brasileiras e violência e transexuais em 2019. São Paulo. Available at: https://static. poder360.com.br/2020/01/levantamento-antra.pdf. Brecklin, L. R., & Middendorf, R. K. (2014). The group dynamics of women’s selfdefense training. Violence Against Women, 20(3), 326–342. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1077801214526044. Brecklin, L. R., & Ullman, S. E. (2005). Self-defense or assertiveness training and women’s responses to sexual attacks. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 20(6), 738– 762. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260504272894. Brown, M. A., & Di Lallo, S. (2020). Talking circles: a culturally responsive evaluation practice. American Journal of Evaluation, 41(3), 367–383. https://doi.org/10. 1177/1098214019899164. Budgeon, S. (2014). The Dynamics of Gender Hegemony: Femininities, Masculinities and Social Change. Sociology, 48(2), 317–334. doi:10.1177/0038038513490358. Carvalho, H. R. (2013). LGBTI refugees: the Brazilian case. Forced Migration Review (Online), 42(19). https://www.fmreview.org/sogi/decarvalho. Castro, S. B. E., Starepravo, F. A., & Souza, D. L. (2018). Programa “esporte e lazer na cidade”: uma análise da composição orçamentária (2004–2011). Movimento (ESEFID/UFRGS), 24(2), 383. https://doi.org/10.22456/1982-8918.64954. Caudwell, J. (2020). Transgender and non-binary swimming in the UK: indoor public pool spaces and un/safety. Frontiers in Sociology, 5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2020.00064. Coakley, J. (2015) Assessing the sociology of sport: On cultural sensibilities and the great sport myth. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 50(4–5), 402–406. Coalter, F. (2007) A Wider Social Role for sport: Who’s Keeping the Score?London: Routledge. DeGue, S., Hipp, T. N., & Herbst, J. H. (2016). Community-level approaches to prevent sexual violence. In Elizabeth L. Jeglic & Cynthia Calkins (Eds.), Sexual Violence: Evidence Based Policy and Prevention. New York: Springer (pp. 161–179). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44504-5_11. Doidge, M., Keech, M., & Sandri, E. (2020). “Active integration”: sport clubs taking an active role in the integration of refugees. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 12(2), 305–319. https://doi.org/10.1080/19406940.2020.1717580. Ferreira, A. Á. (2017). Travesti prostitution in Brazil: reading agency and sovereignty through dissident sexualities. Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2014). Gender and forced migration. In Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Gil Loescher, Katy Long & Nando Sigona (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press (pp. 395–408). Fine, M. (2007). Feminist designs for difference. In Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber (ed.) Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Practice. London: SAGE Publications (pp. 613–619).

Leisure provision for LGBTIQ+ refugees

101

Fonseca, N. A. (2020). Entrecruzamentos entre migração, gênero e sexualidade: experiências de vida de mulheres não-cisheterossexuais venezuelanas e solicitantes de refúgio. Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói. França, I. L., & Fontgaland, A. (2020). Gênero, sexualidades e deslocamentos: notas etnográficas sobre imigrantes e “refugiados LGBTI” no Norte do Brasil. Revista Interdisciplinar da Mobilidade Humana, 28(59), 49–68. Fraser, N. (2007) Feminist politics in the age of recognition: a two-dimensional approach to gender justice. Studies in Social Justice, 1(1), 23–35. doi:10.26522/ssj.v1i1.979. Freire, P. (2005). Education for Critical Consciousness. London: Continuum. Gray, A., & McDowall, A. (2013). LGBT refugee protection in the UK: from discretion to belief? Forced Migration Review, 42, 22–25. Retrieved from https://www. fmreview.org/sogi/gray-mcdowall. Guba, E. G. & Lincoln, Y. S. (1985). Naturalistic Inquiry. London: SAGE Publications. Guba, E. G. & Lincoln, Y. S. (1989). Fourth Generation Evaluation. London: SAGE Publications. Hartley, L., Fleay, C., & Tye, M. E. (2017). Exploring physical activity engagement and barriers for asylum seekers in Australia coping with prolonged uncertainty and no right to work. Health and Social Care in the Community, 25(3), 1190–1198. https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.12419. Hasmi, H. M., Gross, M. J., & Scott-Young, C. M. (2014). Leisure and settlement distress: the case of South Australian migrants. Annals of Leisure Research, 17(4), 377–397. doi:10.1080/11745398.2014.948023. Hegarty, K., Tarzia, L., Hooker, L., & Taft, A. (2016). Interventions to support recovery after domestic and sexual violence in primary care. International Review of Psychiatry, 28(5), 519–532. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540261.2016.1210103. Heller, P. (2009). Challenges facing LGBT asylum-seekers: the role of social work in correcting oppressive immigration processes. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services, 21(2–3), 294–308. https://doi.org/10.1080/10538720902772246. Hollander, J. A. (2009). The roots of resistance to women’s self-defense. Violence Against Women, 15(5), 574–594. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801209331407. Hollander, J. A. (2014). Does self-defense training prevent sexual violence against women? Violence Against Women, 20(3), 252–269. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1077801214526046. Hollander, J. A. (2016). The importance of self-defense training for sexual violence prevention. Feminism & Psychology, 26(2), 207–226. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353516637393. Hollander, J. A., & Cunningham, J. (2020). Empowerment self-defense training in a community population. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 44(2), 187–202. https://doi. org/10.1177/0361684319897937. Human Rights Watch. (2017). “Um dia vou te matar.”https://www.hrw.org/sites/defa ult/files/report_pdf/brazil0617port_web_0.pdf. Hutta, J. S., & Balzer, C. (2013). Identities and citizenship under construction: historicising the ‘T’ in LGBT anti-violence politics in Brazil. In Yvette Taylor & Michelle Addison (Ed.), Queer Presences and Absences. London: Palgrave Macmillan (pp. 69–90). https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137314352_5. Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada. (2019). Atlas da Violência 2019. http:// www.ipea.gov.br/atlasviolencia/download/19/atlas-da-violencia-2019. Jarrín, A. (2016). Untranslatable Subjects. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, 3(3–4), 357–375. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-3545095.

102 Nadyne Venturini-Trindade Jones, B. A., Arcelus, J., Bouman, W. P., & Haycraft, E. (2017). Barriers and facilitators of physical activity and sport participation among young transgender adults who are medically transitioning. International Journal of Transgenderism, 18(2), 227– 238. https://doi.org/10.1080/15532739.2017.1293581. Jones, B. A., Haycraft, E., Murjan, S., & Arcelus, J. (2016). Body dissatisfaction and disordered eating in trans people: a systematic review of the literature. International Review of Psychiatry, 28(1), 81–94. https://doi.org/10.3109/09540261.2015.1089217. Kosciw, J. G., Greytak, E. A., Zongrone, A. D., Clark, C. M., & Truong, N. L. (2018). The 2017 National School Climate Survey: the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth in our nation’s schools. Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED590243. Lewis, R. A. (2014). “Gay? Prove it”: The politics of queer anti-deportation activism. Sexualities, 17(8), 958–975. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460714552253. Lima, J. B. B., Muñoz, F. P. F., Nazareno, L. A., & Amaral, N. (2017). Refúgio no Brasil: caracterização dos perfis sociodemográficos dos refugiados (1998–2014). Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada. https://www.ipea.gov.br/portal/images/ stories/PDFs/livros/livros/170829_Refugio_no_Brasil.pdf. Long, J., Fletcher, T. & Watson, B. (2017). Sport, Leisure and Social Justice. London: Routledge. Luguetti, C.et al. (2017) An activist approach to sport meets youth from socially vulnerable backgrounds: possible learning aspirations. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 88(1), 60–71. Luibheid, E. (2008). Sexuality, migration, and the shifting line between legal and illegal status. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 14(2–3), 289–315. https://doi. org/10.1215/10642684-2007-034. Malkki, L. H. (1995). Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory and National Cosmology among Hutu refugees in Tanzania. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Marshall, E., Claes, L., Bouman, W. P., Witcomb, G. L., & Arcelus, J. (2016). Nonsuicidal self-injury and suicidality in trans people: a systematic review of the literature. International Review of Psychiatry, 28(1), 58–69. https://doi.org/10.3109/ 09540261.2015.1073143. McCann, E., & Brown, M. (2018). Vulnerability and psychosocial risk factors regarding people who identify as transgender. A systematic review of the research evidence. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 39(1), 3–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 01612840.2017.1382623. McClain, Z., & Peebles, R. (2016). Body image and eating disorders among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 63(6), 1079–1090. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pcl.2016.07.008. Meir, D., & Fletcher, T. (2017). The transformative potential of using participatory community sport initiatives to promote social cohesion in divided community contexts. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 54(2), 218–238. doi:10.1177/ 1012690217715297. Mendes, W. G., & da Silva, C. M. F. P. (2020). Homicídios da população de lésbicas, gays, bissexuais, travestis, transexuais ou transgêneros (LGBT) no Brasil: uma análise espacial. Ciência & Saúde Coletiva, 25(5), 1709–1722. https://doi.org/10.1590/ 1413-81232020255.33672019. Millet, N., Longworth, J., & Arcelus, J. (2017). Prevalence of anxiety symptoms and disorders in the transgender population: a systematic review of the literature.

Leisure provision for LGBTIQ+ refugees

103

International Journal of Transgenderism, 18(1), 27–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 15532739.2016.1258353. Misztal, B. (2011). The Challenges of Vulnerability: In Search of Strategies for a Less Vulnerable Social Life. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Mohammadi, S. (2019). Social inclusion of newly arrived female asylum seekers and refugees through a community sport initiative: the case of Bike Bridge. Sport in Society, 22(6). https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2019.1565391. Murray, D. (2014). Real queer: “authentic” LGBT refugee claimants and homonationalism in the Canadian refugee system. Anthropologica, 56(1), 21–32. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/24469638. Nascimento, S. S. (2016). Cidades trans: uma etnografia multi-situada nas fronteiras da antropologia urbana. ST 23 Pensar a Cidade No Brasil: Limitações, Potencialidades e Perspectivas, 1–29. http://www.anpocs.com/index.php/encontros/papers/40-encon tro-anual-da-anpocs/st-10/st23-5/10386-cidades-trans-uma-etnografia-multi-situada -nas-fronteiras-da-antropologia-urbana/file. Nolin, C. (2016). Transnational Ruptures: Gender and Forced Migration. New York: Routledge. Oliviero, K. (2018). Vulnerability Politics: The Uses and Abuses of Precarity in Political Debate. New York: New York University Press. Oliveira, D. C., & Polidoro, M. (2018). Situação da violência contra as populações negra, LGBT, indígena e em situação de rua no Sistema Único de Saúde do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil panorama situacional do Sistema de Informação de Agravos de Notificação (SINAN) de 2014 a 2017. Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brasil Instituto Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (IFRS), Porto Alegre, Brasil. https://www.cevs.rs.gov.br/upload/arquivos/201901/10122803relatorio-tecnico-ppsus-09122018-compressed.pdf. Parry, D. C., Johnson, C. W., & Stewart, W. (2013). Leisure research for social justice: A response to Henderson. Leisure Sciences, 35, 81–87. Patton, C., & Sánchez-Eppler, B. (2000). Queer Diasporas. Durham: Duke University Press. Pichon-Rivière, E. (2009). O processo grupal [The group process]. São Paulo: Martins Fontes. Rizki, C. (2019). Latin/x American Trans Studies. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, 6(2), 145–155. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-7348426. Rodgers, J., Asquith, N., & Dwyer, A. (2017). Cisnormativity, criminalisation, vulnerability: transgender people in prisons. Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies Briefing Paper, 12, 1–13. Rosenblum, G. D. & Taska, L. S. (2014) Self-defense training as clinical intervention for survivors of trauma. Violence Against Women, 20(3), 293–308. doi:10.1177/ 1077801214526048. Sampaio, J. dos S. (2019). Batente, boteco e religião: um ensaio etnográfico com gays, travestis e transexuais no bairro Asa Branca. Universidade Federal de Roraima. Sánchez-Eppler, B. and Patton, C. (2000) Introduction: With a Passport Out of Eden. In B. Sánchez-Eppler & C. Patton (Eds.), Queer Diasporas. London: Duke University Press (pp. 1–14). Shor, I., & Freire, P. (1987). A Pedagogy for Liberation: Dialogues on Transforming Education. South Hadley: Bergin & Garvey Publishers. Spaaij, R., Broerse, J., Oxford, S., Luguetti, C., McLachlan, F., McDonald, B., … Pankowiak, A. (2019). Sport, refugees, and forced migration: a critical review of the

104 Nadyne Venturini-Trindade literature. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 1, 47. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2019. 00047. Stepputat, F., & Sørensen, N. N. (2014). Sociology and forced migration. In E. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, G. Loescher, K. Long, & N. Sigona (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press (pp. 86–98). https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199652433.001.0001. Thompson, M. E. (2014). Empowering self-defense training. Violence Against Women, 20(3), 351–359. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801214526051. Trindade, N. V. (2017) A ‘caixa-branca’ dos projetos sociais esportivos: o caso do Instituto Compartilhar em Curitiba/PR. Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba. United Nations Development Programme. (2017). National Human Development Report 2017: Brazil. http://movimentoevida.org/sumario. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). (n.d.). Perfil das Solicitações de Refúgio Relacionadas à Orientação Sexual e Identidade de Gênero no Brasil. Google Data Studio. Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://datastudio. google.com/reporting/11eabzin2AXUDzK6_BMRmo-bAIL8rrYcY/page/1KIU. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). (2017). Cartilha Informativa sobre a Proteção de Pessoas Refugiadas e Solicitantes de Refúgio LGBTI. https:// www.acnur.org/portugues/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Cartilha-informativa-sobre-a -proteção-de-pessoas-refugiadas-e-solicitantes-de-refúgio-LGBTI_ACNUR-2017.pdf Vásquez, P. T. (2009). Feminicídio. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Vianna, A., & Lacerda, P. (2004). Direitos e políticas sexuais no Brasil: o panorama atual. Rio de Janeiro: CLAM/IMS. Webb, A., & Richelieu, A. (2016). Sport for Development and Peace in Action. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 40(5), 432–456. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193723516632574. Wetzel, C. (2005). Avaliação de serviços de saúde mental: a construção de um processo participativo. Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo. Retrieved from: https://www.teses. usp.br/teses/disponiveis/22/22131/tde-16052007-150813/publico/ChristineWetzel.pdf. Wetzel, C., Pavani, F. M., Olschowsky, A., & Camatta, M. W. (2017). Avaliação de Quarta Geração no contexto da Reforma Psiquiátrica brasileira. Atas CIAIQ2017 Nvestigación Cualitativa En Salud (Volume 2). 6o Congresso Ibero-Americano em Investigação Qualitativa, Salamanca, Spain.

Chapter 7

Granted asylum and healthy living? Women newcomers’ experiences of accessing leisure time physical activity in Denmark Sine Agergaard, Verena Lenneis, Camilla Bakkær Simonsen and Knud Ryom Introduction Women refugees have often had troubling experiences and circumstances in their country of origin and en route to new destinations that make them vulnerable (Humphris and Bradby 2017, WHO 2018). Studies also indicate that women refugees particularly lack access to health services and refrain from seeking nonacute health care service upon arrival in countries of destination (Wångdahl et al 2018). Moreover, recently settled minority ethnic women have been described as particularly reluctant in participating in disease-preventing and health-promoting activities (Floyd and Sakellariou 2017; Lecerof et al 2017).1 This chapter focuses on Eritrean and Syrian women’s experiences of their options for participating in leisure time physical activity upon arrival in Denmark. We term these women ‘newcomers’ as they have arrived in Denmark within the last five years due to forced migration or family reunification. When granted asylum and/or residence permit, such newcomers are relocated to a specific Danish municipality where they take up a 1–5-year introduction programme focusing on language acquisition and job internship or wage subsidy jobs. In 2019, with the so-called paradigm shift in Danish immigration policy, the introduction programme for persons who have arrived as refugees, and family reunified to refugees, was renamed as the ‘self-support and repatriation programme’, with the declared goal that newcomers become gainfully employed as soon as possible in order to support themselves.2 Furthermore, it has been explicated that the residence permit asylum seekers may gain in Denmark is temporary, and their right to reside in Denmark expires when they are no longer in need of protection.3 Depending on whether newcomers are granted convention status or (temporary) protected status, their residence permit in Denmark will have to be renewed every second year or every year. Thus, this creates highly temporary (and precarious) conditions for newcomers, which we assume will intersect with the earlier described reluctance towards participating in health-promoting activities, and also trouble their access to leisure in their own right. DOI: 10.4324/9780429341045-9

106 Agergaard, Lenneis, Bakkær Simonsen, Ryom

So far, the significance of health promotion and leisure activities for newcomers has not attracted political focus. As mentioned above, the main focus of the introduction programme in Denmark is on making newcomers self-supporting through internships and wage subsidy jobs, as well as language education. However, a recent study shows that only male newcomers successfully meet the political demands towards becoming self-supporting, while women refugees remain largely unemployed (Arendt and Schultz-Nielsen 2019). Broader research in Great Britain, Denmark and Sweden also points out that the lives of women newcomers in particular are reversed by the increasingly restrictive asylum policy in these countries, and there is a lack of attention to gender aspects even though countries like Denmark and Sweden have ratified international conventions acknowledging the particular vulnerability of refugee women and girls (Canning 2019). Such ambiguous political approaches do not consider the diversity in men and women newcomers’ experiences and everyday lives, among others in considering the variety in their responsibility for housework and childcare. Thus, there is a serious lack of knowledge about the variety of experiences that newcomers bring with them, and, specifically, about women newcomers’ options for engaging themselves in the receiving society. In this chapter, we seek to develop such knowledge through examining Eritrean and Syrian women newcomers’ previous experiences with sport and physical activity, as well as their current options for engaging themselves in leisure time physical activity. Thereby, we aim to contribute to a critical analysis of gendered experiences of the current restrictive asylum policy and of inequality in options for accessing leisure time physical activity. We set out by describing the current literature about forced migration, sport and physical activity, with attention to the tendencies in existing studies to focus on sport as a means to achieve nation-state goals of integration and health promotion. One way to bypass such ideals is to use a transnational and intersectional perspective, which combines insight into the experiences with sport and physical activity that particular groups of migrants bring with them, while paying attention to the intersecting dimensions that shape their options for engaging themselves in leisure time physical activity in the receiving society. Further, we describe the design of our case study and the methods used, and analyse Syrian and Eritrean women newcomers’ experiences with physical activity in their home countries, as well as their wishes and options for leading active everyday lives upon granted asylum in Denmark. This leads to a final discussion of the intersecting identities at play that shape women newcomers’ access to and interests in leisure time physical activity.

Sport and physical activity as a means of integration and improved health Before looking more into our particular case study and analysing women newcomers’ experiences, it is worth looking at the ways in which studies of

Granted asylum and healthy living?

107

refugees’ and immigrants’ relationships to sports and leisure time physical activity tend to reflect the policy-driven focus on health promotion and integration in the receiving society. Furthermore, we will point to studies indicating that minority ethnic women also take up these discourses. An encompassing review of existing literature on forced migration, sport and physical activity (with leisure included as a search term) identifies three main themes (Spaaij et al 2019). Firstly, studies deal with health promotion of refugees and asylum seekers, focusing on physical activity and sport as the road to, in particular, certain mental health outcomes (Hashimoto-Govindasamy and Rose 2011; Ley, Rato Barrio and Koch 2018). Secondly, numerous studies focus on sport and physical activity as a means to foster integration and inclusion of refugees and asylum seekers into their new nation-states (Agergaard 2018a; Smith, Spaaij and McDonald 2019). Thirdly, another body of literature deals with facilitators, along with structural, socio-cultural and individual barriers that prevent refugees and asylum seekers from participating in sports and physical activity (Burrmann et al 2018; Spaaij 2013). Across the three themes, a shared focus appears on the instrumental role of sport and physical activity as a means to integrate and promote the health of refugees and asylum seekers. These policy-driven discourses of integration and health are also reflected in studies about minority ethnic women’s understandings of sport and leisure time physical activity. Young minority ethnic women in Switzerland have been found to largely reproduce western health ideals when describing the meaning of sport as achievement of individual health and a slim body (Barker-Ruchti et al 2013). This focus on the effects of sport and physical activity among young second-generation women also appears as a way to counteract cultural narratives about the first-generation, who are often presented as non-integrated immigrants (Barker-Ruchti et al 2013). Furthermore, such discourses about sport and leisure time physical activity as a means of integration and health promotion are linked with expectations about self-improvement and hard work of the individual in western societies, which have been conceptualised as ‘healthism’ (Crawford 1980). Canadian studies point out that in compliance with such discourses of healthism, young minority ethnic women describe themselves as unhealthy subjects in the receiving societies (George and Rail 2005). Yet, another study turns the attention to the ways in which Muslim Canadian women pursue their wishes of staying in shape and losing weight in accordance with western health ideals, while also embodying non-western ideals and valuing religion higher than recreational physical activity (Jiwani and Rail 2010). Also, studies of female minority ethnic cleaners in Denmark found that their descriptions of recreational physical activity focus on health outcomes such as weight loss (Lenneis and Pfister 2016). However, these women’s wishes of pursuing dominant discourses about the effects of sport and physical activity were hindered by a number of constraints to participating in leisure time physical activity, such as a lack of time, exhaustion by menial

108 Agergaard, Lenneis, Bakkær Simonsen, Ryom

work and ‘a second shift at home’ (Lenneis and Pfister 2016: 657). This study also pointed out that as leisure time physical activity requires time, energy and also financial resources, engagement in sport and physical activity, along with persecution of health ideals, appear as an additional burden for minority ethnic women (Lenneis and Pfister 2016). Such findings further point towards the importance of developing alternative perspectives on women newcomers’ experiences and options for participation in leisure time physical activity.

Transnational and intersectional perspectives Considering the widespread focus on refugees’ and immigrants’ participation in sports and physical activity as a means to integration or health promotion in the receiving country, we pursue alternative theoretical perspectives in this chapter. Firstly, in line with the transnational migration perspective, we are critical towards the tendency to merely focus on newcomers’ health promotion and integration into receiving societies while leaving out attention to the experiences that migrants carry with them, and the ways in which they still hold connections across borders (Schiller, Basch and Blanc 1995; Levitt and Schiller 2004). Developing such a transnational perspective involves turning the attention towards the embodied experiences of sport and leisure time physical activity that migrants bring with them. Further research could pay more attention to how such experiences continue to be shaped in relation to both healthism ideals in the receiving countries, and also with values and practices in the communities that migrants and their descendants originate from and have travelled through (Agergaard 2018a). Developing such a transnational perspective is linked with criticising tendencies towards ‘methodological nationalism’ in policy and research (Wimmer and Schiller 2002). This tendency to take nation-state borders as the natural unit of analysis and political attention is evident in the widespread focus on migrants’ participation or non-participation in sports and physical activity merely within the receiving country (Agergaard 2018b). Such an approach omits attention to the embodied experiences of various migrants and the ways in which they continue to live their lives across borders. Furthermore, transnational migration scholars have pointed to the widespread focus on migrants’ ethnic identity rather than their multiple identities (Amelina and Faist 2012). As is evident in the review above, the current literature tends to ascribe problems of non-participation in sports and poor health to women’s identity as newcomers and their belonging to minority ethnic groups, while overlooking other aspects of their identity that may be shared with parts of the majority population, such as low income, short length of residence, working conditions and a low level of education. This observation points to the relevance of looking at ‘intersectionalities’ (Spaaij et al 2019) when considering the ways in which various aspects of newcomers’ social and political identity (e.

Granted asylum and healthy living?

109

g. gender, race, religion) intersect and shape their access to, and interest in, sport and leisure time physical activity. The intersectionality perspective was originally coined by the Black feminist researcher Kimberlé Crenshaw in pointing to the ways in which social categories, such as race, class and gender, interact to create subordination of Black women (Crenshaw 1989, 1991). Further, such conceptualisation has supported a wider group of social science researchers in studying how multiple dimensions, such as ethnicity, class, age, gender and socioeconomic status, interact to produce complex and dynamic social inequalities (Collins, 2015; Collins and Bilge, 2016). As presented in detail below, we direct the attention of the current case study towards the intersecting dimensions that shape Syrian and Eritrean women newcomers’ access to leisure time physical activity.

Design and method This chapter is based on a case study in a Danish municipality that has had few inhabitants with non-western background. Since 2017 this municipality has received, what appears to them to be, a relatively large number of refugees (500 + a year), especially of Eritrean and Syrian origin. This development is in line with the Danish policy for dispersal of refugees after granted asylum.4 Thus, this case study can be described as both a typical and critical case study (Flyvbjerg 2006), since newcomers’ settlement in municipalities with few inhabitants with minority ethnic background is typical (in a Danish context), yet critical for newcomers who are visible others in such a setting. Our study was conducted at an institution that newcomers in Silkeborg Municipality attend regularly in the first years after they have been granted asylum; namely the self-governing language centre. We negotiated access to this institution through municipal collaborators, and the language centre facilitated our initial contact to the course participants. Before approaching research participants, we spent time at the language centre during regular education days so that the relevant groups of newcomers could develop trust in us and gain knowledge about our project. Through such measures we surpassed some of the initial widespread reluctance towards taking part in research, which has been identified among migrant groups (Morville and Erlandsson 2016). Yet, this initial access had to be constantly negotiated through our interaction and dialogue with the research participants. The language centre provided us with the option of interviewing course participants at the centre in the time they had allocated for self-study. The semistructured individual interviews were conducted with four Eritrean women and eight Syrian women. Only a few Eritrean women were interested in participating in interviews (and fewer Eritreans attended the language centre). However, we still gained insight into a variety of experiences within and between the two groups of newcomers who applied most often for asylum and family reunification in Denmark in 2019.5 The women were all aged between 30 and 50 years,

110 Agergaard, Lenneis, Bakkær Simonsen, Ryom

and all but one were mothers. All Eritreans were Christians, while the Syrians were all Muslims. The group varied between women coming from rural areas or big cities, as well as between women who had higher education qualifications and women with low compulsory schooling. At the time of the interviews, most of the informants were without jobs, but several received mandatory job training along with their participation in the language course. All interviews were made by the first author, who shared age and the role as a mother with many of the informants, but who, as a white, middle-class and sports active woman, remained more or less different from the interview participants. Due to distance in backgrounds and language skills, we employed one Syrian and one Eritrean translator to enable the participants to switch into their native language when they could not express themselves in Danish (or English). As suggested in the literature (Edwards 1998; Squires 2009), extensive talks were conducted with the two translators before and after the interviews to ensure alignment with the research aim. We emphasised that the translator should reproduce informants’ narratives as exactly as possible, while we also urged them to ask the informants clarifying questions if needed. As such, the translators served as co-interviewers (Suurmond, Woudstra and Essink-Bot 2016), who helped us inquire into informants’ experiences and provided us with contextual information about the background of specific participants. Working with migrant groups, ethical considerations are very pertinent (Morville and Erlandsson 2016), even if often overlooked in research on sport and physical activity (Spaaij et al 2019). It is not simply a question of following guided principles but continuously engaging in dialogue and ensuring that research participation does not lead to harm. Considerable time was spent at the beginning of the interviews talking about the informed consent form and rights of the research participant (Brinkman and Kvale 2015). Further, we have given the informants fictive names to personalise the results while preserving the anonymity of the research participants. After the interviews we had the material transcribed and translated, and then we turned our attention to the ways in which our positionalities carried into the material. Studies with migrant groups must consider how researchers’ theoretical, personal and political positionality shape attempts to either overcome or reproduce processes of othering and marginalisation (Khawaja and Morck 2009: 28). Working with transnational and intersectional perspectives, we attempted to learn about the participants’ compound experiences but found that our personal experiences limited our scope of understanding and our critical engagement with the current restrictive asylum policy in Denmark. Awareness of such limitations may be carried into research through working with self-reflexivity (Amelina and Faist 2012). Firstly, awareness about power relations between the researcher and the participant encourages sensitivity towards the ways in which the participants’ voices are not simply represented but produced by the researcher. Secondly, working with self-reflexivity from transnational and intersectional perspectives involves a broader awareness about the multiple identities

Granted asylum and healthy living?

111

that constitute participants, rather than simply their ethnic affiliation (Amelina and Faist 2012). In analysing the interviews, we were inspired by Pirkko Markula and Richard Pringle’s descriptions of an analytical strategy that draws on critical discourse analysis (Markula and Pringle 2006). The first step was to describe the content of the text; simply examining which things were mentioned in the text and which were not. The second step was to engage in an intertextual analysis of the relations between the texts produced (in this case interviews) and between the people involved, in order to identify discourses and themes that cut across individual texts. The third step was to connect findings with ideology and power. This led us to look at the ways in which the women newcomers’ descriptions were connected to dominant discourses about health promotion and to power relations emanating from the current asylum policy in Denmark.

Findings Below, we will first provide information about the Eritrean and Syrian women’s descriptions of their experiences with physical activity (that mainly relate to their upbringing) and their experiences of the focus on active and healthy living in Denmark. Additionally, we will describe themes that cut across interviews, pointing to how women newcomers’ participation in leisure time physical activity is shaped by their transnational and intersecting identities. Experiences of physical activity At the beginning of all individual interviews, the women were asked to present their experiences with physical activity. Most of these descriptions related to their upbringing in Eritrea and Syria, respectively. All the women had played physically active games in the streets as children, including ball games such as football, and several had learned to swim in nearby rivers or the sea. Moreover, all the women described how they had been introduced to physical education at school, which had acquainted them with various sports disciplines. The Eritrean women in particular had extensive experiences of playing volleyball at school. As such, the school system offered some of the girls the opportunity for leisure time engagement in physical activity through school tournaments, while the women had only limited or no experiences of being engaged in physical activity in sports clubs, which is a widespread form of structuring leisure time physical activity in Denmark. Talking about their experiences as adults, the women described how physical activity was part of their daily life in their country of origin. When you live in Eritrea, then everyday life is movement. Physical movement, so to speak. Because it is an integral part of our everyday lives. (Faven, Eritrea)

112 Agergaard, Lenneis, Bakkær Simonsen, Ryom

Women both from Eritrea and Syria talked about their daily physical activity, and some of them also described how they had walked or been running for recreational purposes. A more formal participation in leisure time physical activity had been rare; yet, one of the Syrian women, who had lived in Damascus, had regularly attended a fitness centre. Upon arrival in Denmark, some of the women pointed out that physical activity was still part of their daily housework, and several of the women were also still keen to go for a walk. One of the Eritrean women told us that she worked-out in front of the TV at home. Faven told us that she was engaged in a lot of activity in Denmark: I have enough physical activity here in Denmark, although I have not joined any organised sports activities. Still I work in the house, I work at the language centre. I move to the language centre, I move to job internship, I move back home. I have to look after four children. I go to the grocery. In general, the level of activity is elevated compared to where I came from. We are bombarded by activities. (Faven, Eritrea) To Faven (and the other women newcomers), language education and the job internship that followed from the introduction programme all appeared as work-related activities that, together with housework, caring for children and going to the grocery shop, led to busy everyday lives. Thus, several of the women newcomers describe physical activity and sports as another workload, as a burden, and they did not appear to distinguish leisure time physical activity from other types of physical activity. Among the Syrian women, Ghazal informed us that she had participated in organised women-only swimming, while Hadiya told us that she went for a daily run for recreational purposes. Yet, Mala described how she was reluctant to run in public space in Denmark since she was afraid that some Arabic men would think that ‘she had turned Danish’, that ‘she had left her own skin’. At the same time, another Syrian woman described how Muslim women running would appear wrong and strange for Danish women. Danish women, ordinary women, if they see a woman with a scarf running, then this will appear completely wrong to them. It will seem strange or whatever. It doesn’t really work. (Souzan, Syria) Both Souzan and Mala’s descriptions above point to the ways in which imaginations about nationality (in this case ‘turning Danish’), ‘race’ (skin colour), the Muslim religion (symbolised by the scarf) and possibly also physical capability intersect in negotiations about whether women newcomers should run in public space or not.

Granted asylum and healthy living?

113

The women newcomers’ descriptions also point to their transnational position, through which running in public space in Denmark as a Muslim women is contested both within their minority group and by the white majority of fellow women in Denmark. This contested nature of particularly Muslim women’s engagement in leisure time physical activity in Denmark has also been described elsewhere (Lenneis and Agergaard 2018). While it is the Syrian women’s participation in physical activity and sport that is contested, also Eritrean women do not distinguish leisure time physical activity from work that follows with the introduction programme. They express a prevalent focus on the health effects of physical activity, which will be elaborated on below. Current focus on healthism While the women retrospectively described themselves as physically active (through their childhood and youth) in Eritrea and Syria, they appeared to mainly evaluate themselves as unhealthy in their current lives in Denmark. Most of the women showed awareness about the numerous prescriptions for healthy living in Denmark, and these discourses also appeared to shape their understanding of leisure time physical activity. For instance, one of the Eritrean women, Aisha, described her understanding of sport with attention to the effects on mainly physical health: I believe if you practice sports then you become … then you get … yes (laughter) then you get a body in good shape. In comparison if you do not practice sports and you sit down all the time, yes then you will be bored, and what is it called, then you are fattened and slowed down. These are the things I think about. (Aisha, Eritrea) Also, several of the other Eritrean and Syrian women described sport and physical activity rather instrumentally as one among various health prescriptions that, together with diet, are a means to obtain the health effects manifested in the individual bodily appearance. Yet, Aisha, who described sport rather instrumentally above, also described how going for a walk to a nice place led her to ‘wish that I could live like this every day all my life.’ Thus, active and healthy living seems linked with experiences of well-being for women newcomers, but these experiences are not ends in themselves, but rather connected with normative ideas about living in the right way in accordance with western ideals of healthism. For instance, Hadiya said: When I run and just after running, I feel relieved that I am healthy. But then when I start eating the Arabian bread, white bread, I think ‘I am so unhealthy’. (Hadiya, Syria)

114 Agergaard, Lenneis, Bakkær Simonsen, Ryom

Not only Hadiya, but also other Syrian women, linked cooking and eating food from their country of origin with unhealthy behaviour. In other words, cultural activities that could contribute to women newcomers’ feelings of belonging and well-being are downgraded by what appears as healthism ideals in which the focus is on individual self-improvement and hard work through exercise. Almost all of the women described their daily behaviour after arriving in Denmark as unhealthy, and pointed to the fact that they had gained weight. For instance, Hadiya further described that she tended to eat too much when she started worrying about the situation of her family in Syria. Thus, the women interviewed expressed feelings of poor health that have also been shown to be prevalent for refugees more broadly (Nielsen and Krasnik 2010). Yet, it is remarkable that the women were simply attributing their poor self-perceived health to a deficit in their individual will to conduct healthy lives. When connecting our findings across interviews with contextual information, a considerable paradox appeared. The vast majority of the women expressed a desire to become (more) physically active and to lead more healthy lives. At the same time, several of the women talked about their individual responsibility for their own health and the need to decide about, for example, losing weight, while blaming themselves for not being able to follow health prescriptions. This alignment with ideas about health promotion through individual self-improvement and hard work is paradoxical considering the limitations to women newcomers’ options for engaging themselves in sports and leisure time physical activity. Options for leisure time and physical activity? The women newcomers pointed to a number of aspects that appeared to hinder rather than support their wishes of leading healthy lives and becoming (more) physically active. Several of the women did show agency, for instance through examining options for becoming a member of a fitness centre or going for more informal walks or runs. Yet, the women reported that their limited economy meant they could not afford a fitness centre membership and that, more generally, they could not buy organic and healthy food more. Thus, they found themselves in a situation where they could not meet some of the health prescriptions they had described as important. Moreover, several women described other challenges to their active and healthy living, which were related to obligations following from their participation in the introduction programme upon that they had been granted temporary asylum. Thus, several women pointed to the lack of time. For instance, Ghazal described: I like being physically active or doing fitness or something, but the problem is, I just don’t have the time. I have a big family and I go to internship and (language) school and everything, so I do not have the time needed. (Ghazal, Syria)

Granted asylum and healthy living?

115

Lakshmi also described a feeling of being tired when returning from job training and language school when combined with the weight of the obligations she had in her home—cleaning, cooking, doing the laundry and taking care of the children. Thus, the political role of newcomers as participants in the introduction programme appears to intersect with gender identities in creating unequal options for women newcomers to access, not only jobs and language education, but also leisure activities. Most of the interviewed women appeared to be solely responsible for housework and childcare, even though job training and language courses had been added on top of the (often invisible) obligations of these women. Several of the women also described their feelings of pain, fatigue and lack of energy that all appeared to limit their resources to engage themselves in leisure time physical activity. Furthermore, several of the women also described that these feelings were linked with a number of worries. Nadia said: Since I think a lot about them (my family) and how is the situation (in Syria), I actually feel that the body is always tired … and I am also concerned about our situation here in Denmark, what is the future. We worry a lot – is there a future, is there not a future (for us here)? What will happen, all these things actually make you feel tired. (Nadia, Syria) Such descriptions indicate again that the women live transnational lives, with the situation in their country of origin influencing their options of living healthy lives in their country of destination. Furthermore, such transnational connections of newcomers are turned into a cross-pressure in their current political situation. Simultaneously, newcomers worry about the situation in their home country, while also being unsure about the current development in Denmark following the recent paradigm shift and the change of political focus towards repatriation.

Concluding discussion This chapter examined the experiences of Eritrean and Syrian women newcomers and their options for engaging themselves in leisure time physical activity upon arrival in Denmark. Considering earlier tendencies for studies on forced migration, sports and physical activity to focus on effects such as integration and health promotion, we directed our attention to the transnational experiences of newcomers of sport and physical activity, in their countries of origin and in the receiving society, as well as the intersecting dimensions that shape their current approaches. In their childhood, all women had played games in the streets and participated in physical education in their country of origin, and to a great extent physical activity had become part of their everyday activities and routines as

116 Agergaard, Lenneis, Bakkær Simonsen, Ryom

adults. When settling in Denmark, the Eritrean and Syrian women newcomers seldom participated in leisure time physical activity, but rather described themselves as unhealthy ‘others’ in relation to white-European healthism ideals of individual self-improvement. Furthermore, the Syrian women’s descriptions in particular point out that they experience their possible participation in leisure time physical activity as contested both by persons within their minority ethnic group and by the ethnic majority in Denmark. Our analysis also shows that the women newcomers negotiate a number of constraints to accessing leisure time physical activity. These included limited economic resources following the decrease in financial support given to newcomers in Denmark; lack of time due to participation in job internships and language education as part of their introduction programme; and the everyday obligations of the women, who appeared to also be working as full-time housewives. Last but not least, worries about the political situation, both in their country of origin and in Denmark, where increasingly restrictive asylum policy has been employed, made up an interrelated pressure that seemed to lower the chances of women newcomers developing active everyday lives. Thus, our study identified multiple dimensions that intersected in shaping unequal access to leisure activities for groups of newcomers. For Muslim women in particular, recreational activities are contested in the receiving context as well as within their minority ethnic groups, while some of them do resist such contestations when they run in the public domain as described in this chapter, or when they develop leisure time physical activity in a closed-off space, such as a women-only swimming session (Lenneis and Agergaard 2018). Further attention to the ways in which women newcomers negotiate their current condition will help to move away from generalised images of them as a group without agency. This chapter also points to the relevance of studying further the approaches of newcomers to leisure time physical activity in ways that transgress the alignment of the current literature with policy-driven focus on effects of sport and physical activity. Such a focus on sports and leisure time physical activity as a means of integration and health promotion leave the embodied experiences of newcomers and their everyday lives invisible in the wake of increasingly restrictive asylum policy. Thus, we suggest employment of theoretical and methodological approaches that are novel to studies of leisure time physical activity for forced migrants. To further develop a transnational perspective on leisure and forced migration, it is relevant to move beyond retrospective studies of newcomers’ experiences of physical activity in their countries of origin. In an outline of research methodologies for cross-border studies, it is pointed out that research should be concerned with the intersection of various scales (Amelina et al 2012). Thus, future studies could pay more attention to political and socio-cultural conditions for leisure at various scales, considering both localities and nationalities of origin as well as destination.

Granted asylum and healthy living?

117

Methodologically, it is also relevant to turn the attention to research designs, such as participatory action research and community approaches (Mohammadi 2019; Stone 2018; Spaaij et al 2019). Through such designs, women newcomers and relevant local stakeholders may be involved in developing communal programmes that promote newcomers’ access to and interests in leisure time physical activity. Yet, for newcomers to develop leisure activities in their own right, such designs should take a remarkably different starting point than the policy-driven focus on the instrumental role of sports and physical activity as a means of health promotion and integration into the receiving society.

Acknowledgements We are very grateful to Silkeborg Municipality for supporting this study and, among others, for the support of the experienced translators who collaborated with us. We would also like to thank the language centre for welcoming us into their premises and for allowing course participants to talk to us. Last but not least, we are very grateful to the Eritrean and Syrian women newcomers who spent some of their sparse time talking to us in a changeable period of their lives. Funding details This work was supported by the following fund: Folkesundhed i Midten, administered by Region Midtjylland.

Notes 1 Information retrieved 01.06.2019 from: https://uim.dk/arbejdsomrader/Integration/ Selvforsorgelses-og-hjemrejseprogrammet-og-introduktionsprogrammet 2 Information retrieved 01.06.2019 from: https://uim.dk/arbejdsomrader/Integration/ Selvforsorgelses-og-hjemrejseprogrammet-og-introduktionsprogrammet 3 Information retrieved 01.07.2020 from: https://www.nyidanmark.dk/en-GB/App lying/Asylum/Adult%20asylum%20applicant 4 Information retrieved 01.12.2019 from: https://lg-insight.dk/wp-content/uploads/ 2015/09/Modtagelsesrapport_27aug_2015_final2.pdf 5 Information retrieved 01.11.2019 from: https://integrationsbarometer.dk/tal-og-analyser/ INTEGRATION-STATUS-OG-UDVIKLING

References Agergaard, S. 2018a. Rethinking Sport and Integration: Developing a Transnational Perspective on Migrants and Descendants in Sports. London: Routledge. Agergaard, S. 2018b. “Transforming methodological nationalism. The case of sports scholarship and policy towards migrants and descendants.” In Transforming Sport edited by D. Burdsey, T. Carter and M. Doidge, 79–90. London and New York: Routledge.

118 Agergaard, Lenneis, Bakkær Simonsen, Ryom Amelina, A. and T. Faist 2012. “De-naturalizing the national in research methodologies: key concepts of transnational studies in migration.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 35(10): 1707–1724. Amelina, A., T. Faist, N. Glick Schiller and D. D. Nergiz 2012. “Methodological predicaments for cross-border studies.” In Beyond Methodological Nationalism. Research Methodologies of Cross-border Studies edited by A. Amelina, D. D. Nergiz, T. Faist and N. Glick Schiller, 1–21. New York: Routledge. Arendt, J. N. and M. L. Schultz-Nielsen 2019. “Employment effects of welfare policies for non-western immigrant women.” In Integrating Immigrants into the Nordic Labour Markets edited by L. Calmfors and N. S. Gassen, 159–186. Copenhagen: The Nordic Council of Ministers. Barker-Ruchti, N., D. Barker, S. Slatter, M. Gerber and U. Pühse 2013. “Sport – It’s just healthy. Locating healthism within discourses of social integration.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 39(5): 759–772. Brinkmann, S. and S. Kvale 2015. InterViews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Burrmann, U., E. Michelini, T. Nobis, T. Schlesinger and J. Tuchel 2018. “Sport offers for refugees in Germany: promoting and hindering conditions in voluntary sports clubs.” Society Register 2(1): 19–38. Canning, V. 2019. “Degradation by design: women and asylum in northern Europe.” Race and Class 61(1): 46–63. Collins, P. H. 2015. “Intersectionality’s definitional dilemmas.” Annual Review of Sociology 41(1): 1–20. Collins, P. and S. Bilge 2016. Intersectionality. Malden: Polity Press. Crawford, R. 1980. “Healthism and the medicalization of everyday life.” International Journal of Health Services 10(3): 365–388. Crenshaw, K. 1989. “Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics.” The University of Chicago Legal Forum 140: 139–167. Crenshaw, K. 1991. “Mapping the margins: intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color.” Stanford Law Review 43(6): 1241–1299. Edwards, R. 1998. “A critical examination of the use of interpreters in the qualitative research process.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 24(1): 197–208. Floyd, A. and D. Sakellariou 2017. “Healthcare access for refugee women with limited literacy: layers of disadvantage.” International Journal for Equity in Health 16(1): 195. doi:10.1186/s12939-017-0694-8. Flyvbjerg, B. 2006. “Five misunderstandings about case-study research.” Qualitative Inquiry 12(2): 219–245. George, T. and G. Rail 2005. “Barbie meets the bindi: discursive constructions of health among young South-Asian Canadian women.” Women’s Health and Urban Life 4(2): 45–67. Hashimoto-Govindasamy, L. S. and V. Rose 2011. “An ethnographic process evaluation of a community support program with Sudanese refugee women in western Sydney.” Health Promotion Journal Australia 22(2): 107–112. Humphris, R. and H. Bradby 2017. “Health status of refugees and asylum seekers in Europe.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Global Public Health edited by D. McQueen, 1–29. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Granted asylum and healthy living?

119

Jiwani, N. and G. Rail 2010. “Islam, hijab and young Shia Muslim Canadian women’s discursive constructions of physical activity.” Sociology of Sport Journal 27(3): 250–267. Khawaja, I. and L. L. Morck 2009. “Researcher positioning: Muslim ‘otherness’ and beyond.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 6: 28–45. Lecerof, S. S., M. Stafström, M. Emmelin, R. Westerling and P. O. Östergren 2017. “Findings from a prospective cohort study evaluating the effects of International Health Advisors’ work on recently settled migrants’ health.” BMC Public Health 17, 369. doi:10.1186/s12889-017-4273-0. Lenneis, V. and G. U. Pfister 2016. “Health, physical activity and the body: an inquiry into the lives of female migrant cleaners in Denmark.” International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 8(4): 647–662. Lenneis, V. and S. Agergaard 2018. “Enacting and resisting the politics of belonging through leisure. The debate about gender-segregated swimming sessions targeting Muslim women in Denmark.” Leisure Studies 37(6): 706–720. Levitt, P., and N. G. Schiller 2004. Conceptualizing simultaneity: a transnational social field perspective on society. International Migration Review 38(3): 1002–1039. Ley, C., Rato Barrio, M. and A. Koch 2018. “‘In the sport I am here’: therapeutic processes and health effects of sport and exercise on PTSD.” Qualitative Health Research 28(3): 491–507. Markula, P. and R. Pringle 2006. Foucault, Sport and Exercise: Power, Knowledge and Transforming the Self. London: Routledge. Mohammadi, S. 2019. “Social inclusion of newly arrived female asylum seekers and refugees through a community sport initiative: the case of Bike Bridge.” Sport in Society 22(6): 1082–1099. Morville, A. L. and L. K. Erlandsson 2016. “Methodological challenges when doing research that includes ethnic minorities: a scoping review.” Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy 23(6): 405–415. Nielsen, S. S. and A. Krasnik 2010. “Poorer self-perceived health among migrants and ethnic minorities versus the majority population in Europe: a systematic review.” International Journal of Public Health 55(5): 357–371. Schiller, N. G., L. Basch and C. S. Blanc 1995. “From immigrant to transmigrant: theorizing transnational migration.” Anthropological Quarterly 68(1): 48–63. Smith, R., R. Spaaij and B. McDonald 2019. “Migrant integration and cultural capital in the context of sport and physical activity: a systematic review.” Journal of International Migration and Integration 20(3): 851–868. Spaaij, R. 2013. “Cultural diversity in community sport: an ethnographic inquiry of Somali Australians’ experiences.” Sport Management Review 16(1): 29–40. Spaaij, R., J. Broerse, S. Oxford, C. Luguetti, F. McLachlan, B. McDonald, B. Klepac, L. Lymbery, J. Bishara and A. Pankowiak 2019. “Sport, refugees, and forced migration: a critical review of the literature.” Frontiers in Sports and Active Living 1: 47. doi:10.3389/fspor.2019.00047. Squires, A. 2009. “Methodological challenges in cross-language qualitative research: a research Review.” International Journal of Nursing Studies 46(2): 277–287. Stone, C. 2018. “Utopian community football? Sport, hope and belongingness in the lives of refugees and asylum seekers.” Leisure Studies 37(2): 171–183. Suurmond, J., A. Woudstra and M-L. Essink-Bot 2016. “The interpreter as co-interviewer: the role of the interpreter during interviews in cross-language health research.” Journal of health services research and policy 21(3): 172–177.

120 Agergaard, Lenneis, Bakkær Simonsen, Ryom Wångdahl, J., P. Lytsy, L. Mårtensson and R. Westerling 2018. “Poor health and refraining from seeking healthcare are associated with comprehensive health literacy among refugees: a Swedish cross-sectional study.” International Journal of Public Health 63(3): 409–419. WHO2018. Health of refugees and migrants. Regional situation analysis, practices, experiences, lessons learned and ways forward. Online document retrieved from: https://www.who.int/migrants/publications/EURO-report.pdf. Wimmer, A., and N. G. Schiller 2002. “Methodological nationalism and beyond: Nationstate building, migration and the social sciences.” Global Networks 2(4): 301–334.

Chapter 8

Pain, faith and yoga An intersectional-phenomenological perspective on Syrian Muslim women’s experiences of resettlement in Sweden Claire Collison and Nicola De Martini Ugolotti Introduction This chapter aims to contribute to critical perspectives addressing the intersection of leisure, gender and religion in contexts of forced migration. It will do so by addressing the experiences of a group of Syrian Muslim refugee women attending women-only yoga courses in their country of resettlement, Sweden. These courses were part of a Civic Orientation programme that combined educational activities and at times the prescription of therapeutic yoga with the aim of transforming refugees into integrated, employable Swedish citizens (Severinsson and Sandahl, 2018). The embodied experience of yoga will represent an entry point for capturing the diversity and complexity of the participants’ navigation of forced migration and resettlement. This analytical perspective will thus complicate existing assumptions and discourses about the female Muslim body in contexts of (forced) migration. While these issues and domains have been highlighted in forced migration literature, most of the time women remain invisible (Harrell-Bond and Voutira, 2007) or are essentialised in public and policy narratives (Doná, 2007). Refugee women often represent the epitome of the docile object of moral compassion, the ultimate vulnerable refugees (Malkki, 1996; Nyers, 2006; Freedman, 2016) who, when Muslim, are further oppressed by religion and culture (Abu-Lughod, 2002; Farooq Samie, 2018). Refugee women’s framing as lacking and passive can be implicit and normalised, both in therapeutic and civic interventions targeting newcomers, and also within wider policy that fails to give attention to gender issues related to forced migration (Schoultz, 2017; Canning, 2019). By discussing issues of pain and (im)mobility, yoga and Islamic faith, the chapter will interrogate and destabilise essentialising representations of Muslim refugee women, which often inform (uninformed) public narratives and policy. In doing this, the chapter will also complicate the nexus of body, citizenship and religion through which Muslim women are portrayed as oppressed by, and as the embodiment of, discriminatory “backward” traditions (see FiddianDOI: 10.4324/9780429341045-10

122 Claire Collison and Nicola De Martini Ugolotti

Qasmiyeh, 2016; Rana, 2018; Farooq Samie, 2018). The chapter will first address the wider historical and political contexts relevant to the participants’ experiences, and will then present the theoretical framework and methodological approach before discussing the research findings.

Seeking sanctuary and resettlement in Sweden Since the “long summer of migration” of 2015 the European media has consistently offered sensationalist images of a perceived refugee crisis and its accompanying vocabulary. Political discourses and subsequent immigration policies in Europe have been presenting skewed pictures of the sheer overwhelming numbers of people seeking sanctuary on the continent (FiddianQasmiyeh, 2016; Szczepanik, 2018). In 2015, Sweden was one of the few European nations that maintained open borders for people seeking asylum, receiving almost 163,000 asylum applications,1 the largest per capita inflow of asylum seekers ever recorded in a country of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development2 (OECD, 2017). Since then, the Swedish government has adopted a number of asylum policy changes, including increased requirements for refugees’ family reunification processes, increased detention and deportation powers (and efforts), enhanced border controls aiming to deter asylum applicants, and the introduction of short-term residence permits for refugees (Emilsson, 2018). These restrictive policy shifts have been discussed by migration and legal scholars as a deliberate attempt by the national government to discourage people from seeking asylum in Sweden, while, at the same time, trying to maintain the country’s “self-image of decency and humanity” towards people seeking sanctuary (Schoultz, 2017, p. 29). State provision for people granted asylum and humanitarian protection in Sweden include an essentially mandatory3 two-year Civic Orientation programme. As mentioned in the handbook provided to all newly-arrived migrants, the programme’s primary aim is to enable participants to “find a job as quickly as possible so that you are able to support yourself” (Severinsson and Sandahl, 2018 p. 14). This focus, underpinned by an emphasis on “the psycho-social element” of refugees’ integration, has been criticised as relying on refugees’ responsibilisation,4 to shift societal problems (like unemployment or poverty) onto newcomers (see Uheling, 2015, p. 1006). As Uheling argued, the “psycho-social element” underpinning civic orientation programmes “shifts the focus away from legal protection and human rights toward [refugees’] work on the self, feelings and internal states” (2015, p. 1008) as preconditions to achieve the self-reliance and autonomy deemed necessary for a successful integration. Echoing these considerations, the Civic Orientation programme primed newcomers about how to function in Sweden, with an explicit focus on selfsufficiency and psychological preparedness for resettlement. In this sense, the programme’s handbook stressed physical and mental wellbeing as fundamental components to achieve these aims:

Pain, faith and yoga

123

One sign of stress is that you are sleeping badly and feel sad. You may also have difficulty concentrating, a poor memory and problems with your stomach, headaches or pain in other parts of your body. If you are active, eat good food and sleep enough, this helps your body to cope with stress. Severinsson and Sandahl (2018 p. 192) Equivalent to a 40-hour working week, and linked to the provision of financial support, the programme’s portfolio of activities often included yoga courses for women. More specifically, a particular yoga practice known as trauma-sensitive yoga,5 which had been deployed since October 2016 in the fieldwork location. Trauma-sensitive yoga has been described as facilitating individualised movement and expression (Emerson and Hopper, 2011), unlike the more prescribed trajectory towards the perceived perfect yoga pose, which is often the aim of other modern postural yoga practices.6 There has been increasing use of traumasensitive yoga methodologies and emphasis on individual choice in movement and “nonjudgmental self-study and safety” (Mitchell et al., 2014, p. 123) in integration initiatives. These aim to foster refugees’ “self-paced development” and “mindful awareness” as tools to manage and recover from trauma (Hamburger et al., 2018). Interestingly, while the trauma-sensitive yoga practice was included in the programme due to the benefits associated with “self-paced development” and freely chosen movement, attendance was mandatory for refugee women that were referred to these courses, predominantly by health professionals or their employment/mentor advisors (handläggare). Failing to attend would mean a reduction of the economic support received. The reason for referral to the trauma-sensitive yoga course was often a suspicion of psychological trauma, which frequently arose as a result of the failure to find organic origins of the women’s physical and health complaints. The trauma-sensitive yoga courses thus reflected the Civic Orientation programme’s aims in relation to newcomers: to responsibilise (in this case for their health), enable self-development and educate. Yet, while the core of this activity aimed to support refugee women’s health and wellbeing, it also implicitly relied on specific, gendered assumptions regarding the vulnerability and trauma of refugee women (e.g. no trauma-sensitive yoga courses were provided to male refugees).7 The trauma-sensitive yoga courses represented a unique entry point to contextualise and contrast the participants’ embodied experiences of forced migration and resettlement in relation to the wider assumptions and expectations surrounding Muslim refugee women in Sweden.

Theoretical framework In order to bring to the fore the participants’ lived experiences, both of trauma-sensitive yoga courses and forced migration and resettlement more widely, this research integrated phenomenological and intersectional lenses. According to a phenomenological approach, the body is the essential

124 Claire Collison and Nicola De Martini Ugolotti

medium through which actors capture and engage with their everyday social domains (Merleau-Ponty, 1968). The body (and its flesh) is not simply “matter” shaped by individual will or social forces but represents constitutive elements of subjectivity and being-in-the-world (Merleau-Ponty, 1968). Employing a phenomenological perspective can enrich existing analyses of forced migration that have addressed bodies as inert matter on which representations of refugees’ passivity, vulnerability or deceitfulness are inscribed by State and humanitarian actors (Fassin and D’Halluin, 2005). In focusing on bodies and bodily practices, it is possible to access and contextualise refugees’ navigation and negotiation of asylum regimes from a variety of analytical perspectives (for example, Khan, 2013; Suzuki, 2016; De Martini Ugolotti, 2020). Anderzen-Carlsson et al. (2014) employed a phenomenological approach to explore the meaning participants attached to a medical yoga practice in Sweden. They observed how the participants (5 women and 1 man) did not engage with yoga as a linear, prescriptive journey towards healing and recovery. Instead, the authors highlighted how the participants lived experience of yoga contributed to an increased sense of wholeness, an integration of past and present experience and as another way of being in the world. Anderzen-Carlsson and colleagues (2014) provide an initial, more nuanced, understanding of embodied experiences of yoga, departing from understandings of the practice as an endpoint to recovery for specific medical(ised) issues (see Mitchell et al., 2014). Drawing on and expanding Anderzen-Carlsson et al.‘s insights (2014), this research aims to contextualise the participants’ lived experiences of yoga. It addresses and contrasts media and political narratives that frame refugee women as victims of sociopolitical forces and as inherently outside the national, healthy, Swedish body politic (see also Zylinska, 2004 and Chapter 7 in this volume about the Danish context). This research employed an intersectional lens to illuminate how the participants’ lived experiences of trauma-sensitive yoga courses reflected and responded to the overlapping domains, such as media and public narratives and resettlement policies. It is through these domains that Muslim refugee women in Sweden are othered as traumatised refugees, oppressed Muslim women and hypervisible others (Pittaway and Bartolomei, 2001; Pittaway and Pittaway, 2004; Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, 2016; Farooq Samie, 2018; Dağtaş, 2018). Considered together, these intersecting representations compound the participants’ positions, opportunities and possible future trajectories of resettlement in Sweden. The research combined a phenomenological and intersectional approach in order to engage with the participants’ lived experiences, the complexities of their stories and their navigation of the forced migration/resettlement continuum.

Methodology This chapter draws on 22 months of ethnographic research conducted between February 2018 and November 2019. The bulk of the research was carried out

Pain, faith and yoga

125

between February 2018 and July 2018 when the first author lived in Sweden. As part of the research, the first author participated in the four-weekly trauma-sensitive yoga courses, as well as in the wider activities of the Civic Orientation programme: courses on women’s rights in Sweden; on housing and rental costs, and on activities such as opening a bank account; walking tours of the city; sewing classes; conversational Swedish classes; and trips to the shopping mall. After an eight-month process to obtain higher level ethical clearance from the first author’s research institution, consent to conduct the research was negotiated, first and foremost, with the women attending the trauma-sensitive yoga courses and with directors of various organisations,8 some of whom received funding to run and/or manage aspects of the Civic Orientation programme. With this aim, the first author invited all 60 women attending the traumasensitive yoga courses to a number of meetings in local cafès and libraries. The invitation to meet was outside the programme schedule. Eleven women attended and expressed an interest in being involved in the research. In these meetings, the women discussed with the first author the aims and practical aspects of the research. They asked the author to omit terms such as “refugee”, “health and safety”, “risk” and “observed” from the research consent forms and information sheets, and to maintain a specific position (beyond their gaze) during the trauma-sensitive yoga courses. The first author’s professional experience in the UK as a yoga teacher for women, including refugees, proved fundamental in negotiating access to the group of research participants. Acknowledging the first author’s expertise, the participants asked her to devise and deliver a three-hour workshop focused on reducing shoulder pain and tummy aches, which the participants related to fasting during Ramadan. The first author also supported a number of women who were interested in teaching yoga, organising opportunities for them to lead yoga classes (both as part of and outside of the programme) and feeding back to them on their teaching. Throughout the research, the first author kept a diary documenting her own physical and affective responses to participating in the programme, alongside the many informal exchanges and conversations held with trauma-sensitive yoga course participants. In keeping an ethnographic diary, she methodologically considered how her own position as an English woman, an academic and a yoga teacher influenced her emotional and physical experiences and engagement, both with yoga and with the participants, during the research. These corporeal and affective experiences and responses provided opportunities to discuss the lived experiences of the yoga sessions with the participants during informal conversations and interviews. Alongside the use of ethnographic writing, drawing and photography, the first author conducted 11 semi-structured interviews with the participants. To avoid an approach that could remind the participants of asylum interviews (see also Haile et al., 2020), the first author discussed the interview

126 Claire Collison and Nicola De Martini Ugolotti

structure with a Syrian cultural advisor in Sweden and six women with refugee backgrounds. The first author has taught yoga to these six women in the UK. Most interviews were conducted in Arabic through an interpreter. Although the role of interpreters in migration research carries an array of complexities related to trust and power (Edwards, 2013), the collaboration with an interpreter was fundamental within the research process. The presence of an interpreter who was trusted by the participants helped to capture and translate both bodily and verbal language, as well as the nuances of cultural and faith components of the women’s experiences. The interviews were conducted in a variety of locations chosen by the participants, including libraries, cafés, parks and their homes. Most interviews lasted between one and two hours. During the research process the participants asked to co-create with the first author a photographic exhibition portraying them in their chosen yoga a¯sana (posture) (see Dima’s chosen photograph, Figure 8.1). The photographic

Figure 8.1 Dima in her chosen yoga a-sana (posture) and location, overlooking the Swedish sea. Photo credit: Haya

Pain, faith and yoga

127

exhibition was displayed in the café area gallery space where the participants spent their breaks. The exhibition aimed to provide a different image of the participants for the Swedish citizens who also frequented the café and gallery. As Nour put it, the exhibition aimed to show that “we are not just lazy and sitting around all day” (informal conversation, 03.04.2018). This unplanned, co-created research activity helped build further trust with the participants. Furthermore, instead of being a researcher who would “fly in and fly out” of participants’ lives (Pittaway et al., 2010, p. 236), the first author remained in contact with them after concluding the research fieldwork. Following an understanding of research consent as iterative (Hugman et al., 2011; Lewis, 2010), the first author has continued to check the participants’ willingness to have their data used for publication purposes, such as this chapter. The analysis process included a comparison and integration of emerging codes across the interviews, fieldnotes and co-created visual material (Braun and Clarke, 2006). The two authors then discussed selected excerpts and themes as they wrote up the chapter. Participants’ names and some minor details from their accounts have been modified to protect their privacy and anonymity.

Pain and faith: leisure, religion, (im)mobility and yoga The participants’ engagement with the courses reflected diverse personal trajectories as well as complex and ambivalent thoughts and experiences about their resettlement process, which often coalesced and emerged in the embodied experience of trauma-sensitive yoga. With their complexities and ambivalences, the participants’ experiences revealed multi-faceted (hi)stories, complicating the linear narratives of trauma and healing, the dominant portrayals of Muslim refugee women, and the problematic distinctions between the secular and religious that are often used to analyse forced migrants’ practices (Zaman, 2019). These dimensions emerged particularly in relation to the women’s relationship with pain and Islamic faith while participating in the trauma-sensitive yoga courses. Yoga, pain and (im)mobility Sometimes we feel as our bodies are very fragile, like cheap plastic toys, that are breaking easy. (Haya, interview: 24.05.2018) I couldn’t move for 2–3 days, I am going to quit. (Nour, interview: 09.05.2018) Bodily aches were commonly mentioned, expressed or chatted about during and after the trauma-sensitive yoga sessions. In several cases, the participants directly linked somatic issues with war experiences (Morina et al., 2018). As Haya

128 Claire Collison and Nicola De Martini Ugolotti

observed, “War had a very negative impact on our bodies” (interview: 24.05.2018), and several other participants conveyed a sense of heaviness that burrowed between the shoulder blades, making them feel that their bodies were, at the same time, fragile and rigid (as per Haya and Nour’s statements at the start of the section). Nour recalled how before leaving Syria she was “gasping for air” and held a “heavy weight in my shoulders”, often in response to lingering glances by armed guards at check points (informal conversation: 17.04.2018). Yet, the participants’ bodies did not emerge during the research as only carrying the evidence of war-related displacement and suffering (Fassin and D’Halluin, 2005). Rather, they held together a variety of domains (Ahmed, 2004) and represented sites where individual (hi)stories and trajectories articulated with current issues of resettlement, as well as with future ambitions and desires (De Martini Ugolotti, 2020). For Nour, pain was a reminder of her reluctant attendance at the trauma-sensitive yoga courses. As she would convey in other moments of the research, being prescribed the (painful) yoga courses reminded her of the limiting perceptions surrounding Syrian Muslim refugee women as traumatised but also as “lazy and sitting around all day”. In Nour’s embodied experience, what had been designed as a healing and liberating practice represented one more instance of forced movement. A double bind seemed to constrain her resettlement trajectory—that in recognising her right to sanctuary and to be supported in starting a new life in Sweden, there nevertheless followed essentialised and essentialising assessments of what she needed to do. For other participants, like Reem, the heaviness felt in her shoulders and her aching, creaking back related to heavy domestic work, especially when “cooking the Syrian breakfast, taking me hours” (interview: 26.04.2018). For Sa’adia pain was related to childbirth (interview: 23.04.2018), while Lina referred to “a very serious car crash, not related to war but being silly youth” (informal conversation: 25.05.2018). Several of these experiences also intersected with the cold, harsh Swedish winters, combined with the sub-standard, often poorly heated accommodation allocated to refugees (Harding, 2000). Dima, for example, lived on the ground floor of a former office block in a large converted stationary storage room. The bodily experiences and accounts of pain that emerged during the yoga sessions shed light on the complexities of the participants’ personal trajectories and the realities of their everyday lives in resettlement. Yet, in the programme’s aims, and in the prescription to attend the courses, the only issue that mattered was a supposedly linear journey from trauma to recovery and healing, as a key step towards making refugee women healthy, independent and self-reliant. The wider socio-political dynamics that often created or reinforced the participants’ precarious predicaments, particularly as women on their journeys to sanctuary and in Sweden (see Freedman, 2016; Canning, 2019), were left behind by the therapeutic focus of the courses. Nevertheless, while not freely chosen, the yoga setting became reappropriated by some of the participants as a meaningful space of self-care. Recalling the first painful trauma-sensitive yoga course, Aya

Pain, faith and yoga

129

discussed how she decided “not to ignore my body and give my body some rights” (interview: 14.05.2020). Yoga, pain and forced (im)mobility became embodied domains through which the participants addressed, in their own terms, other contingencies in their lives. These domains acquired further layers of meaning and relevance in relation to their Islamic faith. “Sports for the soul”: yoga, Islam and resettlement We—at first, we refused to do it [the trauma-sensitive yoga courses]. Because we consider it as, um, a kind of religion which is haram, you say haram which is forbidden [and] not in our religion […] It’s a kind of prayers or something that is not related to [our] religion. (Nour, interview: 09.05.2018)

The prescribed nature of the trauma-sensitive yoga courses was not the only issue that the participants had, at least initially, about their engagement with yoga. Although non-attendance in the courses placed the women at risk of having their financial support reduced or even stopped, several participants were nevertheless concerned about the compatibility between the prescribed yoga practice and religion (as illustrated in the quotation from Nour above). The perception of yoga as haram (forbidden) and yet somehow unavoidable, given the repercussions of non-attendance, was demonstrated by Mariam who shared that she, at the start of each yoga class, whispered to herself, “God, forgive me, InshaaAllah” (interview: 04.06.2018). The disparity between the programme’s aims with trauma-sensitive yoga and the participants’ experiences could be seen as illuminating the fault lines between, on the one hand, resettlement initiatives aiming to change newcomers’ “whole concept of the world” (Uheling, 2015, p. 998) and, on the other, refugees’ own cultural and religious practices. However, expanding existing discussions on the topic, the participants’ responses and reappropriations of the trauma-sensitive yoga courses offered a much more nuanced perspective of their experiences—one that highlighted a further example of refugees’ mundane practices of hybridity in forced migration domains (Malkki, 1995; Lewis, 2010; De Martini Ugolotti, 2020). In fact, it did not take long for several participants to reappropriate the nonnegotiable attendance at the trauma-sensitive yoga course(s) as part of their personal relationship with faith, by drawing unanticipated connections between the yoga and Islam. Aya observed how “After I practice yoga, I am more consistent in the prayer” (interview: 14.05.2018). Several other participants explained that particular yoga a¯sanas and sequences physically, mentally and spiritually reconnected them to their Islamic faith, as recorded in observational drawings from the first author’s ethnographic diaries (see Figures 8.2–8.4). As such, Bala¯sana (Figure 8.3) was compared to touching the forehead to the ground in salah (prayer), while in Virasa¯sana (Figure 8.4) the head was often moved from left to right as in prayer.

130 Claire Collison and Nicola De Martini Ugolotti

Figure 8.2 Qiyam and Samedthti. Claire Collison’s ethnographic drawings.

It’s like you say [while in Virasa¯sana], like Assalamu alaikum [while praying], because I think they say that there are angels on your shoulders, on God’s hands, there are, so we have to forget all these things and just focus to pray and to say something from the Koran. This is good for mental and for body at the same time. Because I think when you say, Assalamu alaikum. We finish this there. When you say that, it’s the end of the prayer. (interview: 27.04.2018)

The ethnographic presence in the trauma-sensitive yoga courses enabled an appreciation of how the participants appropriated yoga movements in order to create (and subsequently break) a sacred and meaningful space for them. Hana went on to explain that this a¯sana was very important in helping to distance

Pain, faith and yoga

131

Figure 8.3 Sujud and Bala-sana. Claire Collison’s ethnographic drawings.

herself from everyday concerns and focus on her salah, something that Banah also further elaborates on: [yoga] is like sports for the soul. It just take all of the negative energy out and throw it away as if, I put it in a way like when you take a shower, but you take it for your soul. It’s from the inside. The breath, everything, all the toxics in the body just get rid of … when you pray it’s because God asks you to, and then my soul ask me to do yoga. […]. They just complete each other. (interview: 23.04.2018) During the research, several participants started to perform wudu (the Islamic ritual of washing before prayer) prior to each yoga class, demonstrating a new-found perception that there was a sacred compatibility between yoga and their Islamic faith. While adhering to the requirement of essentially

132 Claire Collison and Nicola De Martini Ugolotti

Figure 8.4 Julus and Virasa-sana. Claire Collison’s ethnographic drawings.

mandatory attendance at the Civic Orientation programme and trauma-sensitive yoga course, the participants carved out a meaningful sacred space that complicated the secular dimensions and therapeutic aims of trauma-sensitive yoga9 (Hamburger et al., 2018). At the same time, the participants’ reappropriations echoed recent suggestions of a centuries-old connection between yoga and some manifestations of Islam (see Parikh, 2015),10 a connection that Banah elaborated in these terms: The mind that believes in God. Okay. God created us and He’s the reason why we breath and why we think and everything. And then we have the soul that was created also by God. To take care of our bodies and to be always healthy and good from inside, we need to also do exercise for the soul. In that we are taking care of this body that was created by God. I don’t believe in yoga as a religion, it’s not God or whoever. It’s just a way to be more flexible because I used to pray on a chair and I always feel this [points to her legs and back]. And even when I am sleeping, I used to have cramps in my legs or in my body, but now I feel more flexible and more relaxed with my body. (interview: 23.04.2018) Both the participants’ accounts and the ethnographic fieldnotes showed that participants strove towards physical, mental and spiritual wholeness. This highlighted the complex nature of their emerging needs and experiences, as opposed to any predetermined conditions of trauma inherent in their

Pain, faith and yoga

133

refugee status. Their adaptation of both the yoga practice and their intimate relationship with Islam destabilised images of the passive, traumatised refugee. Furthermore, it destabilised the image of Muslim women as oppressed by constraining and rigid religious and cultural proscriptions. The next section will discuss the relevance of capturing the complexities of such experiences, in contrast with the othering processes implied in dominant accounts of Muslim refugee women.

Conclusions This chapter addressed the perspectives and experiences of a group of Syrian Muslim refugee women prescribed trauma-sensitive yoga courses as part of their full-time resettlement programme in Sweden. Taking cues from the participants’ embodied experiences of the trauma-sensitive yoga courses, the chapter aimed both to capture the diversity and complexity of their navigation of forced migration and resettlement, and to complicate existing assumptions and discourses on the female Muslim body in contexts of (forced) migration. The participants’ embodied experiences provided a unique perspective on how they navigated and negotiated the overlapping domains through which Muslim refugee women are represented as victims of socio-political forces and inherently outside the national, healthy, body politic. In response to recent calls for intersectional approaches in studies of leisure and forced migration (Spaaij et al., 2019), this chapter combined phenomenological and intersectional lenses. This has revealed the (in)visible stakes and negotiations emerging from the participants’ prescribed attendance of trauma-sensitive yoga courses. Engaging with the participants’ responses to yoga through these lenses did reveal instances in which their physical pain was rooted to their exposure to gender-based violence and abuse on their journeys to sanctuary. However, far from being defined only by psychological trauma, the participants’ bodies carried traces of, and responded to, intersecting experiences and dimensions: heavy domestic workloads in Syria, difficult childbirth, car crashes and warrelated loss and displacement, as well as stigma, stereotypes and sub-standard accommodation in Sweden. Missing the diversity and complexities of refugee women’s experiences and needs does not simply overlook their capacities and contributions, as women and as newcomers, in countries of resettlement. The employment of narrowly-focused policy interventions can make invisible, and maintain, wider political domains that perpetuate harmful practices for women on their journey to sanctuary and in contexts of resettlement. There are, for example, unsafe routes to sanctuary, limited and problematic provisions, increasingly restrictive reception and resettlement policies, and enhanced deportation practices (Freedman, 2016; Canning, 2019). The participants’ complex and ambivalent relationship with yoga, and their creative capacity to carve out a meaningful space of both faith and self-care from the trauma-

134 Claire Collison and Nicola De Martini Ugolotti

sensitive yoga courses, should not be seen as indicative only of their “coping mechanisms” or individual “resilience”. Through giving us access to their creative, intimate, diverse and rich embodied experiences of yoga, the participants enabled us to see what is overlooked by a narrow focus on the “psycho-social element” (e.g. trauma, acculturation-stress, self-reliance) of refugees’ resettlement. The discussion in this chapter aimed to highlight two initial dimensions of the participants’ embodied experiences and appropriations of the traumasensitive yoga courses. Firstly, the employment of an integrated phenomenological and intersectional perspective illuminated the overlapping forms of oppression that participants navigated and negotiated on their journey to sanctuary and during resettlement. The same analytical lens highlighted how the participants’ intimate, barely visible, yet relevant negotiations and appropriations of life in resettlement de-stabilised framings of refugee women as passive recipients of wider power dynamics, from war and displacement, to “oppressive cultural practices” and the politics of resettlement. In fact, the participants’ reappropriations of the trauma-sensitive yoga courses exceeded rigid dichotomous understandings of East/West, here/there and secular/religious, as they hybridised their involvement with yoga as a secular therapeutic and self-development practice with intimate religious meanings. Secondly, the chapter highlighted how a critical, in-depth analysis of leisure practices and settings can contribute to problematising not only the inadequacies of protection but also the categories underpinning practices of refugees’ assistance that increasingly involve leisure practices as part of their vocabulary of interventions. These perspectives can represent a meaningful starting point for the proposition and co-creation of leisure practices and domains that are more closely attending, highlighting and engaging with refugee women’s needs in contemporary regimes of asylum and resettlement contexts.

Notes 1 Of these, 51,310 were Syrian asylum seekers and about 40% were women (European Commission, 2016). 2 In citing these figures, it is important to consider that the countries that receive the largest per capita inflow of refugees worldwide are Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Liberia and Uganda (OECD, 2017) 3 Non-attendance leads to a reduction or termination of financial support provided by the Swedish Government. 4 We intend responsibilisation as the process whereby subjects are rendered individually responsible for a task that previously would have been the duty of another (usually a State agency) or would not have been recognised as a responsibility at all. See also Rose (1999) and Uheling (2015). 5 The full term is Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga. For further detail see Emerson and Hooper (2011). 6 Modern postural yoga focuses on performance of yoga a¯sana and yoga pra¯n.a¯ya¯ma (yogic breathing). For further detail see De Michelis (2004).

Pain, faith and yoga

135

7 A report comparing integration policies in five North European countries has underlined that men and women have different opportunities to access work, social and health-related programmes in host countries, with men consistently directed towards the first and women towards the latter two (Joyce, 2018). 8 These were the Director of Internationella Kvinnoföreningen (International Women’s Organisation), the founder of TCTSY, the founder of the Danish Association of Trauma Centre Trauma Sensitive Yoga, and the Directors of the Swedish TCTSY courses. 9 And of modern postural yoga (De Michelis, 2005; Goldberg, 2016). 10 The contrast between the secular use of yoga as a means to improve health and pathways to self-sufficiency and citizenship, and how the women embodied yoga to enhance their relationship with their faith would be interesting to further develop and explore.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Dr Nichola Khan for her comments on earlier drafts of this chapter and the University of Brighton for the first-author doctoral studentship. Thanks also to the speakers and audience at the 2019 “Leisure and Forced Migration” symposium organised by Bournemouth University for their critical and constructive engagement with an earlier version of this chapter. Thanks also to Batoul, Dania, Iman, Johanna, Josephine, Kjell, Krystyna, Lammy, Manar, Stella and Tatjana for their support with translations. Finally, a heartfelt thanks to all the women who participated in this study for their time, care and patience.

References Abu-Lughod, L. (2002) ‘Do Muslim women really need saving? Anthropological reflections on cultural relativism and its others’, American Anthropologist, 104(3), pp. 783–790. Ahmed, S. (2004) ‘Collective feelings: or, the impressions left by others’, Theory, Culture and Society, 21(2), pp. 25–42. Anderzén-Carlsson, A., Persson Lundholm, U., Köhn, M. and Westerdahl, E. (2014) ‘Medical yoga: another way of being in the world – A phenomenological study from the perspective of persons suffering from stress-related symptoms’, International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being, 9(1), pp. 230–233. Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006) ‘Using thematic analysis in psychology’, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), pp. 77–101. Canning, V. (2019) ‘Degradation by design: women and asylum in northern Europe’, Race and Class, 61(1), pp. 46–63. Dag˘ tas¸, S. (2018) ‘Inhabiting difference across religion and gender: displaced women’s experiences at Turkey’s border with Syria’, Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 34 (1), pp. 50–59. De Martini Ugolotti, N. (2020) ‘Music-making and forced migrants’ affective practices of diasporic belonging’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, DOI: https://doi. org/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1790344.

136 Claire Collison and Nicola De Martini Ugolotti De Michelis, E. (2004) A history of modern yoga: Patanjali and western esotericism. London: Continuum. Doná, G. (2007) ‘The microphysics of participation in refugee research’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 20(2), pp. 210–229. Edwards, R. (2013) ‘Power and trust: an academic researcher’s perspective on working with interpreters as gatekeepers’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 16(6), pp. 503–514. Emerson, D. and Hopper, E. (2011) Overcoming trauma through yoga: Reclaiming your body, Berkeley: North Atlantic Books. Emilsson, H. (2018) Continuity or change? The refugee crisis and the end of Swedish exceptionalism, Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare Working Paper Series, 18(3), http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1343561/FULLTEXT01.pdf (Accessed: 28. 09. 2020). European Commission. (2016) Country Factsheet: Sweden 2015. European Migration Network. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/wha t-we-do/networks/european_migration_network/reports/docs/country-factsheets/ 27a_sweden_country_factsheet_2015.pdf (accessed 8th March 2021). Farooq Samie, S. (2018) ‘De/colonising “sporting Muslim women”: Post-colonial feminist reflections on the dominant portrayal of sporting Muslim women in academic research, public forums and mediated representations’, in Ratna, A. and Farooq Samie, S. (eds.) Race, gender and sport, the politics of ethnic ‘other’ girls and women. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 35–62. Fassin, D. and D’Halluin, E. (2005) ‘The truth from the body: medical certificates as ultimate evidence for asylum seekers’, American Anthropologist, 107(4), pp. 597–608. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2016) ‘Representations of displacement from the Middle East and North Africa’, Public Culture, 28(3), pp. 457–473. Freedman, J. (2016) ‘Engendering security at the borders of Europe: women migrants and the Mediterranean “crisis”’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 29(4), pp. 568–582. Goldberg, E. (2016) The path of modern yoga: the history of an embodied spiritual practice. London: Simon and Schuster. Haile, S., Meloni, F. and Rezaie, H. (2020) ‘Negotiating research and life spaces: participatory research approaches with young migrants in the UK’, in Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (ed.) Refuge in a moving world: tracing refugees and migrant journeys across disciplines. London: UCL Press, pp. 23–34. Hamburger, A., Hancheva, C., Özcürümez, S., Scher, C., Stankovic, B. and Tutnjevic, S. (2018) Forced migration and social trauma: interdisciplinary perspectives from psychoanalysis, psychology, sociology and politics. London: Routledge. Harding, J. (2000) The uninvited: refugees at the rich man’s gate. London: Profile Books Ltd with London Review of Books. Harrell-Bond, B. and Voutira, E. (2007) ‘In search of ‘invisible’ actors: barriers to access in refugee research’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 20(2), pp. 281–298. Hugman, R., Bartolomei, L. and Pittaway, E. (2011) ‘Human agency and the meaning of informed consent: reflections on research with refugees’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 24(4), pp. 655–671. Joyce, P. (2018) Inspiration for integration. Labour market policies for refugees in five Northern European countries, Ratio Institute Working Papers No. 308. http://ratio.se/app/ uploads/2018/04/pj_inspiration_for_integration_308.pdf (Accessed: 28. 09. 2020).

Pain, faith and yoga

137

Khan, N. (2013) ‘A moving heart: querying a singular problem of immobility in Afghan migration to the UK’, Medical Anthropology, 32(6), pp. 518–534. Lewis, H. (2010) ‘Community moments: integration and transnationalism at “refugee” parties and events’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 23(4), pp. 571–588. Malkki, L. H. (1995) ‘Refugees and exile: from refugee studies to the national order of things’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 24(1), pp. 495–523. Malkki, L. (1996) ‘Speechless emissaries: refugees, humanitarianism, and dehistoricization’. Cultural Anthropology, 11(3), pp. 377–404. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968) The visible and the invisible and the working notes. Evanston: North Western University Press. Mitchell, K. S., Dick, A. M., DiMartino, D. M., Smith, B. N., Niles, B., Koenen, K. C. and Street, A. (2014) ‘A pilot study of a randomized controlled trial of yoga as an intervention for PTSD symptoms in women’, Journal of Traumatic Stress, 27(2), pp. 121–128, doi:10.1002/jts.21903. Morina, N., Kuenburg, A., Schnyder, U., Bryant, R. A., Nickerson, A. and Schick, M. (2018) ‘The association of post-traumatic and postmigration stress with pain and other somatic symptoms: an explorative analysis in traumatized refugees and asylum seekers’, Pain Medicine, 19(1), pp. 50–59. Nyers, P. (2006) Rethinking refugees: beyond state of emergency. Abingdon: Routledge. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2017) Who bears the cost of integrating refugees? Migration Policy Debates, 13. Available at: https://www. oecd.org/els/mig/migration-policy-debates-13.pdf (accessed 8th March 2021). Parikh, R. (2015) ‘Yoga under the Mughals: from practice to paintings’, South Asian Studies, 31(2), pp. 215–236. Pittaway, E. and Bartolomei, L. (2001) ‘Refugees, race and gender: the multiple discrimination against refugee women’, Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 19(6), pp. 21–32. Pittaway, E. and Pittaway, E. (2004) ‘“Refugee woman”: a dangerous label: opening a discussion on the role of identity and intersectional oppression in the failure of the international refugee protection regime for refugee women’, Australian Journal of Human Rights, 10(1), pp. 119–135. Pittaway, E., Bartolomei, L. and Hugman, R. (2010) ‘Stop stealing our stories: the ethics of research with vulnerable groups’, Journal of Human Rights Practice, 2(2), pp. 229–251. Rana, J. (2018) ‘Ladies-only! Empowerment and comfort in gender-segregated kickboxing in the Netherlands’, in Ratna, A. and Farooq Samie, S. (eds.) Race, gender and sport, the politics of ethnic ‘other’ girls and women. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 148–168. Rose, N. (1999) Powers of freedom: reframing political thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schoultz, I. (2017) ‘The state’s mishandling of immigration to Sweden – how bodies controlling the state frame the problem’, Crime Law Social Change, 68(1–2), pp. 29–46. Severinsson, P. and Sandahl, J. (2018) About Sweden: civic orientation in English. Gothenburg: City of Gothenburg. Spaaij, R., Broerse, J., Oxford, S., Luguetti, C., McLachlan, F., McDonald,B., Klepac, B., Lymbery, L., Bishara, J., Pankowiak, J. (2019) ‘Sport, refugees, and forced migration: a critical review of the literature’, Frontiers in Sports and Active Living. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2019.00047. Suzuki, M. (2016) ‘Performing the human: refugees, the body, and the politics of universalism’, University of Oxford Refugee Studies Centre Working Paper Series, 117.

138 Claire Collison and Nicola De Martini Ugolotti Szczepanik, M. (2018) ‘Border politics and practices of resistance on the Eastern side of ‘Fortress Europe’: the case of Chechen asylum seekers at the Belarusian Polish border’, Central and Eastern European Migration Review, 7(2), pp. 69–89. Uheling, G. (2015) ‘The responsibilization of refugees in the United States: on the political uses of psychology’, Anthropological Quarterly, 88(4), pp. 997–1028. Zaman, T. (2019) ‘Neighbourliness, conviviality, and the sacred in Athens’ refugee squats’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 45(3), pp. 529–541. Zylinska, J. (2004) ‘The universal acts: Judith Butler and the biopolitics of immigration’, Cultural Studies, 18(4), pp. 523–537.

Chapter 9

Voices from the margins Khat-chewing, devotional leisure and ambivalence in the British-Somali diaspora Spencer Swain

Introduction Leisure represents a site in daily life where understandings of self and community are constructed and expressed in a variety of ways (Spaaij, 2011; Spracklen et al., 2017). However, this area of cultural life can also generate division, signifying who belongs within communities, the types of identities expressed, and understandings of one’s place within the wider world (De Martini Ugolotti, 2015; Fletcher and Swain, 2016; Ratna, 2019). Such divergence represents a site of critical insight within migration and diaspora studies, resonating with Fanon’s (1967) concept of ‘double consciousness’, through exposing the complicated relationship experienced by those living at the intersections of migration and citizenship. Moreover, this dichotomy explores how migrants find themselves in a state of constant negotiation, centred around cultivating a connection to their country of origin as well as the host society (Anthias, 2012; Gilroy, 1993). Here, leisure plays an ambivalent role in challenging such marginality by forging a sense of social capital that can empower, liberate and connect migrants with others (Mohammadi, 2019), while also exposing division (Lewis, 2015; Stone, 2018), instigated around conservative understandings of tradition that clash with the syncretic values cultivated in multicultural societies (Massey, 1994). This fault line politicises leisure by unmasking tensions in the way tradition is used to maintain conventional hierarchies, designed to shelter users from external threats, in the form of racism, but also internal changes brought about by the lived experiences of forced migration. In direct antithesis to this conservative ethos is a more progressive view of identity built around the values of syncretism, which seeks to challenge traditions that undermine personal freedoms by incorporating a mentality that looks to the future, as well as the past (Back, 1996). It is through the clash of such affiliations that migrant communities find themselves internally divided, with some seeking to recapture lost positions of status, power and identity. In contrast, others contend with the difficulties of the present and the need to adapt to a future in the host society. It is through this lens that the chapter introduces the reader to khat-chewing (Catha Edulis), and its place within the broader consciousness of Somali culture DOI: 10.4324/9780429341045-11

140 Spencer Swain

and diaspora. In this context, khat exemplifies the complicated relationship between leisure and identity politics (Hopkins, 2010), given the activities position as a symbol of hegemonic masculinity within Somaliland1 (Carrier and Klantschnig, 2018; Osman and Soderback, 2010), and the contours of which denote status as a cultural identity marker used to convey knowledge, wisdom and importance to others (Harris, 2005; Swain, Spracklen and Lashua, 2018). In the diaspora, this image helps shield older and middle-aged Somali men from the harsh realities of racism and a changing sense of Somaliness (Swain, 2017a). However, not everyone perceives khat in such a positive way, with many younger second-generation British-Somalis and women’s groups viewing the substance as a symbol of domination used to exercise patriarchal and patrilineal hierarchies. Here, conventional understandings of Somaliness cultivated in khatchewing environments run in contradiction to the lived experiences of such groups, who challenge the patriarchal and conservative views associated with such leisure (Borell, Rask and Warsame, 2014; Hopkins, 2010; Mason, 2018). The chapter starts by documenting the position of khat-chewing within Somali culture, exposing its symbolic association with traditional readings of masculinity and its antagonistic relationship with the lives of women and the young. Here, khat-chewing is explored as a nexus of stability for users, forging a sense of security and belonging – an insight that connects with contemporary debates regarding leisure’s place in liquid modernity as a site in life that provides users with a sense of constancy in an otherwise uncertain and ephemeral world. This perspective links with the concept of ‘devotional leisure’, a term used to explain how khat-chewing has come to represent a site of devotion, helping to provide khat users with a sense of purpose, identity and communal solidarity. The chapter concludes by problematising this sense of unity by introducing the views of those within the community who oppose the practice. Through this lens, the chapter explores how khat-chewing has come to divide the very same community it desperately seeks to unite.

Khat-chewing and identity: a changing sense of Somaliness The appearance of khat varies depending upon its origin, with the most popular type chewed in Britain being a variant known as Miraa, which is cultivated in Meru county in Northern Kenya (Carrier, 2007; Hansen, 2010). This type of khat is cut shorter than its Ethiopian counterpart, Harari, and is sold as a piece consisting of four separate bundles, each housing fifteen to twenty khat sticks. These sticks measure roughly eight to nine inches long and are bound together with a banana leaf to keep the contents fresh and secure for consumption, as khat that is not fresh does not have the same effect on the user (Anderson and Carrier, 2011; Carrier, 2007). During khat-chewing sessions, participants peel the tender parts of the khat stalks as well as the soft leaves, depositing the materials into the side of their mouth along with a small amount of chewing gum to bind the contents into a ball (Osman and

Voices from the margins

141

Soderback, 2010). It is the process of continuously chewing that releases the chemical dopamine into the body (Kalix, 1987), causing the user to experience a mild feeling of euphoria that can lead to intense conversation and debate (Hansen, 2010). The sociality created by the effects of marquan (getting high), signifies the popularity of khat-chewing and the repeated habit of frequenting the mafrish. 2 This recognition stems from the communal togetherness experienced in such spaces, built conspicuously around expressions of traditional masculine behaviours such as debating communal matters and reciting personal stories about Somaliland (Carrier, 2007; Hansen, 2010). Suggestively, the use of such cultural expressions also serves to reinforce patriarchal and patrilineal hierarchies, subjugating women to men and young to old, and helping to uphold traditional social values that are commonplace in Somali culture and the broader diaspora (Markussen, 2018). This image conforms to conventional understandings of khat’s place in Somaliland, namely its use amongst tribal leaders in the Shir, a male-only council convened to decide political issues and resolve communal disputes (Hansen, 2010; Lewis, 1998). Moreover, the symbolic overtures of this emblematic relationship with men of importance serves to enhance the masculine identities of those who frequent the mafrish (Abdullahi, 2001; Carrier, 2007). However, this masculine image is under attack within the diaspora (Fangen, 2006; Hopkins, 2010), causing Somali men to have their traditional role as central pillars within their communities questioned. One of the reasons for this stems from the emasculation of Somali men in the West, which has been brought about by high levels of unemployment (Mason, 2018), cultural differences in the form of language barriers, and racism characterised by intense Islamophobia that has served to portray many as terrorists or vagrant delinquents within the cultural psyche of western countries (Fangen, 2006; Harris, 2005). Appreciably, such diminished status contributes towards strained relationships with others in the diaspora, namely younger Somalis who, for the most part, have grown up in the West and, as a result, become more adept at navigating these syncretic cultural landscapes than their elders (Kallehave, 2001; Markussen, 2018). Here, research undertaken documenting perceptions of Somali identity amongst second-generation teenagers in the diaspora has shown how such groups are more likely than their elders to mix with other cultures. This social mixing has contributed to younger Somalis expanding their knowledge of both the language and cultural norms of host societies (Mason, 2018; Valentine, Sporton and Nielsen, 2009), which, in turn, forges a disparity in knowledge between old and young. Consequently, the knowledge cultivated from such syncretic experiences has served to reverse the traditional patrilineal relationship of younger members of the community being reliant on older men for advice, causing many elders to feel redundant and out of touch (Markussen, 2018). Similar disputes also emanate from Somali women, with many mobilising collectively to challenge what they have come to see as deviant behaviour (Hopkins, 2010). At its core, this discontent stems from a lack of male

142 Spencer Swain

responsibility within the domestic sphere, communicated through the vernacular of neglect regarding scarce economic provisions to help many households function and prolonged absences from the family home. This fallout has culminated in growing pressure being placed upon Somali women and young girls to contribute to the day to day running of family units, as well as managing household finances (Fangen, 2006). Such research exposes the changing gender roles within the domestic sphere, with women replacing men as the primary breadwinner within many family units and, in doing so, representing a direct challenge to male authority and entitlement (Hopkins, 2010). In part, these changes are driven by access to formalised education, a development that has seen many women who have grown up in the West surpass their male counterparts in the fields of academic attainment and employment. This sense of enlightenment, allied with higher financial capital, has caused younger women born in the diaspora to reject a lifestyle guided by traditional gender hierarchies (Borell, Rask and Warsame, 2014). The khat ban, implemented by the British Government in June 2014, exemplifies this challenge towards traditional understandings of patriarchy, whereby concerns relating to the impact of the stimulant on the social harmony of households and the broader community were put forward as viable reasons for banning the substance (Swain, 2017a). The effects of the ban have instilled yet more division within communities in Britain, with many women and young people being supportive. At the same time, some are pushing for greater punishments for those caught using the substance, which extend beyond the current three-stage caution system that many do not believe are strict enough to make any significant difference to the habits of users. Conversely, many older male khat users see the ban, and its support within sections of their community, as a vindication of their marginal position in British society, and the dilution of traditional Somali values that they see as being caused by their presence in the liberal environment of the West (Thomas and Williams, 2013). Subsequently, a feeling of distrust has emerged, characterised by two mentalities. One that seeks to use tradition to re-establish conventional understandings of identity and community, and another that seeks to challenge this narrative by exposing its adverse impacts. The dynamics of these opposing mentalities act as a wedge that serves to bitterly divide members of the diaspora (Swain, Spracklen and Lashua, 2018).

Liquid modernity, the fear of freedom and ‘devotional leisure’ Zygmunt Bauman’s (2000) writings on liquid modernity provide a useful lens for exploring how leisure can ferment the type of cultural dissonance articulated above. Here, Bauman’s (2000; 2006) work charts the metamorphosis in modernity, which has seen society transition from a state of solid modernity characterised by industrialism, a class-centred division of labour and the legislative guidance of the welfare state, to a fast-moving and ephemeral form of

Voices from the margins

143

liquid modernity, based around consumerism, individualisation and private enterprise. Through this lens, Bauman (2001; 2006), and other contemporary social theorists (Beck, 1992; Giddens, 1991), attribute this shift to changes that occurred in the geopolitical sphere in the late 1980s. The first of these changes relate to the increased interconnectedness of the world economy, brought about by technological advancements that have compressed the dimensions of time and space to allow commerce and goods to move at a faster rate around the world. These changes, documented through the rubric of globalisation, signalled the end of production-based economic growth in the West, due to the inability of such economies to compete with cheaper exports from newly industrialised countries. This lack of competitiveness, allied with automation and increased unemployment, have fragmented the communities that once serviced such industries (Bauman, 2001). The second change relates to the re-emergence of classical economic theory that arose out of the work of Milton Freidman (1992) and Friedrich Von Hayek (1944). Together, these thinkers provided the blueprint of New Right economic theory that influenced the neoliberal revolution spearheaded by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Bauman (2000; 2005) explains how this ideology promoted the principles of free-market economics, built around the values of consumption, privatisation and individual responsibility, and the dynamics of which encourage citizens to rely on their intuition to consume, increasing personal autonomy and reducing the role of the state as a paternal mediator and safety net in people’s lives (Bauman, 2006; Swain, 2019). This system contrasts significantly with solid modernity, through emphasising individual liberty centred around consumerism, rather than a top-down bureaucratic system used to order citizens around the task of production (Swain, 2017b). This shift towards individualisation and consumerism as the engine of economic growth has not come without its problems, most notably in the distinct pitfalls associated with excessive individual liberty over the security provided by communal solidarity. Bauman (2006) explores this problem by looking at the perils of freedom as a social relation, engaging with the writings of the German philosopher Erich Fromm (2001) to explain how freedom without security can be daunting, leading to insecurity and uncertainty. Through this paradigm, he explains how the shift towards individualisation, brought about by consumer capitalism, has served to erode personal freedoms, leaving individuals searching for frames of reference through which to make informed decisions. In this context, excessive consumer freedom conforms to Fromm’s (2001) understanding of ‘negative freedom’, in the way that such liberty causes people to flee from individual decision making by seeking sanctuary in social groups that provide instrumental rationalities around which a sense of security can be constructed (Bauman, 2001; Maffesoli, 1996). Bauman (1998) describes how incessant consumer freedom significantly impacts the poorest in society, highlighting how a lack of financial resources hinders citizens from managing their life projects. Through this line of

144 Spencer Swain

thinking, the poor find themselves demonised, as cutbacks to the welfare state have seen the safety net, designed to guard against such inequality, diminished, leaving many isolated and impoverished. Such an environment highlights the moral question of collective responsibility, a line of reasoning that finds itself subverted by the process of adiaphorization, in the way that increasing levels of inequality are deflected onto the individual as being brought about by irrational decision making rather than the injustices of the political and economic system (Bauman, 2000). The contours of this expose the ‘hyper-precarious’ environment that many migrants face, revealing uncertainty in regards to citizenship, poverty brought on by high unemployment rates, and a lack of sympathy through attributing such marginality to poor personal choices, rather than the perils associated with forced migration (Lewis, Dwyer, Hodkinson and Waite, 2015). In order to combat such inequality and the inability to forge consumer-based identities, marginalised groups can create a semblance of identity through connecting themselves with traditional culture, to form symbolic sentiments that act as a cultural marker around which people can unite (Bauman, 2006; Castells, 1996). Recent studies have highlighted the role of leisure in this context by looking at the intersections of migration, cultural expression and identity. Here, Lewis (2015) explored the role of dancing in helping to empower migrant identities, creating a sense of connection with others who shared similar passions. Such collective effervescence, in turn, helped forge a sense of togetherness that connected migrants navigating the British immigration system with others experiencing similar uncertainty. Similarly, Huisman and Hondagneu-Sotelo (2005) have examined how the wearing of traditional clothing has helped Bosnian migrants maintain a sense of connection with both their homeland and others living in the diaspora. Through this display of cultural identity, those traversing such spaces experience an emotional connection with others, built around a frame of reference around which an identity, sense of community and feeling of pride can be established. This insight connects with Blackshaw’s (2016; 2018) concept of ‘devotional leisure’, in the way that leisure can offer a sense of security, stability and connection in a world characterised by the ephemeral and uncertain environment of liquid modernity. In this context, ‘devotional leisure’ is understood through the Weberian notion (Weber, 1992) of a value sphere, in the way that such activities formulate a distinct and autonomous realm of human activity, constructed in isolation from other areas of social life. This idea exposes the importance of leisure environments in contributing towards a renegotiation of understandings of community and identity, which can help shield those who occupy such spaces for the period that such activities last. Blackshaw (2016) builds upon this understanding by explaining how value spheres are built through the act of ‘devotion’, enabling users to commit themselves to a particular activity or passion that, in turn, can provide them with a sense of cultural capital in the broader network of others who share similar passions. The confines of this

Voices from the margins

145

create a sense of collectivism that, for the time in which such leisure is undertaken, can provide users with a unified sense of values and purpose (Blackshaw, 2018). However, given the distinctiveness of the values formed in these unique spaces, ‘devotional leisure’ activities must also be understood as hastening a sense of cultural dissonance. The reason for this is that the rationalities guiding such spheres can run in direct contrast to the values constructed by others in a community or cultural setting, thereby causing certain leisure activities to be viewed with suspicion and even ridicule (Blackshaw, 2016). This is something that will be discussed later in the chapter when examining negative perceptions of the mafrish by those living in Brampton.

Marginality, emasculation and change: traditional Somali masculinity in crisis The forthcoming data originates from 35 unstructured interviews conducted in one of the largest Somali communities in Britain. Due to the issue of confidentiality, both the names of those who took part in the research (made up of a broad cross-section of the diaspora, including elders, women, community leaders and the young), and the neighbourhood (Brampton) where the study took place are anonymised for ethical reasons. Many older and middle-aged Somali men recounted how they felt excluded from British society (Markussen, 2018), narrating a sense of disempowerment that emanated from the inequalities they faced. Here, issues relating to unemployment, racism and questions surrounding citizenship served to demean many as vagabonds, based around people questioning their contribution to society. This is a situation that led to many recounting experiences of being labelled as scroungers, who those in broader society saw as being too lazy to work but cunning enough to draw benefits. This prejudice led to a feeling of marginality, belittlement and helplessness amongst many of the men interviewed, something that felt uncomfortable to them after holding positions of influence and authority in Somaliland before migrating. Khalid, a community elder and former Seamen, explained the underlying causes of this problem: A lot of older men who migrated here do not feel valued here. Many cannot get a job, they struggle with the language, and people do not understand them. It is hard; all they want to do is go back to their old lives in Somaliland, where they had a life. Similarly, others communicated how changing gender hierarchies within the domestic sphere added to their sense of emasculation. Here, issues pertaining to scarce financial resources, strained family relationships and high rates of domestic abuse, contributed to increased family breakdowns (Hopkins, 2010). David, a local authority drugs policy officer who had researched views on khat in Brampton before the ban in 2014, attributed such problems to changes in the conventional patriarchal power structures that had emerged post-migration:

146 Spencer Swain

What I found was that a lot of Somali men felt isolated in the city, but also their community and the home. They did not have anywhere near as much standing as what I expected. Many of the women were scathing about them, saying how they were lazy and did not work, not interested in their family and kids, all that kind of thing. These challenges to traditional hierarchies were not solely confined to the domestic sphere – a point exposed through anxieties surrounding the identities of younger members of the diaspora, who many elders saw as ‘turning their backs’ on Somali culture (Mason, 2018). Such accusations centred around second-generation British-Somalis ‘losing their culture’ and sense of connection with Somaliland, a situation that caused a rift to emerge between young and old (Valentine, Sporton and Nielsen, 2009). Ahmed, a local youth worker, gave his insight on this issue: Something that a lot of elders are worried about is the way the younger generation is behaving. They tell me that every year their children are becoming less and less Somali. You see this in the way they dress, their inability to speak Somali and their lack of interest in events back home. This causes real friction and worry. The culmination of these personal anxieties exposed the hyper-precarious (Lewis et al., 2015) lives that many older and middle-aged Somali men found themselves navigating, characterised by social and economic inequalities that led to a feeling of emasculation, as well as challenges to their authority from inside Brampton. These anxieties exposed the need amongst many older and middle-aged Somali men to find an escape in order to re-empower their perception of identity as well as to cultivate a feeling of community and solidarity.

Khat-chewing and ‘devotional leisure’: finding security in an insecure world Khat-chewing’s position as a prominent staple of masculinity and cultural identity (Carrier, 2007; Hansen, 2010) served to represent a symbolic conduit around which a powerful and dominant reading of Somaliness could be reconstructed. This perspective was commented upon by Ismail, a middleaged man who had lived in Brampton since the early 2000s, after making a secondary migration from Sweden: Khat is what Somalis are known for, everyone back home chews khat; it is very popular. So as a Somali man, chewing khat is something that is a normal part of every day, at least to me it is. INTERVIEWER: Why is that? ISMAIL:

Voices from the margins

147

Because it keeps me in touch with my roots, when I chew with others, I feel like a Somali. It is why so many people chew, to feel Somali.

ISMAIL:

The dynamics of this relationship between khat and masculinity was commented upon repeatedly by many of the male participants, and served to highlight the importance of such leisure in creating both a symbolic connection to Somaliland and an empowered sense of masculinity. Interestingly, such thoughts exposed how the mafrish represented a value sphere, in the way that such a space symbolised a prominent connection with hegemonic masculine values, which allowed users to create a dominant reading of Somaliness. This symbolic display of identity was on prominent show inside the mafrish, with many khat users using such leisure to reaffirm their connection with Somaliland. Abokor, a frequent khat user, provided an insight into the logic of such behaviour: In the mafrish, people are always talking about back home. It could be about the house they plan to build, clan politics, or the current political climate. The more you know, the more you feel part of the session. If you cannot talk about Somali culture, or you have no idea about your, home (Somaliland), then you have no place in the mafrish. Here it was better understood how the etiquettes associated with khat-chewing served to forge a particular reading of identity, built around a devotional loyalty to Somaliland. Such displays of devotion were also observed in the embodiment of traditional khat-chewing techniques, the demonstration of knowledge about the socio-cultural fabric of Somali culture and reciting personal experiences of Somaliland. Here, the embodiment of such behaviours served to portray a Somali identity to others that, in turn, enabled users to feel a traditional identity based on conventional displays of masculinity and sentiment. This behaviour explicitly highlighted the role of the mafrish as a sanctuary for users, in the way that such localities allowed Somali men to embody behaviours that enabled them to experience a sense of appreciation and respect from others. The benefits of this rewarded users for their devotional connection to Somali culture, allowing them to receive recognition and approval for projecting a traditional form of masculinity. Moreover, the embodiment of this identity shielded users, providing a sense of togetherness in the confines of the mafrish that created a form of communal solidarity. This sense of community permitted older and middle-aged men to find a nexus of stability, forging a site of comfort around others who shared similar values to them. Consequently, the mafrish came to symbolise a space where users could subvert their marginalised position on the periphery of British society, as well as internally within their community, by allowing those who frequented such localities to project a dominant and robust notion of Somaliness.

148 Spencer Swain

Community! But at what price? Khat-chewing and cultural dissonance Not everyone in Brampton, however, saw khat-chewing in such a positive light. Somali women, in particular, were eager to express to the researcher how the practice was causing significant problems within the community. The following was documented by Nayma, a volunteer at the local community centre: Khat causes lots of problems because the men are out all night chewing and spend most of the day asleep. This places a lot of strain on women to run the house and look after the children. But also, their health, I know women who have to hoover and clean at night so that they do not wake their husbands during the day when they are sleeping. Fadumo, a mother of three in her mid-thirties, built upon this assertion by recounting her own experiences of how khat-chewing severely impacted the social dynamics of her family when she was growing up: Khat causes a lot of men to forget about their responsibilities as fathers and husbands as well as members of the wider community. When I was young, my father was out chewing with his friends all the time. I never saw him. That is why so many people wanted the ban, to stop situations like that from happening. It needs to be taken seriously, that these men are giving up on their responsibilities to their wives and children. These perspectives exposed a more sinister side to khat-chewing, framed around selfishness and irresponsibility that portrayed khat users as giving up on their duty of moral responsibility towards others. Such views exposed a feeling of cultural dissonance surrounding the topic of khat and, in turn, poignantly symbolised how the value sphere of the mafrish was viewed with suspicion by Somali women. In this context, khat-chewing had come to represent a fork in the road, signifying both the unifying potential and divisiveness of leisure within liquid modern societies. At its core, this perspective is seen in the rationality of tradition cultivated in the mafrish, which helped users shield from their marginalised position in British society by allowing them to reconceptualise a positive image of Somaliness. However, at the same time, this value sphere instilled a feeling of division and distrust amongst many women in Brampton who saw such leisure as undermining the liberal values of equality they aspired to, by forging what many had come to understand as a culture of neglect. Through this lens, the majority of Somali women who contributed to this research communicated how they saw the mafrish as a space that promoted values that ran in direct contrast to the more progressive lives they were now trying to establish for both themselves and their children.

Voices from the margins

149

This sense of dissonance was not restricted solely to older Somali men and women, a point exposed by younger second-generation British-Somalis who contributed to the research. Here, many of those born in Britain, or within other European countries on route to Britain, explained how a significant proportion of people their age did not partake in khat-chewing, with many highlighting how younger generations felt a lack of connection with the practice. This point was commented upon by Abdi-Aziz, an eighteenyear-old who was born and raised in Brampton: Khat is not massively popular amongst guys my age; it is seen more as being for those born in Somaliland or who have just come. I know many people don’t find the thought of sitting around talking about Somaliland for hours on end fun, many people my age have better things to be doing than talking about clans and the past. Interestingly, this view, and others like it, exposed a break with traditional notions of Somali masculinity associated with the mafrish, and instead highlighted how a growing swathe of second-generation British-Somalis was moving towards a more syncretic understanding of identity (Mason, 2018). This narrative exposed how this group did not share their elder’s conventional reading of Somali identity, which many saw as being rooted in the past and out of touch with the future they envisaged for themselves. It is, however, essential to mention here that opinions on khat were divided amongst the youth, with individual young members of the community chewing khat. However, this association with the practice was not as pronounced as in the case of older and middle-aged men, with these younger khat users hiding their association with the practice for fear of being openly ridiculed as being ‘uncool’ or a ‘freshie’.3 The use of such derogatory comments, and the labelling of khat in such a dismissive manner, exposed how the younger generation in Brampton did not, for the most part, share their elders’ affinity for the practice. The reason for this stemmed from a lack of personal affinity with Somaliland and the perceived irrelevance of adhering to such traditional gender markers when constructing their identity.

Conclusion The views expressed above highlight the complexities surrounding leisure and its relationship with migrant communities, exposing to researchers and policymakers the complex internal dynamics influencing leisure in such settings. In this context, it has been shown how the value sphere of the mafrish, based around the mores of tradition, can help unite older and middle-aged Somali men struggling to adapt to life in the diaspora. Through this lens, the research has shown how devotional acts of leisure, such as khat-chewing, have the potential to disrupt demeaning stereotypes surrounding Somalis living in Britain, by helping older and middle-aged men portray a dominant

150 Spencer Swain

reading of Somaliness. However, it has also been shown how khat-chewing’s connection with conventional Somali customs and traditions also serve to isolate these men from others in their community. In this context, the cultural sphere of the mafrish is seen by others as being representative of a narrative that seeks to reimpose traditional patriarchal and patrilineal hierarchies onto others. This highlights the unique social conditions of liquid modernity, by exposing how the use of tradition to re-establish a dominant reading of identity clashes with others who view such leisure as demeaning and repressive. In this case, the devotional loyalty shown to traditional Somali values and masculinity undertaken by khat users clashes with the more progressive values of Somali women, who are committed to forging a better life for themselves and their children in British society. Similarly, the romanticised vision of one day returning home to Somaliland, which is held in such high esteem inside the mafrish, fails to connect with younger members of the community who do not share this same vision. These findings expose how older and middle-aged Somali men attempt to navigate the uncertain and ephemeral landscape of liquid modernity by finding a sense of security and solace through the romanticisation of the past. However, this act of devotion undertaken within the cultural sphere of the mafrish serves only to isolate further those who frequent such localities, by cutting them off from both broader British society and their community in Brampton. Through this lens, khat-chewing can be seen as a unique value sphere based around a reading of Somaliness that shelters users from the harsh realities of life in British society by promising them a return to the glories of the past. The problem is that the idea of identity and community forged inside such settings no longer exists, leading to a situation where khat users find themselves becoming more and more reliant on such spaces to escape the world they find themselves living in. Such findings serve to expose the complexity of life within migrant communities by highlighting the role of tradition in providing a sense of security in a fast-changing, ephemeral world. It is hoped that this theoretical perspective into khat-chewing can provide a useful lens for other researchers exploring leisure in migrant communities, by helping them better understand internal divisions that cause such forms of recreation to become politicised issues. The lessons of these findings help to show how migrant communities are not monolithic but, instead, complex and syncretic, incorporating many different voices and perspectives.

Notes 1 Somaliland is a semi-autonomous region located to the North of Somalia. The region has been seeking international recognition as an independent state since the 1980s. 2 Mafrish – Basic interpretation in English means khat house. It is a place where khat users in a community congregate to chew. 3 A term used to refer to newly arrived migrants.

Voices from the margins

151

References Abdullahi, M. (2001) Culture and customs of Somalia. London: Greenwood Press. Anderson, P., and Carrier, N. (2011) Khat: Social harms and legislation (Home Office Report). London: Home Office. Anthias, F. (2012) Intersectional what? Social divisions, intersectionality and levels of analysis. Ethnicities. 13(1): 3–19. Back, L. (1996) New ethnicities and urban culture: Racism and multiculture in young lives. London: UCL Press. Bauman, Z. (1998) Work, consumerism and the new poor. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Bauman, Z. (2000) Liquid modernity. Cambridge: Polity. Bauman, Z. (2001) Community: Seeking safety in an insecure world. Cambridge: Polity. Bauman, Z. (2005) Liquid life. Cambridge: Polity. Bauman, Z. (2006) Liquid times: Living in an age of uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity. Beck, U. (1992) Risk society: Towards a new modernity. London: Sage. Blackshaw, T. (2016) Re-imagining leisure studies. London: Taylor & Francis. Blackshaw, T. (2018) The two rival concepts of devotional leisure: Towards an understanding of twenty-first-century human creativity and the possibility of freedom. International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure. 1(1): 75–97. Borell, K., Rask, E., and Warsame, M. (2014) Gendered family roles and expectations in transnational Somali refugee families: An exploratory multiple-site study. International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies. 5(2): 296–307. Carrier, N. (2007) Kenyan Khat: The social life of a stimulant. Leiden: Brill. Carrier, N., and Klantschnig, G. (2018) Quasilegality: Khat, Cannabis and Africa’s drug laws. Third World Quarterly. 39(2): 350–365. Castells, M. (1996) The rise of the network society: The information age. Oxford: Blackwell. De Martini Ugolotti, N. (2015) Climbing walls, making bridges: Children of immigrants’ identity negotiations through Capoeira and Parkour in Turin. Leisure Studies. 34(1): 19–33. Fangen, K. (2006) Humiliation experienced by Somali refugees in Norway. Journal of Refugee Studies. 19(1): 69–93. Fanon, F. (1967) Back skin, white masks. New York: Grove Press. Fletcher, T. and Swain, S. (2016) Strangers of the north: South Asians, cricket and the culture of Yorkshireness. Journal for Cultural Research. 20(1): 86–100. Freidman, M. (1992) Capitalism and freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fromm, E. (2001) The fear of freedom. London: Routledge. Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity. Gilroy, P. (1993) The Black Atlantic: Modernity and double-consciousness. London: Verso Books. Hansen, P. (2010) The ambiguity of khat in Somaliland. Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 132(3): 590–599. Harris, H. (2005) The Somali community in the UK: What we know and how we know it. London: ICAR. Hopkins, G. (2010) A changing sense of Somaliness: Somali women in London and Toronto. Gender, Place and Culture. 17(4): 519–538.

152 Spencer Swain Huisman, K. and Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. (2005) Dress matters: Change and continuity in the dress practices of Bosnian Muslim refugee women. Gender and Society. 19(1): 44–65. Kalix, P. (1987) Khat: Scientific knowledge and policy issues. British Journal of Addiction. 82(1): 47–53. Kallehave, T. (2001) Somali migrants, family and subjectivity. Ethnologia Scandinavica. 31(1): 25–44. Lewis, H. (2015) Music, dancing and clothing as belonging and freedom among people seeking asylum in the UK. Leisure Studies. 34(1): 42–58. Lewis, H., Dwyer, P., Hodkinson, S., and Waite, L. (2015) Hyper-Precarious lives: Migrants, work and forced labour in the global north. Progress in Human Geography. 39(5): 580–600. Lewis, I.M. (1998) Peoples of the horn of Africa: Somali, Afar and Saho. Trenton: Red Sea Press. Maffesoli, M. (1996) The time of the tribes: The decline of individualism in mass society. London: Sage. Markussen, M. (2018) ‘Nobody comes to baba for advice’: Negotiating ageing masculinities in the Somali diaspora. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 46(7): 1442–1459. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1496817. Mason, W. (2018) ‘Swagger’: Urban youth culture, consumption and social positioning. Sociology. 52(6): 1117–1133. Massey, D. (1994) Space, place and gender. Cambridge: Polity. Mohammadi, S. (2019) Social inclusion of newly arrived female asylum seekers and refugees through a community sport initiative: The case of Bike Bridge. Sport in Society. 22(6): 1082–1099. Osman, F. and Soderback, M. (2010) Perception of the use of khat among Somali immigrants living in Swedish society. Scandinavian Journal of Social Medicine. 39(2): 212–219. Ratna, A. (2019) Hierarchical assemblages of citizenship and belonging: The pedestrian speech acts of Gujarati walkers. Sociology. 54(1): 159–180. https://doi.org/10. 1177/0038038519860413. Spaaij, R. (2011) Beyond the playing field: Experiences of sport, social capital, and integration among Somalis in Australia. Ethnic and Racial Studies. 35(9): 1519–1538. Spracklen, K., Lashua, B., Sharpe, E., and Swain, S. (2017) The Palgrave handbook of leisure theory. London: Palgrave. Stone, C. (2018) Utopian community football? Sport, hope and belongingness in the lives of refugees and asylum seekers. Leisure Studies. 37(2): 171–183. Swain, S. (2017a) The khat controversy: Dark leisure in a liquid modern world. Annals of Leisure Research. 20(5): 610–625. Swain, S. (2017b) Leisure in the current interregnum: Exploring the social theories of Anthony Giddens and Zygmunt Bauman. In Spracklen, K., Lashua, B., Sharpe, E., and Swain, S. (eds.) Palgrave Handbook of Leisure Theory. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 799–816. Swain, S. (2019) Sport, power and politics: Exploring sport and social control within the changing context of modernity. International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure. 2 (4), 385–402. Swain, S., Spracklen, K., and Lashua, B. (2018) Khat-chewing in liminal leisure spaces: British-Somali youth on the margins. Leisure Studies. 37(4), 440–451. Thomas, S., and Williams, T. (2013) Khat (Catha edulis): A systematic review of evidence and literature pertaining to its harms to UK user and society. Drug Science, Policy and Law. 1(1): 1–25.

Voices from the margins

153

Valentine, G., Sporton, D., and Nielsen, K.B. (2009) Identities and belonging: A study of Somali refugee and asylum seekers living in the UK and Denmark. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 27(2): 234–250. Von Hayek, F. (1944) The road to serfdom. London: Routledge. Weber, M. (1992) The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. London: Routledge.

Part III

Voices, praxis, and (self)representation

Chapter 10

Decolonial stories of forced migrants in physical activity and sport ‘We the Afghan kids’ Sepandarmaz Mashreghi with Yasmin, Hassan, Ali, Mohammad I went to work in the mornings at the construction site carrying heavy irons and bricks, that was hard work. But it was so much fun in the afternoons, we played ‘‫’ﺧﺮﺩﻣﭙﺎﯾﯽ‬, one would throw an old flipflop trying to hit others, we had to be very fast to not get hit! We played for hours. Later when we got older, we, the Afghan kids, turned an old gravel canal into a football field. Those were good times.

This is the story of ten Afghan youth living in a small town in Sweden. They were among the many so-called ‘unaccompanied’ children1 who arrived in Sweden in the years 2014–2016 (Migragrationsverket [Migration Agency], 2019). Since I first met them, together and as co-researchers, we have engaged in art-based participatory research. Operating within a decolonial framework, we have attempted to write and analyse their life stories, in relation to physical activity and sport, so as to work against the dominant ‘single story’ (Adichie, 2009) of ‘unaccompanied’ children in Swedish public discourse, which has resulted in othering these young people and placing them outside of the overall picture of childhood and youth (Djampour, 2018). The Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009) warned of the dangers of a single story, denoting that single stories create incomplete stereotypes with problematic and narrow descriptions that ‘make one story become the only story’ (Adichie, 2009) and act to other people in the process. Othering is the practice of constructing another group of people as radically different to one’s own group, often based on (implicit or explicit) ethnocentric discourses (Ratna & Samie, 2018). The Swedish media discourse has enacted this othering in representing the ‘unaccompanied’ youth either as vulnerable victims, who have been exposed to traumatic experiences such as poverty and forced labour (Djampour, 2018; Stretmo, 2011) or as cunning strategists, who trick the authorities about their age and abuse the benevolence of the Swedish system (Stretmo, 2011, 2014). Such misrepresentations derive from the ways (Western) university-based researchers in Europe, using Eurocentric frameworks and often within individually-oriented disciplines concerned with psychopathology and developmental issues, have investigated the unaccompanied youth seeking asylum (Djampour, 2018; Mashreghi, 2020; Wernesjö, 2011). By focusing on problemDOI: 10.4324/9780429341045-13

158 Sepandarmaz Mashreghi et al.

centred homogenous narratives, this discourse has constructed the youth as vulnerable children without past or history at the doorsteps of Europe (Agergaard, 2018; Djampour, 2018; Mashreghi, 2020; Wernesjö, 2011). Such scholarship has ‘seldom portrayed [the young asylum seekers] as any other children with hopes and dreams, or as the present and future generation’ (Djampour, 2018, p. 27). Instead it has positioned them as other than normal children. Having said this, it is important to recognize that migrant youth are vulnerable (as any other child would be), and psychiatric and medical research have been instrumental in granting them health care and social rights; rather, I agree with Djampour (2018) in asserting that the problem is the shortage of research that investigates the perspective of these young people regarding their struggles, dreams and ambitions before, during and after their entry to Sweden. Due to the dominance of problematic narratives regarding ‘unaccompanied’ youth and young migrants in general, various governmental and non-governmental bodies have attempted to manage the migrant youth in different ways, one of which has been through sport and physical activity (Agergaard, Michelsen la Cour & Gregersen, 2016; Azzarito, 2012). Such programmes have often ignored the ways in which migrant youth interpret and actively negotiate conditions of inequality and trauma. Instead, they have focused on controlling the ‘at-riskbodies’ (Azzarito, 2012, p. 295) of the young migrants by monitoring their leisure time and promoting engagement in politically recognized and normative leisure activities (Agergaard et al., 2016). In Sweden, integration through sport policies have been mostly enacted through organized sports associations, which are the backbone of the Swedish sport model and central to Swedish youth politics (RF [The Swedish Sports Confederation], 2019). Contrary to its rhetoric, the notion of integration through sport and physical activity has often aided in the reproduction of this othering (Agergaard, 2018; Agergaard et al., 2016). In fact, modern sport in itself is a Western construct that carries colonial values at its hegemonic core, one of which is the notion of development (Darnell & Hayhurst, 2011). De/postcolonial sport researchers have argued that viewing sport as universal and as a gateway between the developed and developing worlds sustains colonial relations of power that have given rise to the process of othering in the first place (Darnell & Hayhurst, 2011). In line with such criticism, Swedish scholars have problematized integration policies enacted by Swedish youth sport associations, arguing that the values, meanings and organization of sport inherent in these associations are that of normative standards of Swedish society, and may not necessarily encompass wider global ideas about sport; thus, making the sport clubs, in themselves, problematic structures (Fundberg, 2012; Karlefors, 2016). Therefore, it is important to engage with the young migrants in scholarship that decentralizes the so-called universal notions of sport, and investigates their agency and the multiple reconstructions of sport and physical activity from their own perspectives (Darnell & Hayhurst, 2011; Mashreghi, 2020). As Adichie (2009) explained, the single story is not necessarily untrue but it is incomplete, and within it there is no possibility of connection as human equals.

Stories of forced migrants in sport

159

The young migrants’ lives may have been surrounded by hardship, poverty and trauma, but they are by no means passive victims of such circumstances. As the following stories in this chapter demonstrate, the young asylum seekers have continuously and actively managed and negotiated the impacts of the disadvantages they have faced, and developed creative ideas to play and engage with physical activity. By recounting their many stories of physical activity, which were researched and analysed with and by the young people themselves, this chapter aims to work against the othering outcomes of a single story, and thus, contribute to leisure and migration scholarship that engages with the youth to make visible their agencies, dreams and shared humanities.

Theoretical and epistemological framework To be able to capture and foreground the young people’s voices I engaged with them as co-researchers in a participatory action research (PAR) endeavour that utilized art-based research methods (ABR) within a decolonial framework. Mignolo (2009) argued that a decolonial framework is a praxis-based process of thinking and doing that challenges coloniality by delinking itself from the normative, Western-based, epistemes. In contrast, coloniality is defined as racialized and gendered socioeconomic and political stratification according to an invented normative Eurocentric standard (Grosfoguel, 2013; Mignolo, 2009). A decolonial framework is, therefore, political in nature and works to achieve several goals simultaneously. First and foremost, it works with the communities who have been historically othered ‘to reclaim and tell their stories in their own ways and to give testimonio to their collective herstories and struggles’ (Smith, 2005, p. 89). Secondly, it aims to challenge the institutions and structures that have produced explicit or implicit inequity and injustice. In the world of knowledge-making, this challenge is manifested in transferring the epistemology and site of knowledge production to the othered communities (Forsyth & Heine, 2010; Mignolo, 2009; Smith, 1999). Decolonial scholars have further argued that modernity and its subsequent institutions have always been entangled with coloniality. In fact, it was the economic benefits of colonial exploitations that supported the renaissance and enlightenment, and eventually led to modernity and made the current hegemonic world system (Grosfoguel, 2013). Embedded in this world system is the gendered and racialized binary of modern/developed/civilized human, as opposed to nonmodern/underdeveloped/uncivilized subhuman, which positions this latter category as other, perpetually in need of saving and civilizing (Grosfoguel, 2016). Modern sport is not free of this entanglement; therefore, it is no surprise that it has been offered as an engine for development in the so-called developing countries, as well as a tool for integration or ‘behaviour control’ of the forced migrants in developed countries (Agergaard et al., 2016; Darnell & Hayhurst, 2011; Spaaij, 2009). Inherent in this civilizing view of sport is an intrinsic violence that not only conceals economic and geopolitical tensions, but is also complicit with the politics

160 Sepandarmaz Mashreghi et al.

that further the othering of migrants and their communities (Darnell & Hayhurst, 2011; Khan, 2013). At this point, it is crucial to recognize that sport has not been simply delivered around the world and within the nations by the colonial powers or states. In fact, there has always been agency, resistance and reconstruction of sporting forms in response to colonizing forces. Therefore, it is necessary to caution against essentializing a West/Others divide that neglects common humanities as well as shared histories, mutual practices and co-presence of seemingly incompatible cultural elements (Khan, 2013). In effect, decolonial research must actively avoid re-inscribing prevailing representations and instead address alternative knowledge and ways of knowing and resisting (Darnell & Hayhurst, 2011). It is here that participatory action research (PAR) within a decolonial framework can offer to shift the location of knowledge and ways of knowledge-making to the co-researchers, so as to foreground their experience, agencies, voices of resistance and their humanities, unsettling the West/Other divide in the process. PAR, which derives its philosophy from Paulo Freire’s idea of critical consciousness, has its roots in the struggle of South American peasants and Indigenous peoples against the different forms of knowledge production, education and social organizations that normalized their subordination (Dimitriadis, 2010; Freire, [1970]2005). In Freire’s conceptual framework, research, education and politics of humanization work together to challenge the status quo as well as the structures of domination and oppression ([1970]2005). Freire ([1970]2005) argued that every human being is capable of investigating his or her world critically in a dialogical encounter with others, and emphasized the importance of critical consciousness for personal and social transformation. He maintained that this process is achieved collaboratively and dialogically through a cyclical and nondichotomizing course of ‘reflection and action upon the reality of the world in order to transform it’ (Freire, [1970]2005, p. 51) by the people who are living that reality. Engaging in this liberating dialogue is not merely a question of techniques and methods; rather, it poses a different relationship to knowledge that involves collaborative conscientization of researcher and co-researchers together (Fine, 2008). In this way, PAR provides a space where academia can work with the communities via a dialogical collaboration that coproduces knowledge by and from within the communities. Such practice, in turn, can contest the taken-forgranted and problematic structures, transforming them in the process (Cammarota & Fine, 2008; Fals-Borda & Rahman, 1991). Westernized university-based researchers, on the other hand, have historically entered vulnerable communities across the globe and conducted various problematic research on them, with little regard to the means and implications of that research for the communities involved (Mignolo, 2009; Smith, 1999). Such undertakings have, in effect, colonized the imagery, creations and ways of knowing of such communities while rejecting the very same people who cultivated those ideas (Mashreghi, 2020; Smith, 1999). Such representations also reject the epistemology of the people and the ways through which they have, culturally and historically, produced and disseminated knowledge (Forsyth &

Stories of forced migrants in sport

161

Heine, 2010; Smith, 1999). Art-based research (ABR) has the potential to disrupt these representations, as well as contest the mainstream ways of knowing and researching by invigorating culturally relevant epistemologies that have been eroded or rejected due to the process of coloniality (Blodgett et al., 2013; Mashreghi, 2020). ABR entails qualitative and systematic use of artistic process as a means to organize research and produce knowledge (Leavy & Chilton, 2014; McNiff, 2008). This is where PAR, ABR and a decolonial approach can converge to foreground culturally relevant ways of knowing and build on the capacities of the othered communities to produce knowledge that challenges the structures and discourses that perpetuate othering (Blodgett et al., 2013; Mashreghi, 2020).

Methodology Although this is a PAR project, it did not have a participatory beginning. After attaining approval from the Swedish Ethics Board, it was I (first author) who reached out to a group of Afghan students with the idea of using PAR/ABR to explore the relationship of the community with physical activity. The students were between the ages of 16 and 19 and attended a school in Skåne county. After a period of initial contact and relationship building, I presented my ideas regarding the research and its decolonial/PAR/ABR approach to this group, after which ten individuals volunteered to participate in this project and consented to becoming co-researchers in order to share their stories and analyses with the larger public and academia. The research team, therefore, consisted of ten co-researchers (represented by the accompanying authors) and I (first author) as the academic researcher. The co-researchers are Afghan migrants and, if I am to introduce them better, I will first have to go back in time and search their histories as it relates to their ancestral homeland. This will take us back to a land known as Khorasan. Before the modern era and up until 1863, the largest section of the place that is now called Afghanistan was part of a region named Khorasan (Mojtahed-Zadeh, 2004). Historically, Khorasan was an elastic and expansive construct, which included the eastern parts of Iranian federative system, and reached the river Amu Darya and beyond. In the modern time, this region is located across the national borders of Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan (MojtahedZadeh, 2004). The strategic location of this region has subjected it to the rule of various empires. As these empires have attempted to conquer and exploit, they have campaigned for war and partitioning of lands, have formed allegiances that they have later broken, and have left a wake of destruction and ruin behind (Crews, 2015; Mojtahed-Zadeh, 2004). But the history of this area is also about the history of its many peoples and their interactions amongst themselves and across the globe. Even before the rise of the modern nation-states, the peoples of this land have been connected globally via trade, arts, educational institutes and migration (Crews, 2015). The ten young Afghan co-researchers in this chapter are

162 Sepandarmaz Mashreghi et al.

but a continuation of this human movement. Their global migration has taken them across various nation-states, namely Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, with or without their families, where some have had long stays. The young co-researchers are comprised of nine males and one female, and their diversity is representative of the larger population of young Afghan migrants in Sweden. Five of the coresearchers had initially migrated to Iran with their families as infants, and three were born there. The female co-researcher had first sought asylum and lived in Pakistan for a few years, and the last male co-researcher migrated directly from Afghanistan. Eventually, all had arrived in Sweden as ‘unaccompanied children’. Their current residence is the county of Skåne, where many of them hope to make their homes. Their experiences with physical activity have been varied on account of their gender and legal and social status in their former places of residence. Eight of the co-researchers who had lived in Iran had some access to public sports facilities or physical activity centres and had engaged in football as well as martial arts in the past. The female co-researcher explained that she had been engaged in playing basketball and doing yoga since moving to Sweden but did not elaborate on her experience prior to her arrival. The only co-researcher who had previous access to formal school and formal physical education was the one male co-researcher who had immigrated directly from Afghanistan. There are many links that connect me to the co-researchers and there are many realities that divide us. For one, we are from the same ancestral homeland and speak the same language. I too come from Khorasan. However, 150 years ago, when the borders were drawn separating Iran and Afghanistan (MojtahedZadeh, 2004), my ancestors were on the Iranian side. This significant but random happenstance has given me Iranian citizenship, a privilege that has been denied to the many Afghans – including eight of the co-researchers and their families – who have migrated, lived, worked and been born in Iran (Olszewska, 2007). Iranian citizenship has meant that I have been able to live in a middleclass family, have formal education and have access to health benefits, while the young Afghans who lived in Iran did not have access to public schools and health benefits, and had to work from an early age. I, similar to the Afghan coresearchers, have been an immigrant both as a teenager in Canada and now as an adult in Scandinavia. However, my migratory experience as a youngster took place under the Canadian immigration class of skilled workers due to my parents’ higher education and professional life, which granted me a rather seamless migration and resettlement experience as a legal citizen in Canada. The young Afghans experiences of migration, on the other hand, have been defined by constant hardship from departure to arrival, and a continuous struggle to obtain legal status in various countries of Iran, Pakistan and Sweden. The coresearchers’ experiences and mine overlapped once again with our mutual arrival in Scandinavia between the years 2014–2016, but once again we were divided across class, age, experiences of displacement and migratory status. Throughout the process of this research, I have attempted to be reflexive of our connections and differences in ethical ways that honour, respect and centralize

Stories of forced migrants in sport

163

the voices of the co-researchers while also considering their well-being. During this journey, I had to surrender power and control of certain processes, such as relinquishing my research questions in favour of what the co-researchers wanted to investigate, while taking charge of others, such as the organization of various dissemination projects. Over the course of several sessions, and communicating in our native language Dari/Persian, the co-researchers and I together depicted their stories of physical movement on paper, had conversational interviews and analysed their stories according to themes. Conversational interviews facilitated a space where storytelling was invited and the participants had a high degree of control over the creation and delivery of their stories (Blodgett, 2015). During the analysis of their art and interview notes, the co-researchers established five themes, or stories, as well as constructed five collective statements that elaborated and explained each theme more thoroughly. Each of these themes were then linked with various stories from their personal experiences. This PAR process was inspired by the guidelines set by Liebenberg, Jamal and Ikeda (2015). I have translated the co-researchers’ work into English and, in the following section, I will present the themes and their discussion as close as possible to the way it was formulated by them. Constraints due to word limitation as well as ethics, however, have required me to present two overarching themes that encompass what the co-researchers generated, as well as combine their collective statements and create several composite vignettes based on their personal stories. I believe that composite vignettes, which combine experiences and voices of multiple people into a single, synthesized narrative, are more suitable in demonstrating the stories of the co-researchers for various reasons (Schinke, Blodgett, McGannon & Ge, 2016). One of these is keeping the anonymity of the co-researchers, as required by the Swedish Ethical Review Act (Utbildningsdepartementet, 2003) and the EU Data Protection Ordinance (European Parliament and Council of the European Union, 2016). Moreover, employing composite vignettes is an effort to honour all the co-researchers by including all their stories in the presented narratives. Thirdly, these accounts provide a whole, evocative and collective depiction of the co-researchers’ experiences (Schinke et al., 2016). The combined themes and collective statements, along with their respective composite vignettes, will be presented and then analysed through a decolonial framework to reveal the multi-layered and deeply reflective stories of the co-researchers’ relationship with physical activity and movement.

Discussion We are undefeatable and we know it Regardless of their gender, their diverse backgrounds and their varied experiences, numerous stories of agency and resistance were one of the most important notions that connected all the co-researchers’ narratives.

164 Sepandarmaz Mashreghi et al.

Engrained in this agency was a notion of self-awareness and introspection that is illustrated in the following collective statement: Because we like to think and reflect about our world and ourselves in this world, (especially when we are physically active), we know that we have been through a lot of hard times but we also know that we have managed to survive and get stronger. What made this introspection unique was that it was not involved with their individual selves; rather it existed because of, and in relationship with, the world and events that surrounded them and preceded them. Their stories revealed that they constantly evaluated and reflected on their world, their own selves within it and the actions that they took in response to this relationship. Physical activity and sport were not left out of this praxis, and the young co-researchers used their engagement with physical movement to gain more insight into themselves and also into their worlds. In fact, one of the most common notions that their stories uncovered was their emphasis of studying people during various occurrences of their daily lives: It was a very hard time for me. I worked so hard, my body was tired and they didn’t treat us well; those times were dark times. But now I know so much, so much more than others who didn’t go through that. If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have been the person I am today. Those hard times and hard work taught me so much. Not only I became physically stronger, but I also got to study people. Here, the co-researchers demonstrated that not only had they turned their encounters and experiences into spaces of learning and knowledge-making about themselves, but also about their social world and others within it. This praxis of reflection on the self and others in relationship with the world is a cultural practice that stems from the young Afghans’ Khorasani heritage. One significant character of Khorasani culture – across all its many regions – is the practice of reflective and philosophical poetry; a practice that has been performed historically and in contemporary times across class, gender and ethnicity (Crews, 2015; Mojtahed-Zadeh, 2004; Olszewska, 2007). Through this practice, ordinary people as much as middle-class intelligentsia and renowned philosophers have contemplated upon and questioned the everyday struggles and practices of their times (Olszewska, 2007). The Afghan coresearchers in this study continued this cultural practice in their everyday lives by consciously reflecting upon their problematic realities and, by doing so, transformed those everyday experiences, including their physical activities, to spaces for exploration of their (social) world and construction of personhood, agency and self-worth (Olszewska, 2007). The following composite vignette demonstrates this notion more clearly:

Stories of forced migrants in sport

165

I love bicycling, it reminds me of my life. I fell so many times when my brother was teaching me but I finally found my balance. The moment I found that balance on the bike, I felt in control of my life as well. In establishing this theme, the co-researchers revealed that from a very young age they had been profoundly aware of the displacement, trauma and poverty in their lives. However, they never merely endured the effects of such adversaries, and their perspectives did not demonstrate their acceptance of such events (Djampour, 2018; Roets, Cardoen, Bouverne-De Bie & Roose, 2015). Instead, they developed resourceful notions and tapped into cultural practices that could mediate and negotiate the impact of such disadvantages in their lives. Furthermore, they lived the praxis; that is, not only did they reflect and act upon the problematic realities they encountered, finding wonder and awe in the most unlikely places, but they also unsettled the universal and colonial understandings of constructs and meanings related to those realities: When I was crossing the Mediterranean, I was really scared. I was praying all the time. It was the first time I had seen so much water, it was so blue, so beautiful and endless, it represented life to me and the unknown. There is something symbolic in being in this little boat in the middle of this great body of water. I didn’t do any physical activity during this time, not the kind they would call here anyways. I walked a lot though, all the way from Iran to here, I guess that’s called ‘‫’ﺭﺍﻫﭙﯿﲈﯾﯽ‬ [walking distances, equivalent of the word nature-walking]. Here they question universal notions of leisure and physical activity. Would hiking be called physical activity only when it is done in leisure time? The Afghan youth disagreed. By framing their long cross-countries walk as hiking and recounting the concurrent yet contradictory experiences of wonder and suffering, they delineated that experiences of physical activity and their benefits are not universal but historically and materially contextual (Darnell & Hayhurst, 2011). We like to be physically active but for different reasons As much as it is important to unsettle Western-centred frameworks by making the shared experiences and understandings of the co-researchers regarding physical activity and sport visible, it is fundamental to give justice to their diverse viewpoints. Here, they explored their motives and experiences of physical activity and, recognizing the variety and differences, they constructed the collective statement below: More than anything we love to be with our friends and have fun. Doing ball games like football is a good way to do this. Many of us are football fans, both as players and as spectators. But we also like to play other

166 Sepandarmaz Mashreghi et al.

games like basketball or running. Also, some of us like to use physical activity as a way to meditate and reflect upon our lives, for example when we are bicycling, swimming or running. As their collective statement suggests, the co-researchers’ motives for participating in physical activity were differentiated; some were interested in the social opportunities offered in participating in formal or informally organized team sports such as football. Others emphasized that they engaged in physical activity to be more mentally and psychologically self-aware in relation to their surroundings. Building on the previous theme, the youth asserted that their engagement with physical activity was nuanced and moved beyond what fits into the Swedish hegemonic understandings of sports, which, as Jakobsson (2015) argued, prioritizes the culture of competition, skill development and structure in sports clubs. They also affirmed that they, like many other young people, had emotional and social interests that were addressed through engagement with sports such as football. Their nuanced, comprehensive and actively reflective accounts unsettle not only the perspectives of Swedish sports club culture, but also the skewed focus on development and integration. Implicit in the sport for integration programmes is often the assimilatory agenda of ‘fixing’ the asylum seekers, saving them from their own uncivilized selves (Darnell & Hayhurst, 2011; Spaaij et al., 2019). The co-researchers’ active praxis in generating alternative meanings for physical activity contests this civilizing agenda and its othering consequences. Similar to sports clubs, football has been a main component of many peace, development and integration projects (Bradbury, 2013). Time and time again various studies and projects have shed light on the importance of football in the lives of young and old, and mostly male, asylum seekers in relation to their (dis) integration and social (not)belonging (Andersson, 2009; Elbe et al., 2016; Khan, 2013; Mauro, 2016; Spaaij, 2015; Woodhouse & Conricode, 2017). The boys in this group were no different. Most were enthusiastic football players who participated in self or community organized games several times a week. Football is something you do with friends and have fun. One of the best things about football is being with others. Martial arts or running are some things I’d like to do alone; it is not something you do with friends. It’s me and myself, I get to think a lot when I am doing it. Khan (2013) argued that, contrary to the civilizing missions of football for integration projects, playing football enabled a community of Afghan men in the UK the autonomy to creatively reinterpret and resist controversies surrounding their migrant status. Participation in football for the majority of the co-researchers mirrored similar notions; many of the male co-researchers self-organized weekly sessions in which they could play football so that they could recreate their social belongings and rebuild communities in exile.

Stories of forced migrants in sport

167

Figures 10.1–10.6 Art production by co-researchers Ali, Mohammad, Baset, Yasmin and Hassan depicting their stories of physical activities

Figure 10.2

While for the majority of the young Afghan boys discourses of community, fun and friendship prevailed, others underlined problematic barriers embedded in football and football culture. In truth, football, for the

168 Sepandarmaz Mashreghi et al.

Figure 10.3

Afghan co-researchers, has stayed a gendered arena, where the presence of women and some men is unwanted. As most of the boys in the group enthusiastically reaffirmed their communities through playing football, two of the co-researchers, the young woman and another young man who identified himself as an introvert, contested these inclusive notions while simultaneously offered a reinterpretation of their engagement with this sport: I think I’d say football is something we all share. I don’t play it personally though. To be honest I don’t feel comfortable. I prefer basketball or volleyball, but I love watching it, especially when my brother plays, but I like watching international games too! I am a huge fan of Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid.

Stories of forced migrants in sport

169

Figure 10.4

These two co-researchers problematized the notion of football as a unifying sport, a notion that ignores the presence of racial, gendered and class discrimination within football and yet seems to be a major component of many sports for integration initiatives (Agergaard, 2018; Carrington, 2015). In congruence with Khan’s (2013) findings, the two co-researchers found the football field loud and hypermasculine, but they both insisted that they enjoyed attending the game and watching their friends play. Their reinterpretation of participating in football as football fans not only contested the gendered field of football but also the notion of engagement with the sport itself. The two co-researchers’ alternative view of fandom as an integral aspect of their engagement with this sport, reconstructed football as a space where the gendered norms were bypassed and community and family relationships were enacted and strengthened. Furthermore, and in line with Woodhouse

170 Sepandarmaz Mashreghi et al.

Figure 10.5

and Conricode’s arguments (2017), by highlighting their connection to international football players and clubs, they also practiced reinterpreting their global connections in ways that resisted the hegemonic narratives that define them as other and outside of the society. They affirmed that they were neither cut off from the world nor on the margins but, through football, they were in the midst of it, connected not only to their family and community but also to various international clubs and their respective fans. Football for this group was a distinct activity that many participated in, whether as players, spectators or fans of international clubs. Through this participation they generated alternative meanings of communities and belonging, and challenged the gendered values implicit in sport as well as their ascribed legal category of ‘unaccompanied children’ and its othering implications, contesting the problematic notions of sport for integration in the process.

Stories of forced migrants in sport

171

Figure 10.6

Conclusion This chapter aimed to work against the consequences of the single story of the ‘unaccompanied’ Afghan youth that reduces the complex lives of these young people to a stereotypical portrayal of victimhood or trickery, which, in turn, others them, placing them outside and less than their Swedish counterparts (Adichie, 2009; Djampour, 2018). By applying decolonial praxis of PAR and ABR, the youth participating in this project took on the role of co-researchers, presenting their own stories in relation to sport and physical activity. Through this collaborative exploration, we analysed their many stories to portray their complex and multi-layered lived lives and showcase their continuous engagement with physical activity and sport in multiple and creative ways. Engaging with the co-researchers’ experiences of physical activity enabled previously muted and subjugated

172 Sepandarmaz Mashreghi et al.

knowledge of bodies, subjectivities and sociality to be highlighted, which Western-based approaches and uses of sport, in regard to forced migrants, have previously silenced. Our collaborative analyses of the co-researchers’ deeply reflective accounts revealed that they lived the praxis as they, tapping into their Khorasani heritage, observed, reflected and acted upon their realities. Thus, they transformed sport and physical activity to spaces where they could creatively reinterpret their (gendered) identities, materiality, belongings and communities, and resist the precarious implications of their status as ‘unaccompanied children’. Furthermore, by unsettling assumptions underpinning sport for integration interventions on who is civilized/integrated, together we contested the othering implicit in these initiatives. Finally, by offering different meanings to those of dominant (Eurocentric) competitive sport cultures in Sweden, we challenged the universal claims on sport and physical activity that often underline sport for integration interventions (Agergaard et al., 2016; Carrington, 2015). Grounded in their active and reflective agencies, the co-researchers affirmed themselves as present and future generations who strive to keep moving, both literally and figuratively, across and over borders, displacements, poverty and public discourse.

Note 1 According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Swedish laws, an ‘unaccompanied child’ is an individual under 18 years who at time of arrival is separated from their parents or guardian (CRC, 2005; Law(1994:137), n.d. 1 b §).

References Adichie, C. N. (2009). The Danger of a Single Story | TED Talk. Retrieved 15 October 2019, from https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_da nger_of_a_single_story Agergaard, S. (2018). Rethinking sports and integration: Developing a transnational perspective on migrants and descendants in sports. London and New York: Routledge. Agergaard, S., Michelsen la Cour, A., & Gregersen, M. T. (2016). Politicisation of migrant leisure: a public and civil intervention involving organised sports. Leisure Studies, 35(2), 200–214. https://doi.org/10.1080/02614367.2015.1009848 Andersson, T. (2009). Immigrant teams in Sweden and the case of Assyriska FF. Soccer and Society, 10(3–4), 398–417. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970902771456 Azzarito, L. (2012). Photography as a pedagogical tool for shedding light on ‘bodies-at-risk’ in physical culture. Visual Studies, 27(3), 295–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/1472586X. 2012.717746 Blodgett, A. (2015). The relocation experiences of aboriginal athletes pursuing sport in euro-canadian contexts: visual and narrative stories of acculturation. (Doctoral dissertation Laurentian University of Sudbury, Canada.) Blodgett, A. T., Coholic, D. A., Schinke, R. J., McGannon, K. R., Peltier, D., & Pheasant, C. (2013). Moving beyond words: exploring the use of an arts-based method in Aboriginal community sport research. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 5(3), 312–331. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2013.796490

Stories of forced migrants in sport

173

Bradbury, S. (2013). Institutional racism, whiteness and the under-representation of minorities in leadership positions in football in Europe. Soccer and Society, 14(3), 296–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2013.801262 Cammarota, J., & Fine, M. (2008). Youth participatory action research: a pedagogy for transformational resistance. In J. Cammarota & M. Fine (Eds.), Revolutionizing Education: Youth Participatory Action Research in Motion (pp. 1–11). London: Routledge. Carrington, B. (2015). Post/colonial theory and sport. In R. Giulianotti (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of the Sociology of Sport (pp. 105–115). Routledge. https://doi.org/10. 4324/9780203404065.ch11 Crews, R. D. (2015). Imperial cosmopolitans. In R. D. Crews (Ed.), Afghan Modern: The History of a Global Nation (ebook, pp. 11–41). Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Darnell, S. C., & Hayhurst, L. M. C. (2011). Sport for decolonization: exploring a new praxis of sport for development. Progress in Development Studies, 11(3), 183– 196. https://doi.org/10.1177/146499341001100301 Dimitriadis, G. (2010). Introduction. In J. Cammarota & M. Fine (Eds.), Revolutionizing Education: Youth Participatory Action Research in Motion (pp. vii–viii). New York: Routledge. Djampour, P. (2018). Borders crossing bodies: the stories of eight youth with experience of migrating. Malmö university, Faculty of Health and Society. https://doi. org/10.24834/2043/24776 Elbe, A. M., Hatzigeorgiadis, A., Morela, E., Ries, F., Kouli, O., & Sanchez, X. (2016). Acculturation through sport: different contexts different meanings. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 16(2), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/1612197X.2016. 1187654 European Parliament and Council of the European Union. (2016). Regulation on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (Data Protection Directive). Official Journal of the European Union, L119, 1–88. Fals-Borda, O., & Rahman, M. (1991). Action and Knowledge: Breaking the Monopoly with Participatory Action Research. New York: Apex Press. Fine, M. (2008). An epilogue, of sorts. In J. Cammarota & M. Fine (Eds.), Revolutionizing Education: Youth Participatory Action Research in Motion. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203932100 Forsyth, J., & Heine, M. (2010). Indigenous research and decolonizing methodologies. In T. V. Ryba, R. J. Schinke, G. Tenenbaum (Eds.), The Cultural Turn in Sport Psychology (pp. 181–202). Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology. Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the Oppressed (30th anniv). New York: Continuum. Fundberg, J. (2012). En etnisk tackling mot ett kompakt försvar? En kunskapsöversikt om idrott och etnicitet. [An ethnic tackle towards a compact defense? A knowledge overview about sports and ethnicity]. In C. Dartsch & J. Pihlblad (Eds.), Ur Vem platsar i laget?– en antologi om idrott och etnisk mångfald (pp. 13–64). Stockholm: SISU Idrottsböcker. Grosfoguel, R. (2013). The structure of knowledge in westernized universities – epistemic racism/sexism and the four genocides/epistemicides of the long 16th century. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, 9(1), 73–90. Grosfoguel, R. (2016). What is Racism? Journal of World-Systems Research, 22(1), 9–15. https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2016.609

174 Sepandarmaz Mashreghi et al. Jakobsson, B. T. (2015). Vilka stannar kvar och varför?: Et studie om ungas föreningsidrottande under uppväxtåren. Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan (GIH). Karlefors, I. (2016). Entrance into Swedish children’s sports. Idrottsforum.Org, 1–22. Khan, N. (2013). ‘From refugees to the world stage’: sport, civilisation and modernity in Out of the Ashes and the UK Afghan diaspora. South Asian Popular Culture, 11 (3), 271–285. https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2013.820478 Leavy, P., & Chilton, G. (2014). Arts-based research practice: merging social research and the creative arts. In P. Leavy (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 403–422). New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/ oxfordhb/9780199811755.013.003 Liebenberg, L., Jamal, A., & Ikeda, J. (2015). Analysing data with youth: A guide to conducting thematic analysis. Spaces and Places: Dalhousie University. Mashreghi, S. (2020). Decolonizing sport and exercise psychology within a European context: a critical overview. Scandinavian Sport Studies Forum, 11, 25–42. Mauro, M. (2016). Transcultural football. Trajectories of belonging among immigrant youth. Soccer and Society, 17(6), 882–897. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2015.1100899 McNiff, S. (2008). Art-based research. In \o "Search for more by this author" J. Gary Knowles & Ardra L. Cole (Eds.), Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues (pp. 29–41). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452226545.n3 Mignolo, W. D. (2009). Epistemic disobedience, independent thought and decolonial freedom. Theory, Culture & Society, 26(8), 159–181. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0263276409349275 Migragrationsverket [Migration Agency]. (2019). Asylum Statistics. https://www.migra tionsverket.se/English/About-the-Migration-Agency/Statistics/Asylum.html Mojtahed-Zadeh, P. (2004). Small Players of the Great Game: The Settlement of Iran’s Eastern Borderlands and the Creation of Afghanistan. Curzon: Routledge. Olszewska, Z. (2007). ‘A desolate voice’: poetry and identity among young Afghan refugees in Iran. Iranian Studies, 40(2), 203–224. https://doi.org/10.1080/00210860701269550 Ratna, A., & Samie, S. F. (2018). Mapping the field: research about ethnic “other” females, sport and physical culture. In R. Aarti & S. F. Samie (Eds.), Race, Gender and Sport: The Politics of Ethnic ‘Other’ girls and Women (pp. 10–32). London and New York: Routledge. RF [The Swedish Sports Confederation]. (2019). Idrott på barn och ungas villkor [Sports on Children’s and Youth’s Terms]. Retrieved 15 September 2019, from https://www.rf.se/RFarbetarmed/Barn-ochungdomsidrott/ Roets, G., Cardoen, D., Bouverne-De Bie, M., & Roose, R. (2015). We make the road by walking: challenging conceptualisations of leisure time for children in poverty. Children and Society, 29(4), 277–287. https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12056 Schinke, R. J., Blodgett, A. T., McGannon, K. R., & Ge, Y. (2016). Finding one’s footing on foreign soil: a composite vignette of elite athlete acculturation. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 25, 36–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2016.04.001 Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London and New York: Zed Books. Smith, L. T. (2005). On tricky ground: researching the native in the age of uncertainty. In N. K. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 85–107). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Stories of forced migrants in sport

175

Spaaij, R. (2009). Sport as a vehicle for social mobility and regulation of disadvantaged urban youth: lessons from Rotterdam. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 44(2–3), 247–264. https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690209338415 Spaaij, R. (2015). Refugee youth, belonging and community sport. Leisure Studies, 34 (3), 303–318. https://doi.org/10.1080/02614367.2014.893006 Spaaij, R., Broerse, J., Oxford, S., Luguetti, C., McLachlan, F., McDonald, B., … Pankowiak, A. (2019). Sport, refugees, and forced migration: a critical review of the literature. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 1, 47. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2019.00047 Stretmo, L. (2011). Strateg eller offer [Strategist or victim]. Invandrare Och Minoriteter, 38(2), 36–40. Stretmo, L. (2014). Governing the unaccompanied child – media, policy and practice. Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet CERGU. Utbildningsdepartementet. (2003). Lag (2003:460) om etikprövning av forskning som avser människor. Wernesjö, U. (2011). Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children: whose perspective? Childhood, 19(4), 495–507. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568211429625 Woodhouse, D., & Conricode, D. (2017). In-ger-land, In-ger-land, In-ger-land! Exploring the impact of soccer on the sense of belonging of those seeking asylum in the UK. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 52(8), 940–954. https://doi. org/10.1177/1012690216637630

Chapter 11

A different approach to making theatre with refugees A refuge from being a refugee Aqeel Abdulla

In this chapter, I intend to share my experiences, ideas and suggestions for a new approach to making theatre with or about refugees—in this case, especially with refugees. However, to do this properly, I have some foundation work to do as I explain two particular terminologies/fields in theatre studies: community theatre and refugee theatre. This is not only because the chapter needs to introduce its main topics in a way that makes them accessible for all readers, but also because community theatre and refugee theatre are two very broad terms that can mean very different things to different people. It is worth mentioning at this point that I am a theatre academic, a practitioner in the field of participatory community theatre and—at the time of writing this at least—a refugee in the UK. Therefore, the arguments in this chapter are a mixture of a practitioner reflecting on his professional work in the last five years, an individual sharing his raw feelings and visceral reactions to a topic that is very personal to him, and an academic interfering and commenting every now and then. On the latter, it is important to mention that while community and refugee theatre have become topics of a number of contributions in the field of migration and refugee studies (Jeffers, 2011; Bhimji, 2016; Bailey, 2020), they have been so far absent in discussions regarding leisure and forced migration. In this sense, the discussions that follow aim to highlight the points of connections between these domains of academic and social practice. One of the points of this chapter, in relation to refugee theatre, is to meaningfully dialogue with the critical approach of this book in discussing the diverse aims, methodologies and implications related to the enactment of leisure practices with, by or for refugees.

Community theatre Or should we call it participatory theatre, socially engaged theatre, or the very versatile term ‘applied theatre?’ If we try to define it, community theatre is a ‘slippery genre’, to use Baz Kershaw’s words (1992: 5). For Kershaw, community theatre emerged out of a movement of alternative theatre in Britain, particularly common in the 1970s and early 1980s, and it was ‘a subset, as it were, of a much broader group of cultural activities which were all DOI: 10.4324/9780429341045-14

Making theatre with refugees

177

expressive of new ideologies, of new interpretations of existing social and political relations’ (7). Community theatre therefore offers a counter-culture to the one being perpetuated and propagated by the dominant components of society. Antonio Gramsci coined the term ‘cultural hegemony’, which happens when the economic conditions of society influence and dominate cultural institutions: The superstructures are an objective and operative reality (or they become so, when they are not pure products of the individual mind). It explicitly asserts that men become conscious of their social position, and therefore of their tasks, on the terrain of ideologies, which is no small affirmation of reality. (Gramsci, 1988: 196) In this sense, community theatre in the UK started as a radical attempt to reshape and reformulate ideology in the face of a hegemonic super-structure. This gives an idea of community theatre as an abstract concept, in terms of both its roots and the drive behind it, but what types of theatre exactly fall under this category? There are two distinct types of theatre that people consider to be ‘community theatre’. First, there is theatre that is created by companies that are based in a specific area (village, city, neighbourhood), and addresses the concerns and aspirations of that area. Such companies involve members of the local community in their work as more than passive recipients, either by using their stories or by including them directly in the devising/performance (Kershaw, 1992). The second type of community theatre is the modern and more common type. It identifies community as a demographic, a group of people who share similar experiences in one way or another and, although it can be linked to a geographic location like the first type, it is usually not limited by this. As Nicola Shaughnessy (2017) puts it, ‘Applications of theatre involve a diversity of participatory practices in educational, social and community contexts (e.g., schools, prisons, hospitals, museums, care homes) or with particular cultural groups’ (7). I will also add certain demographics to Shaughnessy’s list of contexts where theatre can be applied; for example, the demographics I have worked with are migrants, young carers, the homeless, pensioners and refugees. The list of demographics that a practitioner can work with and consider as a ‘community’ is endless. Participatory community theatre is my field of practice and theatre-making, and I have been a huge advocate for it for many years. However, those who have been at the centre of the movement, and who have theorised it since the 1970s, have also identified several important critiques. In one such critique, Baz Kershaw (1999) warned that the same feature of community theatre that makes it an important tool for cultural activism (its capacity to make unrepresented communities visible), can play into the hands of the hegemonic superstructure that marginalise and exploit

178 Aqeel Abdulla

such communities in the first place. This sentiment was elaborated on by Mackey and Whybrow (2007), who comment on community and applied theatre work and argue that: the charge of an implicit paradigm of nostalgia has been brought: the practices concerned are supposedly intent primarily on establishing the sense of an integrated, homogenous identity within a targeted host community, and therefore guilty of imposing a form of misconceived idealism or limitation. (Mackey and Whybrow, 2007: 2) The most relevant example of this critique is probably theatre made with refugee participants. I will discuss in the following section how a certain attitude towards refugee communities and refugee participants has been perpetuated and normalised by the repetition of a single and hierarchical pattern of engaging refugees in theatre projects. As a response to such fears and warnings, a group of Community Development researchers at the Social and Global Studies Centre at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) have suggested a different understanding of ‘community’ within community theatre. Mulligan, Humphery, James, Scanlon, Smith and Welch developed, in 2006, a framework of projected community accounts for ‘neither embeddedness in particularistic relations nor adherence to a particular way of life, but rather the active establishment of a creative space in which individuals engage in an open ended process of constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing identities and ethics for living’ (Mulligan et al., 2006: 18). In other words, the word ‘community’ here stands for a group of individuals getting together to offer alternative interpretations and representations of the conditions and experiences that constitute their everyday lives. Community theatre becomes a platform where socially engaged creatives can provide their own accounts of the world around them. I embrace this articulation and understanding of ‘community’ in community theatre. This is an approach that, in my view, offers opportunities to disrupt hegemonic understandings of social life, to raise issues, pose questions and actively interrogate taken-for-granted practices. I will come back to the debates surrounding what constitutes community theatre later in the chapter in regard to community theatre with refugee participants, and through my personal experience and observation.1

Refugee theatre Refugee theatre is a term that has gained increasing attention in recent years due to the ongoing humanitarian crises in different parts of the world that have resulted in ‘an unprecedented 79.5 million people around the world … forcibly displaced’ (UNHCR, 2020).2 In the UK and Europe, politicians and mainstream media have managed to establish and perpetuate the term ‘Europe’s refugee crisis’, thus shifting the attention away from the suffering of millions of people

Making theatre with refugees

179

seeking safety to the alleged plight of the continent of Europe struggling to cope with the influx of refugees (see Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, 2016). Politicians, policymakers, media and public narratives have stopped representing asylum seeking as primarily a political and/or humanitarian phenomenon, and have shifted to narrating it as primarily an economic phenomenon (Mayblin, 2020). People seeking sanctuary and safety in Europe have become an unbearable (economic) burden, when they are not portrayed as a cultural, ideological, and even existential, threat to Europe (Vaughan-Williams and Pisani, 2020). In the face of such rhetoric, theatre makers have been increasingly creating performances around the topic of displacement and asylum in an attempt to shift the attention back to the suffering of people that had to flee their homes in fear for their lives, or in pursuit of a decent and dignified future for their children. Alison Jeffers (2011) writes that ‘the communal nature of theatre has shown possibilities for using the theatre event to gather and galvanise audiences for action’ (44). Indeed, theatre in the UK has been proactive in contributing positively to debates about displacement, especially as xenophobia and populist, migrantblaming political and public narratives have become increasingly and systematically normalised in the UK and other European countries. I will divide refugee theatre into two categories: plays about the topic of refuge, asylum and displacement, which are written, directed and performed by professional practitioners who are not refugees (except in extremely rare cases), and plays that are devised through participatory community theatre projects with refugee participants. In other words, one can say that the two categories are theatre made about refugees, and theatre made by/with refugees. Two of the most known examples in the first category are The Claim (2017), written by Tim Cowbury and directed by Mark Maughan, and The Jungle (2017), written by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, and directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin. Both plays are written, directed and performed by professional artists inspired by real stories of refugees and asylum seekers. To create The Claim, Cowbury and Maughan worked with a creative group called Write to Life, which is an initiative by Freedom of Torturer, an organisation that supports survivors of torture. The participants in Write to Life shared with Cowbury and Maughan their experiences with the Home Office when they claimed asylum. The play does not exactly depict one or some of the stories shared by the group members but is an amalgamation of what Cowbury and Maughan heard from them. Good Chance Theatre created The Jungle and started as a pop-up theatre in the refugee camps in Calais, France, to offer a platform for migrants to showcase their creative skills, learn, and be entertained while waiting for an opportunity to enter the UK. This pop-up theatre led to the creation of the company, and then the play—The Jungle—was created as an amalgamation of the stories that the creators of the play heard and saw in Calais. A large company of actors perform in the play, and two of them were actually migrants in the Calais camp themselves. Other plays that fall under this category are Lemn Sissy’s Refugee Boy (2013), adapted from Benjamin Zephaniah’s novel with the same title, and Zodwa Nyoni’s Nine Lives (2015).

180 Aqeel Abdulla

The second category of refugee theatre falls under the umbrella of applied theatre and community theatre. It is more common than the first category of refugee theatre, albeit with much less public coverage and reach. There are multiple methods of starting such projects and engaging participants. I started this type of work with Acta Community Theatre in Bristol. Acta’s community theatre method is to partner with support organisations and individuals who work with refugees, and try to recruit, through these partners, participants who will take part in weekly drama sessions. The sessions are intended to lead to a performance created and performed by the participants, with the support of professional facilitators. Acta’s drama groups take anywhere between 6–10 months from start to finish. This duration is subject to funding and to the speed and success of the outreach and engagement. To ensure sustainability, participants are always encouraged to join a new group after their group comes to an end. In fact, there are many cases where former participants, including refugees, went on to be employed by Acta for a one-year foundation course, and are now Acta associates and professional independent theatre makers.3 I am personally following this method in Yalla Arts, which I established in Exeter, Devon, in September 2019. An additional method followed by others, like Community Arts North West in Manchester (CAN Manchester), is to seek out refugee artists who live in their local area and produce work together, with the refugee artists sharing stories (mostly theirs) and performing them, while the company provides the director and production support. This is not the only way CAN work with refugees, but it has been a prominent feature of their work with them.4 Another example is Phosphoros Theatre in London, who started by working with asylum seekers and refugees who arrived in the UK as unaccompanied minors prior to the founding of the company. They went on to create a number of successful plays that toured the UK, and moved from being unpaid amateurs to a paid touring company. They have now created Phosphoros Young Company where they do drama workshops with unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in the UK. What is worth focusing on from this overview of methods of engaging refugee participants is that there are instances, namely with Acta and Phosphoros, of genuine attempts to prolong the relationship and the collaboration with the participants, and attempts to take their involvement beyond one or two occasional projects. These examples of sustained, long-term professional support offered by theatre companies are not common practice though. In most cases, refugee participants’ engagement in theatre projects ends up being a one-off, and the impact of such projects is short lived. The following sections will delve into the issues and limitations associated with refugees’ engagement in participatory theatre.

Observations and reservations Theatre with/by refugees is still a relatively under-researched branch of theatre within refugee/forced migration studies. This is despite a burgeoning

Making theatre with refugees

181

engagement by theatre practitioners on the topic, which is mostly aimed at raising awareness towards refugees’ rights. However, such engagement is most often put in practice through forms of representation that fit within the ‘archetypal refugee’ narrative described by Wilcock (2019: 146) as ‘uncomplicatedly tragic’. To put it simply, despite all the positives that participatory community theatre projects bring to their refugee participants, I am very wary of the unintended negative consequences of one undeniably prevalent characteristic of such projects, which is the persistent focus on trauma and victimhood. To be very clear here, this is not in any way a blanket criticism of depicting the trauma and victimhood of refugees, or a suggestion that it is wrong in principle. In fact, I believe that conveying the tragic experiences of those who are forcibly displaced from their homelands is extremely important when politics and mainstream media seek to depict people as economic migrants coming to Europe to claim benefits. Moreover, for many refugee participants, community theatre projects can represent platforms that they use to make themselves heard and visible. This can be extremely empowering to some refugees who are activists campaigning for the rights of refugees and asylum seekers (see Bhimiji, 2016). My concern is that when theatre focuses almost exclusively on the victimhood of refugees, it is perpetuating and confirming a one-dimensional account of all refugees that reduces them to stock characters that are helpless and in need of charity and patronage (as discussed by Malkki, 1996). In this way, it is universalist and reductionist. As a refugee, an audience member, and as a theatre practitioner and researcher, I started to notice this one-dimensional depiction of refugees and their stories in community theatre. I felt uncomfortable with it between 2015 and 2018, when the war in my country, Syria, and the worsening refugee crisis became the biggest issues of the time. I used to think that my discomfort is only caused by my sensitivities, being Syrian myself. However, in March 2018, I was part of Acta Theatre’s team that hosted an international festival for theatre made by refugees. The festival was part of a two-year project called REACT, which looked at the role of community theatre in supporting refugee engagement and interaction in host communities. During the festival, there were twelve shows and practical workshops offered by nine different theatre companies, five from the UK, two from Holland and two from Italy. One of the shows was a play by Acta called Lost Sheep, which I co-directed and performed in. It was the result of seven months of drama sessions with a group of young refugee men in Bristol, and it was a light-hearted comedy about feuding neighbours in an unidentified Sudanese village. Apart from Lost Sheep, every other performance/workshop in the festival was about the tragedies of migration journeys, of having to leave your homeland and not return, or about discrimination and the difficulty of leading a normal life as an equal in the UK. The 2018 festival was the point when I thought to myself, this is not just me, it is not my random anecdote, and it is not a coincidence; there is a problem here. The festival was, for me, a very representative sample of participatory community theatre with

182 Aqeel Abdulla

refugees in the UK and across Europe, and eleven out of twelve practical contributions in the festival used tragedy and trauma. There are two major dangers in not critiquing and nuancing the narrative of victimhood and trauma with refugees and asylum seekers. One relates to the ever-present issue of otheringwhile-caring, and the other relates to the wellbeing of the individuals sharing and performing their stories. 1 Providing a platform or hijacking the issue? As well-intentioned as it can be, by sticking to one representation of the refugee character, theatre can be reproducing a colonial/orientalist rhetoric that normalises the victimhood and passivity of the foreign ‘other’, and recreates a ‘white man’s burden’ mind-set. Allison Jeffers discusses the ‘implicit and explicit pressure to create certain narrative in relation to refugees’ (2011: 44) that never challenge the Western audiences about their countries’ involvement in the displacement of refugees, and never depicts the complexities of the backgrounds of displaced people outside one-dimensional accounts of victimhood. Jeffers gives examples of funding bodies making it clear that they want specific narratives about ‘the right kind of refugee story’ (2011: 46) in the projects they are funding. She goes on to highlight that some funding bodies make it clear that not playing the game according to their rules will have consequences on future sponsorship. However, these implicit pressures can be much subtler, and I return to Lost Sheep and the REACT festival to clarify this point. The reason why Lost Sheep stood out as an uplifting comedy in the context of a refugee theatre festival was that it did not cover the topic of displacement. At Acta we made a decision not to create a refugee drama group for the REACT project but to create an open drama group that anyone could join, while at the same time concentrating our outreach and engagement work on organisations that support refugees. The reasoning that informed this decision was simple; we wanted to engage refugees in the project, but we did not want them to feel any pressure to talk about their journeys, tragedies or suffering as an unannounced condition to join the group (on this, see also Haile, 2020). The drama group was almost entirely made up of people with refugee background, but because we did not make ‘being a refugee’ a condition to join, and we did not ask the participants to talk about their experiences as refugees, they did not mention it in the seven months that the group lasted. They simply wanted to talk about human relations, being good or bad neighbours, being jealous, friendly, and so on. They wanted to give an insight into life in a Sudanese village, as the majority of the actors were from Sudan. In many conversations, public and private, during the REACT festival, I shared the process with the delegates and encouraged them to create groups that are not refugee-exclusive, and to plan their process in a way that takes away the pressure to talk about displacement and asylum. Most people responded by saying they worry that if they do this, some funders that specifically fund projects with refugees will no

Making theatre with refugees

183

longer sponsor them. In other responses, well-intentioned theatre professionals seemed to justify further their decision to adhere to victimising, one-dimensional portrayals of refugeehood with the importance of challenging widespread portrayals of asylums seekers as ‘scroungers’ and ‘terrorists’ in political and public narratives. However, it was not clear to me to what extent these representational choices took into account the various ways in which people seeking asylum may choose to engage with the ‘refugee’ label, and the kind of stories that might matter to them the most (see Haile, 2020). Commenting on a theatrical exercise to which she participated during a research project, Semhar Haile (2020) observed how: In spaces where there is a conversation about refugeehood, there is the assumption that refugees want to be seen or want sympathy from spectators. There is an expectation of telling and retelling the stories of their journeys or their difficulty in integrating in host states. Sometimes, it almost appears as if the storytelling process is a necessary element in order to be seen as a legitimate refugee. This replicates the institutional storytelling that is required for the bureaucratic process, to establish the legitimacy of the refugee’s story. (Haile, 2020: 39) Elaborating further on this observation, Haile (2020) discusses how, in her own experience and in her community, she often observed the desire to almost hide the refugee identity in public spaces, mostly to avoid being seen through the monolithic lens of the refugee label (32–33). Narratives of refugeehood were discussed among people with refugee backgrounds, she continues, but seldom on their own; rather, they were often told as part of wider textures of mundane conversations, memories and observations regarding migration, diaspora, childhood and home. Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie (2009) discusses the danger of stereotypical portrayals of people in her famous TED talk entitled ‘The Danger of a Single Story’. She talks about her American roommate at university, and through her critiques the misconceptions about Africa and Africans in the West in general: What struck me was this; she had felt sorry for me even before she saw me. Her default position toward me as an African was a kind of patronising well-meaning pity. My roommate had a single story of Africa, a single story of catastrophe. In this single story there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way; no possibility of feelings more complex than pity; no possibility of a connection as human equals. Mirroring this sentiment, in a feedback form to Lost Sheep, a member of the audience commented:

184 Aqeel Abdulla

thank you for lifting that veil that I had in front of my eyes. I have many Sudanese and Somali neighbours that I like and respect, but I have always failed to think about them as anything other than victims, and now this show reminded me to think about them as fellow men. (April 2018) These considerations do not aim to deny the relevance of providing public accounts about the plight of people seeking asylum. Representing the (hi)stories of violence, harm and suffering that characterise the journeys to sanctuary and lives in Europe can constitute a way to remind us of the roles and responsibilities that national governments have in triggering and maintaining overt/lowintensity conflicts, while also denying safe passages for those seeking sanctuary. Some refugees may want to engage in forms of testimony with the support of theatre-practitioners as part of their activism, to give a purpose to what they have endured and to challenge the ‘cultural anaesthesia’ (Feldman, 1994) that normalises protracted states of political violence as something that is ‘natural’ in other parts of the world. Yet, I invite practitioners and theatre companies to avoid assuming that this is the default way to address the topic of forced migration; that all refugees may want to do so if interested/involved in theatre. Instead, I invite practitioners to approach yet-to-be-explored ways of representing migration and asylum that can offer stories about the individual behind the headline, about the complexities and richness of culture, about the intersecting forms of displacement that cut-across the ‘host’ society and go beyond exile from the homeland. The first consideration that follows this discussion is that, apart from relevant exceptions,5 participatory refugee theatre seems to be uncritically accepting of the apparent necessity to stick to a single story (Adichie, 2009) in representing forced migration. Instead of constantly feeding the same one-dimensional narrative of victimhood, which leads to sympathy and pity (or funding) at best, but not to empathy and self-reflection, much can be done to use theatre as a space for refugees, and other members of local communities, to get together and offer alternative representations of their personal trajectories and everyday lives. 2 The participants’ wellbeing; are we caring enough? I mentioned earlier that theatre with refugees is relatively under-researched in refugee and forced migration studies. Specifically, what is absent is a thorough discussion about what happens with the refugee participants after theatre projects that engage them come to an end. Is there any further social support for refugees? Do they have any benefits from these theatre projects other than the possibility of some form of catharsis and the release of some pressure and frustration? Most importantly, is careful consideration given to the sensitivity and the huge mental and emotional burden of sharing and/or representing one’s own stories of suffering and tragedy in a theatre project?

Making theatre with refugees

185

The fact that a facilitator can trigger unexpected emotional and psychological responses when provoking sensitive personal stories should be cause for careful consideration. Such triggers can be immediate during the session, on performance day, shortly after the end of the project, or long after that. Personally, and for entirely selfish reasons, I try my best to avoid poking and potentially awakening hidden horrors in a participant’s memory when I am not quite sure how they will surface and manifest for these participants. I’m unsure of how to deal with this properly when I am with these participants for only an hour or two a week for a few months. As discussed by Haile (2020), we cannot deny the possibility that, even if not directly asked or pressured to share tragic stories of displacement and difficult journeys, some participants may be put in situations that subtly lead them to feel they are expected to eventually do so. Once again, I will use examples from the time I worked at Acta Theatre, particularly during the REACT festival 2018. At Acta, I co-led two drama groups that met weekly, both of which were advertised as open groups that anyone could join, but because we specifically concentrated our outreach and engagement work on organisations that supported refugees, both groups consisted mostly, although not entirely, of refugee participants. We had 40 participants between the two groups, some came for a couple of weeks and some from the beginning until the end. The first group lasted seven months while the second lasted for nine months. My co-facilitator and I never brought up the subject of asylum, and we were amazed that throughout both projects none of the 40 participants showed the desire to bring it up. The first group went on to create Lost Sheep, which I mentioned earlier, and the second group created a beautiful, feminist play called Woman Next Door, about the solidarity and togetherness between neighbours struggling with difficult challenges in motherhood. I know this is very anecdotal, but it invites the following question: would refugees and asylum seekers choose to talk about displacement and asylum as much as they currently do in participatory community theatre projects if they were not made to believe, albeit very subtly, that they were included in these projects specifically to tell these stories? My concerns here echo those expressed by Julie Salverson (2001) and Clark Baim (2017) in their reflections on applied theatre with ‘vulnerable’ groups of people in general, not specifically refugees. Salverson (2001) calls on educators and facilitators to bring more ‘deliberate attention’ to the context within which the performances that include participants who are deemed vulnerable, for one reason or another, are both created and shared with the public. Baim critiques the ‘romanticised idea that staging vulnerability and pain is in itself a worthwhile or even noble goal’ (2017: 87). He supports Salverson’s call for ‘deliberate attention’ for a number of reasons, most importantly because ‘facilitators have a duty of care to work with an awareness’ about participants who might have ‘unresolved issues [that] are often at or near the surface, still very raw. Indeed, in many cases the trauma, abuse, or struggle might be ongoing even as the theatre work proceeds’ (88). The ethical dimensions of practices and representational choices in applied/community theatre represent under-addressed themes of

186 Aqeel Abdulla

critical discussion on the topic, which noble, but un-reflexive and self-absolving intentions did not, so far, help to recognise and address. The field of participatory refugee theatre needs an in-depth engagement with long-established debates on the ethics of work with displaced people that goes beyond institutional requirements to ‘do no harm’ (Mckenzie et al., 2007). Furthermore, and following recent arguments that critically interrogated migration researchers, the field of applied/refugee theatre needs to address how participatory approaches do not present equal processes for all parties involved (Ozkul, 2020), an issue that emerges clearly in the representational choices of most refugee theatre work. Focusing on the very specific case of refugee participants, I can add another layer to this call for ‘deliberate attention’ (Salverson, 2001) by practitioners on the ethics and politics of representation in applied theatre with people seeking asylum. This ‘deliberate attention’ has to do with the facilitator’s awareness that, despite all the best intentions, refugee theatre can become complicit in asserting the ‘othering’ of refugees and perpetuating problematic, if not harmful, power dynamics with the people that this means of expression intend to ‘empower’.

A suggested new approach At this juncture, I will draw your attention back to the point where I stopped my analysis of community theatre and the critique it has had over the decades. The main point there was whether it is safe and helpful to identify what community is, its characteristics, and how it should be and what it should look like; or whether it is counter-productive and brings with it the danger of conformity and perpetuating hegemonic discourses. The same applies to theatre about and by, but most importantly with, refugees. Instead of persistently pursuing the image we create in our heads about refugees as one-dimensional, helpless and oppressed characters, we could think of the ‘community’ of refugees in theatre projects as part of a community of individuals using the medium of theatre to offer alternatives to existing discourses and agendas. Or, as a community of participants with very different backgrounds and cultures who can add richness to culture through the contexts in which they live. Instead of asking about displacement and asylum we can ask about dance, music, food, tradition in funerals and weddings, and how we celebrate holidays and the birth of a baby. I am relatively new in the field of community theatre, with only a few years of practical experience, so I neither have, nor wish to claim that I have guidelines or a code of good practice to share here. But I do have suggestions of practices to explore that I would like to share, with the idea that some of these reflections may be relevant for those conducting research, work and advocacy with refugees in the domains of theatre and beyond. I am still learning as I go along and, so far, I keep repeating the following four key reminders when I work with any group of participants, especially refugees. Firstly, whether it is a theatre project or any other leisure expressive domains, it is important to create groups that are not refugee-exclusive but mixed between refugees and local residents, and to

Making theatre with refugees

187

keep the theme of work open and not automatically about refugee issues. Unless, of course, having refugee-exclusive groups is essential due to any logistic or bureaucratic reasons, or focusing on refugee issues is initiated by the refugee participants. When I wish to engage refugee participants in my projects, I concentrate most of my outreach activity on organisations and venues that are used by refugees, but I never advertise the group as a refugee group, and never make it exclusive to refugees. Secondly, and relating to similar discussion on ethics in research with refugees, building trust and a relationship with the participants is imperative before even thinking about asking the participants to share their personal experiences (regardless of whether they involve sensitive subjects or not). Never assume trust and connection are already there between you and your participants just because you mean well. When it comes to sharing/shaping stories, participants need to feel that you are working at their pace, not yours. Thirdly, when talking about processes of co-creation, facilitators need to be aware of directly or indirectly imposing the direction of the creative process. Facilitators in all sorts of expressive and leisure endeavours will be surprised by the richness, authenticity and creativity that the participants will show if they are given the space to develop their own ideas, or their own interpretations and reactions to prompts and plans. Fourth, have as much fun as possible together. Acta’s founder, Neil Beddow, has often said that: ‘if in a session you haven’t had laughter, then something’s gone wrong!’ This sounds a very simple statement but, in fact, it summarizes a key professional and ethical stance. Sharing laughter with participants goes beyond ‘breaking the ice’. It involves the possibility of relationships that challenge subtle but powerful differentiations between ‘providers’ and ‘users’, and builds contexts of sociality that can displace apparently inescapable subject positions such as ‘refugee’, ‘service user’ and, ultimately, ‘guest’ in host societies (see De Martini Ugolotti, 2020). The sociality of laughter means that participants are no longer intimidated by the concept of ‘creating theatre’, or aiming to figure out what ‘performance’ the interlocutor (or audience) may want from them, but are opening up and appropriating the theatre environment to the domains of ‘play, instinct and spontaneity’ (Bailey, 2020: 211).

Conclusions Overall, this chapter aims to provide some considerations that can offer useful insights across the domains of refugee theatre, leisure and forced migration studies. The first of these considerations is that participatory refugee theatre needs to critically engage with the voices and (hi)stories that remain obscured by well-intentioned but one-dimensional accounts of trauma and victimhood, which at present constitute the majority of refugee theatre creations. On this, refugee theatre practitioners might take into account the various ways in which people seeking asylum may choose to engage with the ‘refugee’ label, and the

188 Aqeel Abdulla

stories that might matter the most to them (see Haile, 2020). Relatedly, refugee theatre practitioners might want to come to terms with the ‘romanticised idea that staging vulnerability and pain is in itself a worthwhile or even noble goal’ (Baim, 2017: 87) in advocating for refugees’ rights and safety. Academic debates have highlighted how the persistent re-telling of refugee tales of trauma and victimhood portray a very narrow picture of rightful presence, which do not unsettle the binaries of deservingness set out in increasingly hostile policies of migration management, but uphold them (Bagelman, 2013). Moreover, the ethical representational and power dimensions of working through narratives of suffering, violence and trauma with refugees have been, so far, problematically under-researched and discussed. Following these considerations, I have proposed four reminders that I deem fundamental when I work with any group of participants, and especially refugees. The issues and considerations discussed in this chapter are not only relevant for the specific domain of applied or participatory theatre with refugees, but represent important topics of enquiry and praxis across theatre, leisure and forced migration studies. This chapter seeks to constitute an initial point of dialogue for scholarship that aims to critically address the assumptions, aims, ethical implications and methodologies related to the enactment of expressive and leisure practices with, by or for refugees.

Notes 1 This overview of the critiques of community theatre is informed by ongoing conversation and collaboration with Professor Kerrie Schaefer, which will feature in her forthcoming book, Enacting Community, to published by Routledge in 2021, and our co-authored article Artist Development: Class, Diversity and Exclusion, published by Studies in Theatre and Performance in November 2020 (Schaefer et al., 2020). 2 https://www.unhcr.org/uk/figures-at-a-glance.html 3 https://www.acta-bristol.com/take-part/adults/who-we-are/ 4 For more info, check CAN Manchester’s flagship project, Exodus, running from 2004: http://can.uk.com/current-artistic-programme/exodus/ 5 See the work of PsycheDelight Theatre, for example: https://www.psychedelight.org/

References Adichie, C. (2009). The danger of a single story. TED Talks. https://www.ted.com/ta lks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en. Accessed on 05/02/2020. Bagelman, J. (2013). Sanctuary: a politics of ease?, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 38(1), 49–62. Bailey, T. (2020). ‘The empty space: performing migration at the Good Chance Theatre in Calais’. In Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E., (ed.) Refuge in a Moving World. London: UCL Press, pp. 210–228. Baim, C. (2017) ‘The drama spiral: a decision-making model for safe, ethical, and flexible practice when incorporating personal stories in applied theatre and

Making theatre with refugees

189

performance’. In O’Grady, A., Risk, Participation, and Performance Practice: Critical Vulnerabilities in a Precarious World. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 79–109. Bhimji, F. (2016) Collaborations and performative agency in refugee theatre in Germany, Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 14(1), 83–103. De Martini Ugolotti, N. (2020) Music-making and forced migrants’ affective practices of diasporic belonging, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, https://doi.org/10. 1080/1369183X.2020.1790344 Feldman, A. (1994) On cultural anesthesia: from Rodney King to Desert Storm, American Ethnologist, 21(2): 404–418. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2016) Representations of displacement from the Middle East and North Africa, Public Culture, 28(3), 457–473. Gramsci, A. (1988) A Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings, 1916–1935 (ed David Forgacs). London: Lawrence and Wishart. Haile, S., (2020) ‘Voices to be heard? Reflections on refugees, strategic invisibility and the politics of voice’. In Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E., (ed.) Refuge in a Moving World. London: UCL Press, pp. 32–40. Jeffers, A. (2011) Refugees, Theatre and Crisis: Performing Global Identities. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kershaw, B. (1992) The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention. London: Routledge. Kershaw, B. (1999) The Radical in Performance: Between Brecht and Baudrillard. London: Routledge. Mackenzie, C., McDowell, C., and Pittaway, E. (2007) Beyond ‘do no harm’: the challenge of constructing ethical relationships in refugee research, Journal of Refugee Studies, 20(2), 299–318. Mackey, S and Whybrow, N. (2007) Taking place: some reflections on site, performance and community, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 12(1): 1–14. Malkki, L. (1996) Speechless emissaries: refugees, humanitarianism, and dehistoricization, Cultural Anthropology, 11(3), 377–404. Mayblin, L. (2020) Impoverishment and Asylum: Social Policy and Slow Violence. London: Routledge. Mulligan, M., Humphery, K., James, P., Scanlon, C., Welch, N. and Smith, P. (2006) Creating Community: Celebrations, Arts and Wellbeing Within and Across Local Communities. Melbourne: Globalism Institute, RMIT. Ozkul, D. (2020) Participatory research: still a one-sided research agenda?, Migration Letters, 17(2), 229–237. Salverson, J. (2001) Change on whose terms? Testimony and an erotics of inquiry, Theater, 31(3), 119–125. Schaefer, K., Abdulla, A., Beddow, N., Cook, J., Elhindi, H., Jones, I., Harvey, T., Hopkins, K., Pordes, R., Snook, S. and Tomlin, H. (2020) Acta community theatre’s ‘cycle of engagement’ and foundation worker programme: creating pathways into cultural participation and work. Studies in Theatre and Performance, 40(3), 334–345. Shaughnessy, N. (2017) Affective Performance and cognitive science: body, brain and being. Forum for Modern Language Studies, 53(1), 112. UNHCR (2020). Figures at a Glance. Available at: https://www.unhcr.org/uk/figures-a t-a-glance.html (accessed on 11/03/2021).

190 Aqeel Abdulla Vaughan-Williams, N. and Pisani, M. (2020) Migrating borders, bordering lives: everyday geographies of ontological security and insecurity in Malta, Social & Cultural Geography, 21(5), 651–673. Wilcock, C. A. (2019) Hostile immigration policy and the limits of sanctuary as resistance: counter-conduct as constructive critique, Social Inclusion, 7(4), 141–151.

Chapter 12

A Shia Ismaili Muslim’s ringette experiences on and off the ice An autoethnography Shemine A. Gulamhusein

Introduction This chapter explores the author’s experiences of recreation, leisure, and sport as a child of immigrants in Canada. As such, it provides an entry point to engage the complexities and the relevance of leisure perspectives in relation to the domain of (forced) migration. The chapter begins with a brief description of Canadian immigration policies and practices and the importance of leisure for immigrants, and then focuses on the sporting experience of a female Muslim, and child of immigrants in Canada, who desires to play ice hockey, ends up playing ringette, and learns to navigate playing a sport as a person of colour. The narrative draws attention to how recreation, leisure, and sporting activities offer spaces for immigrants to challenge gender identities, race expectations, and learn to navigate (post)colonial societies and structures. The hope is that the chapter leaves readers impressed by children and adolescents’ ability to consciously and subconsciously navigate and negotiate the tensions of forced migration to a new home and the challenges of participating in new forms of leisure.

Canadian migration history Canada has a complex history with Indigenous peoples and immigrants. During the arrival of the first Europeans, “newcomers valued Indigenous people as military allies and business partners” (Episkenew, 2009, p.21). In 1867, with the establishment of the Dominion of Canada, colonial officials – the settler government – deemed that their once allies, Aboriginals, were now standing in the way of their progress. The settler government restricted the immigration of people who were ill, disabled, or poor. Chinese migrants endured a fee to enter Canada – known as the head tax – until 1923, and were further discriminated against until the 1940s (Dirks, 2020). The settler government recognized the vital contribution immigrants offered that allowed for the successful growth of the state (Dirks, 2020). The belief that immigrants are vital to Canada’s success still underpins much of Canadian migration policies (Dirks, 2020). Yet, discrimination of certain populations has continued throughout the years, DOI: 10.4324/9780429341045-15

192 Shemine A. Gulamhusein

particularly in regard to specific non-White groups and nationalities (Nayar, 2012, see also Szto, 2018). In 1962, racial discrimination was said to have ended with the Immigration Act of 1952. A point system was introduced in 1967 to rank the eligibility of immigrants looking to enter Canada based on work skills, education levels, language, and family connection versus race, colour, and nationality (Dirks, 2020). This system still exists today. Canada signed the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1969. This was nearly 18 years after its initial adoption by the United Nations. Over the years, however, Canada’s immigration policy has been adapted and transformed to open its doors to more people from diverse backgrounds, as indicated with the continuous adaptations to immigration policies (Dirks, 2020). With immigration policies continuously changing and impacted by events, such as the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks, Canada’s intake of immigrants and refugees has increased significantly. As of 2016, 21.9% of Canada’s population was made up of immigrants and refugees (Statistics Canada, 2020). It is noted that the annual number of immigrants who arrive in Canada has averaged 235,000 since the early 1990s. In addition, in 2016, in Toronto Ontario, one of Canada’s largest metropolitan centres, approximately 76% of youth between the ages of 15 and 34 years reported having at least one parent who is an immigrant (Bibby, Thiessen & Bailey, 2019). While Canada’s immigration and refugee acts have led to an influx of immigrants over a period of time, Aboriginal peoples still fight for their rights of lands occupied by settlers from Western European countries (Mensah & Williams, 2017) and, later on, immigrants. The detailed exploration of these issues is beyond the remit of this chapter. However, it is important to mention them as a starting point to acknowledge how racialized hierarchies, settler colonialism, and more recent discourses on terrorism, migration, and diversity have shaped, in different ways, the experiences, practices, and access to leisure of (forced) migrant and aboriginal youth.

Leisure as a child of immigrants Karlis (2018) claims that “All individuals, young and old, immigrants and descendants of immigrants, desire the experience of recreation” (p.201). In relation to that, Szto (2018) opens her doctoral dissertation with: “The first thing I wanted to be as a child was a National Hockey League (NHL) goaltender. It never occurred to me that none of the NHL players looked like me, either in ‘race’ or ‘gender’” (p.1, quotations in original). Szto (2018) continues to speak about how her only known identity as a Canadian may have led her to ice hockey, the sport of Canadians. It is known that the desire to belong and identify with peer groups and a felt sense of community connectedness can be achieved through sports and recreation (Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI), 2005; Shields, Drolet & Valenzuela, 2016). When given the choice and opportunity to participate in leisure, sport, and recreation,

A Shia Ismaili Muslim’s ringette experiences

193

Karlis (2018) notes that migrant youth tend to engage in leisure, sport, and recreation in their cultural community and the greater community simultaneously, versus one or the other. In fact, the involvement of ethno-racial groups in Canadian sporting communities has been happening since the nineteenth century (Mensah & Williams, 2017). However, it is known that Black Canadian’s have faced the most systemic and systematic discrimination, and yet have become one of the most successful ethno-racial groups in Canadian sports communities (Mensah & Williams, 2017). While the participation in both cultural community and greater community sporting activities has been noted as a strength for migrant youth, especially in the establishment of a sense of belonging and connection to peers and community, the ability to engage in community leisure starts with overcoming the many assumed barriers and limitations immigrants and refugees face in regard to leisure participation. One of the major challenges is the normalized beliefs and assumptions that migrants and refugees’ priorities clash with leisure participation. For example, in early 2020 I remember reading a news story from the United States about a young female athlete who was disqualified from a track event because she was wearing a hijab. The clash was not between her priorities and sport but sport and Islamophobic beliefs. Other assumed clashes include limited finances; access to affordable activities; resources, such as internet and credit cards, to register for high demand activities online; conflicts of timings for activities and reliance on public transportation; and the prioritization of academics in order to succeed in a foreign context (Karlis, 2018). While these factors do, in some situations, prevent immigrants, refugees, and children of immigrants from participating in leisure activities that may yield to participation in the greater society, there are barriers that are being mitigated through various organizations, such as intercultural agencies and cultural brokers. For example, there are cultural broker agencies who have developed youth programmes for newcomers to Canada to help them learn how to adapt to winter weather, gain access to winter leisure and sporting activities, and to acquire the necessary resources to actively participate in new leisure, recreation, and sports (Multicultural Health Brokers Co-op, n.d.). Furthermore, Blahna and Black (1993), Sharaievska, Stodolska, Shinew, and Kim (2010), and Stodolska (2015) acknowledge that recreational and leisure settings can be spaces of interethnic and interracial conflict and discrimination. Race, and whiteness, are additional factors that implicate a young immigrant’s ability to belong and act as a factor that determines a person’s worthiness of being a full citizen (James, 2010; Szto, 2018). In a report on racial profiling in Ontario, Canada, the National Council of Canadian Muslims is quoted on the impact of racial profiling that leads to “a life time of tarnished reputations, loss of dignity, and a collective distruct in law enforcement agencies” (Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2017, p.60). It is the shared lived experiences – the stories that bring light to the impact of being marginalized and racialized – that help create policies and accessibility to leisure pursuits for immigrants and

194 Shemine A. Gulamhusein

refugees (Nicholson & Hove, 2008; Nichols, Tacon & Muir, 2013; Singer, Weems & Garner, 2017; Spracklen, Long & Hylton, 2015). De Martini Ugolotti (2015, 2020), Lewis (2010, 2015), and Ratna and Samie (2018) have pushed the discourse of leisure studies to explore how refugees, migrants, and children of immigrants experience recreation. De Martini Ugolotti’s (2015) work on hybrid identities, and Boland’s (2020) concepts of hyphenated identity or plural identity, sits at the intersection of identity characteristics including religion, culture, ethnicity, language use, and so forth. While reading about hybrid identity, I am reminded of the community elders I know from within the Sudanese and Somalian communities who have collected soccer balls and basketballs, gone door-to-door and gathered groups of youth, and started a sporting activity at a local park. During these activities, moments of wisdom are shared, and youth create space to disclose challenging experiences and bond in a process of healing. Similarly, during preliminary interviews conducted for a study I am currently undertaking, a young woman shared how she transitioned from a secular school volleyball team to a Korean-Canadian league. During her anecdotal account, she noted feeling a greater sense of belonging and increased ability to learn about her culture and language. In addition, she mentioned how building relations with community members while playing volleyball has given her the opportunity to process the intergenerational trauma her family faced as they migrated to Canada in search of political safety. The narrative shared by this young woman, a child of immigrants, highlights the potential power of leisure, sport, and recreation. This chapter continues with the spirit of showcasing the potential benefits and complexities of leisure, sport, and recreation for refugees, immigrants, and children of immigrants.

Methodology Grounded in autoethnography (Ellis, Adams & Bochner, 2011), this chapter shares a narrative of a young, second-generation, Canadian Muslim who, similarly to Szto (2018), desired to play ice hockey (Gulamhusein, 2018). According to Szto (2018), race and ethnicity have always been complex points of intersection with sports such as ice hockey. Therefore, the narratives of black, Aboriginal, and other non-White experiences of playing ice hockey need to be shared (Abdel-Shehid, 2000). Crenshaw’s (1989) and bell hooks’ (1995) intersection frameworks are utilized in order to provide a critique of the experience of playing a sport in Canada as a child of immigrants. Through an intersectional lens, the experiences analyzed “can be widely applied to the study of social groups, relations, and contexts” (Dhamoon, 2011, p.230). In an attempt to use my experience of playing ringette as a child of immigrants, a reflective approach helps attend to tensions of oppression and privilege a person experiences based on race, ethnicity, class, gender, religion, and so forth. However, I take caution in not replicating narratives that “essentialize, homogenise, and/or discursively”

A Shia Ismaili Muslim’s ringette experiences

195

represent the sporting experiences of all Muslim females (Samie, 2017, p.40). I offer a critical insight into my own experience for the purpose of this chapter. The intent is that the shared experience offers others an opportunity to relate to and learn from. It is not to act as the singular narrative of all Shia Ismaili Muslim females or second-generation female Canadian immigrants who have, and will, play a sport in the Canadian context.

A Shia Ismaili Muslim’s sporting experience Growing up in Calgary, Alberta, the Calgary Flames flaming “C” logo decorated the city’s downtown light posts, classmates’ t-shirts and sweaters, and hung from the rear-view mirrors of vehicles. In my family, it was customary that on New Year’s Eve the older cousins would pick up the younger cousins early in the evening, we would travel to the nearest train station, pile into an overcrowded train car with people wearing their red Calgary Flames attire, and travel to the Calgary Saddledome (now known as the Scotiabank Saddledome) to watch the Calgary Flames from the upper most and furthest seats – the nosebleeds – of the stands. In addition to New Year’s Eve, every Saturday, as my immediate family gathered around the television, we would witness the excitement of the National Hockey League (NHL), the thousands of fans that filled stadiums to watch the game live, and hear from the announcers and intermission hosts. It never occurred to me that I looked different to the players on the ice, the coaches on the benches, the fans in the stands, or that there was never a female or person of colour who interviewed players and commentated on the game. More so, while I did not realize that my skin tone differed from my peers at a predominantly white elementary school, I was aware that I differed in the sense that many of my peers were engaged in community sporting clubs, such as hockey, soccer, baseball, and American football, which I was not. Not until 1998, at the age of 11 years old, did I voice my desire to play ice hockey, the sport I watched weekly with great excitement. I was fascinated by the player’s abilities to skate at high speeds while maintaining control over a small black rubber puck. This was also the year that I confided in a friend that I wanted to play ice hockey. Her response, “why not ringette?”, confused me as I had never heard of such a sport nor did I understand how it was connected to ice hockey. My friend shared how ringette is a Canadian ice sport played by females (in more recent years males have joined as well). In ringette, women take to the ice in a similar fashion as male hockey players who portray Canada’s nation-state (Denis, 1997; Krebs, 2012; Szto, 2018). Instead of a hockey stick with a curved blade to grip the hockey puck, ringette players hold a tapered stick that is strategically placed in the middle of a blue rubber ring. The act of “catching” or “stabbing” the ring perhaps is the most challenging part of learning the sport. Ringette players are required to pass the ring across three lines – two blue and one red – on the ice. This rule reinforces beliefs of teamwork and a sense of belonging for each player. Once a team successfully

196 Shemine A. Gulamhusein

crosses the three lines, three of the five players on the ice (not including the goaltender) enter into a shooting zone with the aim of scoring on the opposing team. These are the descriptions my friend shared with me, and I felt lost and wondered why the game was so complex. Yet, I was intrigued and convinced that I too wanted to play ringette, a sport designed for “girls”. Following the conversation with my friend, I repeatedly asked my parents if I could play. Researching the cost of the sport, how and when to register for the upcoming season, and learning that there was a pre-season camp that helped new players understand the game, demonstrated to my parents how keen I was to play – to belong to this community. After weeks of persistence and promises that I would work harder at school, learn to read and write in English, and learn to recite my prayers in Arabic, my parents agreed to register me for the 1999–2000 ringette season. I vividly recall my first year playing ringette. As I joined my team I felt like I belonged to a community beyond the Shia Ismaili Muslim community I have been raised in since birth. For the first time I felt as though I had a group of friends who I connected with and in which we understood one another. Yet, there were moments of tension when I would be pulled out of team events, practices, or games to attend Jamat Khana, a place of gathering and prayer for Shia Ismaili Muslims. Additionally, as the only goaltender on the team, I often trained separately from my teammates. The connection to my teammates, however, never wavered. We were a group of young girls that lacked cognisant understandings of “identity”, racism, sexism, Islamophobia, and who shared the goal of wanting to win. A few years later, just before my sixteenth birthday, I was asked to play for a team of 18- to 20-year-olds, a team that did not have a goaltender. The women on this team often avoided talking to me on and off the ice, planned team gatherings at the bar, and our special events on days they knew I was not able to attend due to religious commitments. The reason my experience of playing ringette between 1999 and 2008 (12– 21 years of age) is important to analyze is because it is not unique to me alone. A few young women I have talked with over the years have expressed similar experiences. Thus, it is important to gain a deeper understanding of how newcomers negotiate and navigate the in-between social spaces of being Muslim, Canadian, female, and a leisure and sports enthusiast.

Critical insight into lived experience(s) Playing ringette as a brown-bodied Muslim female living in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, was complex, at times uncomfortable, and it was often when I embodied the person I desired to be. During my years of playing with the women aged 18–21 years, getting dropped off at the arena brought on anxious feelings and I would become quiet, walk with my head lowered, and, as I arrived at the dressing room door, would slowly, in a timid manner, open the door, glance around the room, spot the emptiest space, walk over without looking at my teammates, and prepare myself to strip down in order to layer on my

A Shia Ismaili Muslim’s ringette experiences

197

equipment. Yet, as I stepped onto the ice, always with my right foot first, my tingling body indicated that my nervousness, my discomfort, and my uncertainty of belonging had instantly subsided. Being on the ice, standing between the two red poles that would make up the goaltenders’ net, and protected by the semi-circle that surrounded the goalies’ space, was where I began to make sense of my world. It was in my protected space that I became witness to my body’s ability to physically respond to the ringette rings that were being shot in my direction. On reflection, protecting the score by minimizing the number of rings that passed by me was a form of symbolic learning to protect myself from the racialized, marginalized, and minoritized acts being done to my young brown body while I tried to belong in the greater Canadian context.

Navigating race, culture and gender The social construction of racial identities, which includes feelings of being less than and being “other” because I am not white (Dagkas & Hunter, 2015), was one felt throughout the years I spent in dressing rooms and on the ice. Once on the ice, players and spectators could see only the skin colour of my face through a wired mask, enough skin to identify me as “other” than the dominant white girls and young women that filled my team and opponent teams. My socially constructed identity markers, such as gender, class, race, and ethnicity (Dagkas & Hunter, 2015) were used by my teammates to position themselves in comparison to me. Markula and Pringle (2006), via Foucault’s work, acknowledge that “power is always present within human relations” (p.98) and that power is located within the body. Thus, by using sport “as a platform where resistance is forged against dominant racial ideologies” (Hawkins, Carter-Francique & Cooper, 2017, p.4), and through the positions my teammates and I took up, we enacted through our bodies the power and racial dynamics in the context. The multiple subjectivities (Collins & Bilge, 2016) that each of my teammates and I chose to act upon created tensions as our identities, beliefs, goals, and understandings of who has the right to play Canadian ice sports intersected. Hawkins, Carter-Francique, and Cooper (2017) explain the importance of “examin[ing] the crucial role race occupies in sporting practice and how sport has been and continues to be a platform that reflect[s] and reinforce[s] ideas about race” (pp.3–4). In fact, it was not until 2008 that I, and many other nonwhite ice hockey enthusiasts, became witness to a person of colour openly displaying their Sikh-Canadian cultural and religious identity within the NHL landscape through Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi (Szto, 2018). I do not recall when I first realized other girls and young women shared experiences I was having, such as the desire to dress in sweat pants, t-shirts, and jumpers instead of a dress, the sports I desired to play, and the ways in which I acted. However, it is clear that at a young age I challenged the “dominant cultural presumptions about sex and gender: namely, that there is an expected ‘congruent’ relationship between one’s sexed body and their gender identity and expression” (Rahilly,

198 Shemine A. Gulamhusein

2015, p.341). I subconsciously learned, at a young age, to navigate and negotiate the in-between of being female and male. I did this by stepping beyond expected gender norms and gender binaries that my family found comfort in, such as women cooking and cleaning while men performed manual labour, such as snow shovelling, lawn mowing, and house repairs. The assumed ways in which South Asian, and other girls and women of colour, once were perceived within cultural communities, religious communities, and families, is critically analysed by scholars such as Ratna and Samie (2017). For example, ideas of gender-specific roles that privileged girls and women’s commitments to family and academia before their own personal interests and sport is debunked. Similar to my own experience, many South Asian girls and women are expanding the boundaries of gender and sport participation. These on-going and shifting practices of girls and women of colour dismantles the stereotypical assumption that brown-bodied females should not, and cannot, play sports. While I pushed against the gender norms expected of me, my teammates continued to express, subtly, their belief that I cannot and should not be playing sports. Singer, Weems and Garner (2017) provoke reflections on the replicated behaviours my teammates embodied through witnessing the actions of their own families, communities, and the greater society in which we lived. The acts of name calling, avoiding connection in the dressing room, planning team events at times I was unable to attend and in locations I was not able to visit because of age restrictions, left me to negotiate and navigate complex and, at times, hurtful and harmful contexts. These acts reflect the complexities of the colour blindness notion that can obscure “unearned and unjust power, privilege and advantages many Whites have gained and maintained throughout history” (Singer, Weems & Garner, 2017, pp.20–21). Chesney-Lind and Irwin (2004) speak to the in-between space of protecting the self while also engaging in activities of desire. The acts of protection – compliance – to perform in ways that minimized my being within the dressing room was an attempt to keep myself in-between the intended damage to my “social status and relationships” (Chesney-Lind & Irwin, 2004). Additionally, as a woman of colour, there is an assumption that tradition is embodied through normative gender roles that may reflect beliefs or result in representations that further marginalize women of colour as physically weak and passive (Szto, 2018). Therefore, in order to become a “willful subject” (Ahmed, 2014) – to act in a way viewed as unwilling for the “other” – to minimize and to will my presence on the ice, I fought against the belief that brown-bodied women are not capable of navigating competitive social spaces such as sports (Thangaraj, 2015).

Making meaning of a complex experience As a child of immigrants, an “othered”, I learned to balance acts of resistance and compliance in order to belong. Beniwal (2018) notes that “youth

A Shia Ismaili Muslim’s ringette experiences

199

choose their leisure activities freely and that they are ‘non-obligatory in nature’” (p.100). An important component of leisure and recreational participation is the ability of a person to shape their identity, enhance positivity towards the future, experience self-determination and efficiency, and to recognize accomplishments (Caldwell, 2005). For example, finding my position in the corner of the dressing room, making little eye contact with teammates, and not engaging in conversation with others were acts of resistance and compliance. On the one hand, I worked hard on the ice at not letting the actions and behaviours of my teammates prevent me from freely playing in a sport I had come to love. On the other hand, I positioned myself in a particular manner that offered my teammates a degree of power that I did not challenge. In addition, I hid the dynamics of the dressing room from my family, which contributed to the continuation of such dynamics while likely protecting me from further isolation and racialization that comes from sharing experiences that suggest acts of racism. As an adolescent, and specifically during ringette, I unconsciously embodied the knowledge that I was different from the norm, that I experienced the world from a minoritized and racialized way. Yet, as a young person, I did not have the language to articulate these differences. I learned, however, to adapt, resist, comply, cope, and transgress through various spaces in ways that allowed me to be as close to the person I desired to be as possible. In essence, I learned to be my “willful” self (Ahmed, 2014). I understand Ahmed’s (2014) “willful subject” – self – where a person innately knows what is right and wrong within their body and what drives a person to trespass across social spaces to create an in-between social space that is liveable. Beniwal (2018) notes that: “Young people benefit from the opportunities for socialization and peer interaction that leisure activities offer” (p.97). It was my ability to subconsciously act on socially constructed identities, and the experiences of being located within social opportunities, that allowed me to learn how to position myself within the power structures that played out in the dressing room. The same processes encouraged me to step onto the ice for each practice and game and to satisfy the intrinsic motivation I had to play a winter sport as an immigrant. In many ways, playing ringette was a willful act, my fight against the injustices that occurred on my brown body. Recreation, leisure, and sport, therefore, acted as a space for me to move between my family culture and the greater society. Tirone’s (1999) work that speaks to the need for immigrants to find spaces that help them move between social spaces, such as home, school, and sports teams, is reminiscent of the need to move beyond the normalized and problematic lens adopted by leisure scholars in regard to the value and accessibility of leisure activities for migrants and refugees. For instance, during my voluntary work, as I speak with young women who have also played ringette as girls and women of colour, they recall sitting quietly in the corner of the dressing room, rarely having a partner to practice skills with, and only occasionally being passed to during a game. Their accounts of being left out and

200 Shemine A. Gulamhusein

having limited opportunities led to conversations of how they managed to gain the practical skills to continue to play the game at a highly competitive level. Conversations about the intra- and inter-personal skills they learned – such as when to remain silent, when to assert themselves, and how to position themselves so they could not be missed (intentionally making themselves visible) – highlight the value of becoming a “willful subject” (Ahmed, 2014). These girls and women spoke about how they, as children of immigrants, learn to be seen and heard in contexts they are not necessarily thought to belong to, and how the skills they learned while playing ringette are transferrable to social spaces beyond the ice rink and dressing room. Beyond belonging, the ability to learn skills that help negotiate and navigate the in-between of social spaces includes consciously understanding the sensations within one’s body. To further understand what was happening within my body as I played a sport foreign to me and to my family, I turn to Spatz (2015) to articulate my body’s experience as an epistemology. According to Spatz (2015), “an epistemological account of embodied practice is one according to which such practice actively encounters and comes to know reality through technique, rather than simply producing or constructing it” (italics in original, p.26). Shusterman’s (2012) concept of somaesthetics that “highlights and explores the soma – the living, sentient, purposive body – as the indispensable medium for all perception” (p.3) adds another layer of understanding the physical responses experienced while walking into dressing rooms, skating on ice, hiding from dressing-room “bullies”, and during moments of tension inbetween social spaces. It is through Spatz (2015) and Shusterman’s (2012) work, and Crenshaw’s (1989) intersectional lens, that I am able to reflect on the relevance of how “human movement practices shaped and modified social meanings in a manner that helped produce advantages and disadvantages for particular individuals and social groups” (Markula & Pringle, 2006, p.3). Thus, through bodily movements – of children and youth – it becomes possible to derive meaning from the physical body to understand experiences and how young people are complying, resisting, and belonging in situated social locations. In similar ways to how the body holds onto trauma (Van Der Kolk, 2014), knows when it has hit the limits of coping with stress and concern (Maté, 2003), and how the body holds onto our ancestral histories through “cultural DNA” (Subramaniam, 2013), the anecdotes young girls and women share with me remind me that our bodies also hold onto our strengths and skills to be used in alternative settings. Playing ringette offered opportunities to get to know my body, to understand what the tingles in my toes were telling me, or what it means when my stomach flutters versus contracts. It provided a means and context to be a willful subject. Being on the ice offered a space to learn skills that I could transfer into everyday life situations. Ringette, as a freely chosen leisure activity, provided a space and opportunity “for ‘healing’ from everyday life” (Iwasaki, 2018, p.288), and became more then sport but a spiritual act that involved an element of

A Shia Ismaili Muslim’s ringette experiences

201

wilfulness. In addition, Bibby, Thiessen and Bailey (2019) acknowledge that “religion, spirituality, and superstition are part of the sports world” (p.173). Spirituality, which Sheridan (2008) defines as an act of connecting to self and others, can be a critical component of leisure, sports, and recreation. For instance, sports offer a space to develop intra-personal skills, including the willful, which can contribute to a higher degree of quality of life (Beniwal, 2018). Sporting culture offered me a space to connect with others and gain mentorship and leadership skills, to process experiences of being minoritized and racialized, and to develop intrinsic motivation in pursuit of something in a collective context. Additionally, sporting culture was a healing space as I processed my lived experiences while actively engaging in a freely chosen activity. The varying experiences that playing ringette as a child of immigrants offered – and continues to offer – provided a social context in which it was safe to celebrate my hybrid identity “with adoration and surrender, with struggle and suffering” (King, 2009, p.3). The suffering I endured and the resourcefulness I built in order to keep myself safe within the dressing room required me to build a deeply rooted connection to myself, which was (and is) sophisticated and crucial. My sense of self-worth, self-esteem, and sense of belonging grew through such challenging experiences.

Tying it all together What is learned from shared experiences, such as the one of a young Canadian Muslim female playing ringette, is that young people learn to respond to and transition between various social contexts, to know when to resist or comply, to interpret body sensations, and to distinguish moments of comfort and discomfort through recreational and leisure experiences. Through the narrative shared and the recognition that recreation, leisure, and sports activities offer immigrants and refugees a wealth of opportunity, the hope is that the reader is left with a greater insight of the capacity of those seen as “othered”. This chapter helps draw our attention to the long and complex history of immigration in Canada, and it has reframed, normalized, and misconceptualized assumptions and biases of immigrant and refugee sporting pursuits. The latter was done through my experience of playing ringette as a second-generation female Canadian. This ultimately led us to an understanding of the healing benefits, for me personally, of playing a sport as a child of immigrants. Focusing on the intra- and inter-personal skills experienced during sporting activities, and the opportunities a young person has to learn to negotiate and navigate what De Martini Ugolotti (2015) and Boland (2020) call hybrid identities – what I label the in-between of social spaces – it is clear that recreation, leisure, and sports can be a vital part of an immigrant or refugees’ participation in their new context. In conclusion, this chapter focused on my experience to iterate the complexities and relevance of leisure access and participation for (forced) migrants, immigrants, and children of immigrants.

202 Shemine A. Gulamhusein

References Abdel-Shehid, G. (2000). Writing hockey thru race: rethinking black hockey in Canada. In R. Walcott (Ed.), Rude: Contemporary Black Canadian cultural criticism (pp. 70–86). Toronto, ON: Insomniac. Ahmed, S. (2014). Willful Subjects. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Beniwal, A. (2018). Youth well-being and leisure time: an international perspective. In. A. Beniwal, R. Jain & K. Spracklen (Eds.), Leisure Studies In a Global Era: Global Leisure and the Struggle for a Better World (pp. 95–114). London: Palgrave MacMillan. Bibby, R.W., Thiessen, J. & Bailey, M. (2019). The Millennial Mosaic: How Pluralism and Choice Are Shaping Canadian Youth and the Future of Canada. Toronto, ON: Dundurn. Blahna, D., & Black, K. (1993). Racism: a concern for recreation resource managers. In P. Gobster (Ed.), Managing Urban and High-Use Recreation Settings: Selected Papers From the 4th North American Symposium on Society and Natural Resource Management (pp. 111–118). St. Paul, MN: USDA Forest Service. Boland, C. (2020). Hybrid identity and practices to negotiate belonging: Madrid’s Muslim youth of migrant origin. Comparative Migration Studies, 8(26), 1–27. Caldwell, L.L. (2005). Recreation and youth development. In. P.A. Witt & L.L. Caldwell (Eds.), Recreation and Youth Development (pp. 169–189). State College, PA: Venture Publishing Inc. Chesney-Lind, M. & Irwin, K. (2004). Good girls, bad girls: anglocentrism and diversity in the constitution of contemporary girlhood. In A. Harris (Eds.), All About the Girl: Culture, Power, and Identity (pp. 29–44). New York, NY: Routledge. Collins, P.H. & Bilge, S. (2016). Intersectionality. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, (1), 139–167. Dagkas, S. & Hunter, L. (2015). ‘Racialised’ pedagogic practices influencing young muslims’ physical culture. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 20(5), 547–558. De Martini Ugolotti, N. (2015). Climbing walls, making bridges: children of immigrants’ identity negotiations through capoeira and parkour in Turin. Leisure Studies, 34(1), 19–33. De Martini Ugolotti, N. (2020). Music-making and forced migrants’ affective practices of diasporic belonging. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1–18. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/1369183X.2020.1790344. Denis, C. (1997). We Are Not You: First Nations and Canadian Modernity. Peterborough, Canada: Broadview Press. Dhamoon, R.K. (2011). Considerations on mainstream intersectionality. Political Research Quarterly, 64(4), 230–243. Dirks, G.E. (2020). Immigration Policy in Canada. The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/immigration-policy. Ellis, C., Adams, T.E. & Bochner, A.P. (2011). Autoethnography: an overview. Historical Social Research, 36(4), 273–290. Episkenew, J.-A. (2009). Taking Back Our Spirits: Indigenous Literature, Public Policy, and Healing. Winnipeg, Man: University of Manitoba Press. Gulamhusein, S. (2018). Living in the in-between as an Ismaili Muslim woman: an autoethnography (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://dspace.library. uvic.ca/handle/1828/9292.

A Shia Ismaili Muslim’s ringette experiences

203

Hawkins, B.J., Carter-Francique, A.R. & Cooper, J.N. (2017). Black Athletic Sporting Experiences in the United States: Critical Race Theory. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan. hooks, b. (1995). Killing Rage: Ending Racism. New York, NY: H. Holt and Co. Iwasaki, Y. (2018). Leisure and meaning-making: the pursuit of a meaningful life through leisure. In A. Beniwal, R. Jain & K. Spracklen (Eds.), Leisure Studies in a Global Era: Global Leisure and the Struggle for a Better World (pp. 287–302). Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. James, C.E. (2010). Seeing Ourselves: Exploring Race, Ethnicity and Culture. Toronto, ON: Thompson Educational. Karlis, G. (2018). Sport, recreation, and European immigrant youth in Canada. In. S. Wilson-Forsberg & A.M. Robinson (Eds.), Immigrant Youth in Canada: Theoretical Approaches, Practical Issues, and Professional Perspectives (pp. 200–217). Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press. King, U. (2009). The Search for Spirituality: Our Global Quest for Meaning and Fulfilment. Norwich, UK: Canterbury Press. Krebs, A. (2012). Hockey and the reproduction of colonialism in Canada. In J. Joseph, S. Darnell & Y. Nakamura (Eds.), Race and Sport in Canada: Intersecting Inequalities. Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars’ Press. Lewis, H. (2010). Community moments: integration and transnationalism at ‘refugee’ parties and events. Journal of Refugee Studies, 23(4), 571–588. Lewis, H. (2015). Music, dancing and clothing as belonging and freedom among people seeking asylum in the UK. Leisure Studies, 34(1), 42–58. Markula, P. & Pringle, R. (2006). Foucault, Sport and Exercise: Power, Knowledge and Transforming the Self. New York, NY: Routledge. Maté, G. (2003). When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress. Canada: Vintage Canada. Mensah, J. & Williams, C.J. (2017). Boomerang Ethics: How Racism Affects Us All. Halifax & Winnipeg, Canada: Fernwood Publishing. Multicultural Health Brokers Co-op. (n.d.) Programs & Services. Retrieved on November 14, 2020 from http://mchb.org/programs/. Nayar, K.E. (2012). The Punjabis in British Columbia: Location, Labour, First Nations, and Multiculturalism. Montreal & Kingston, Canada: McGill-Queens University Press. Nichols, G., Tacon, R. & Muir, A. (2013). Sports clubs’ volunteers: bonding in or bridging out? Sociology, 47(2), 350–367. Nicholson, M. & Hove, R. (2008). Sport and Social Capital. London: ButterworthHeinemann. Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI). (2005). Research on Inclusive Recreation Model for Immigrants and Refugee Youth – Provisional Model for the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation. Toronto, ON: OCASI. Ontario Human Rights Commission. (2017). Under suspicion: Research and consultation report on racial profiling in Ontario (p. 60). Retrieved on March 9, 2021 from http://www3.ohrc.on.ca/sites/default/files/Under%20suspicion_research%20a nd%20consultation%20report%20on%20racial%20profiling%20in%20Ontario_ 2017.pdf. Rahilly, E.P. (2015). The gender binary meets the gender-variant child: parents’ negotiations with childhood gender variance. Gender & Society, 29(3), 338–361. Ratna, A. & Samie, S.F. (2017). Race, Gender and Sport: The Politics of Ethnic ‘Other’ Girls and Women. New York, NY: Routledge.

204 Shemine A. Gulamhusein Samie, S.F. (2017). De/colonising ‘sporting Muslim women’: post-colonial feminist reflections on the dominant portrayal of sporting Muslim women in academic research, public forums and mediated representations. In. A. Ratna & S.F. Samie (Eds.), Race, Gender and Sport: The Politics of Ethnic ‘Other’ Girls and Women (pp. 35–62). New York, NY: Routledge. Sharaievska, I., Stodolska, M., Shinew, K.J. & Kim, J. (2010). Perceived discrimination in leisure settings in Latino urban communities. Leisure/Loisir, 34(3), 143–167. Sheridan, M.J. (2008). Predicting the use of spiritually-derived interventions in social work practice. Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work: Social Thought, 23(4), 5–25. Shields, J., Droplet, J. & Valenzuela, K. (2016). Immigrant settlement and integration services and the role of non-profit service providers: a cross-national perspective on trends, issues and evidence. Ryerson Centre for Immigration and Settlement. Retrieved from http://delivery.canadianelectroniclibrary.ca/PDFDelivery.aspx?a=dd6c29d3-110f-4a3a8b21-1496dd73d542&b=5376c15f-1cdf-4c6f-9a7f-33fe2d403971&i=y. Shusterman. R. (2012). Thinking Through the Body: Essays in Somaesthetics. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Singer, J.N., Weems, A.J. & Garner, J.R. (2017). Fraternal twins: critical race theory and systemic racism theory as analytic and activist tools for college sport reform. In. B.J. Hawkins, A.R. Carter-Francique & J.N. Cooper (Eds.), Black Athletic Sporting Experience in the United States: Critical Race Theory (pp. 11–55). New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan. Spatz, B. (2015). What a Body Can Do: Technique as Knowledge, Practice as Research. New York, NY: Routledge. Spracklen, K., Long, J. & Hylton, K. (2015). Leisure opportunities and new migrant communities: challenging the contribution of sport. Leisure Studies, 34(1), 114–129. Statistics Canada. (2020). Immigration and ethnocultural diversity. Retrieved from http s://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/subjects/immigration_and_ethnocultural_diversity. Stodolska, M. (2015). Leisure, ethnicity, race and migrations. World Leisure Journal, 57(3), 168–172. Subramaniam, B. (2013). Re-owning the past: DNA and the politics of belonging. In L. La Follette (Ed.), Negotiating Culture: Heritage, Ownership, and Intellectual Property (pp.147–169). Amherst and Boston, USA: University of Massachusetts Press. Szto, C. (2018). Changing on the fly: situating multiculturalism, citizenship, and hockey through the voices of South Asian Canadians (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://summit.sfu.ca/item/17912. Thangaraj, S.I. (2015). Desi Hoop Dreams: Pickup Basketball and the Making of Asian American Masculinity. New York, NY: NYU Press. Tirone, S. (1999). Racism, indifference, and the leisure experiences of South-Asian Canadian teens. Leisure/Loisir, 24(1–2), 89–114. Van Der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York, NY: Penguin Books.

Index

Abu-Lughod, L. 121, 135 Ahmed, S. 11, 128, 198–200 activist/activists 13, 52, 53, 57, 58, 59, 62, 63, 64, 90, 98, 102, 204 Afghanistan 39, 42, 45, 50, 161, 162, 174 Afghan: boys 167; man/men 46, 166; unaccompanied children 10 agency 7, 22, 23, 29, 31, 35, 49, 58, 61, 63, 66, 71, 77, 100, 114, 116, 136, 158, 160, 163, 164, 189 applied theatre 178, 180, 185, 186 Arsenal (football club) 8, 67–69, 71–78 arts-based research (ABR) 10, 157, 159, 161, 163, 171, 174 asylum 8, 25, 26, 28–32, 41, 43, 73, 77, 96, 105, 106, 109, 114, 122, 134, 157, 162, 179–186; applicants 85, 122; applications 25, 122; claims 85; interviews 24–26, 28, 31, 125; policy/ policies 2, 5, 7, 8, 30, 58, 106, 110, 111, 116, 122; process 12, 21, 28, 29, 32; procedure 38; regimes 4, 5, 124; request 93; support 26, 27; system/ systems 1, 6, 7, 24, 25, 32, 38, 61, 67 asylum seekers 6, 7, 8, 21, 24, 25, 31, 32, 35, 38, 39, 52, 54, 55, 58, 63, 64, 67, 69, 70, 72, 73, 75, 77–79, 105, 107, 122, 158, 159, 166 asylum-seeking women 35, 36, 38, 43–45; see also women auto-ethnography 191,194, 202; autoethnographic 11; see also ethnography Baobab Experience association 52, 53, 58, 59, 60, 63 Bauman, Z. 73, 79, 143, 144, 151, 152 belonging 3, 9, 15, 16, 18, 23, 33, 34, 61, 65, 66, 70, 79, 81, 108, 114, 119, 135,

140, 152, 153, 166, 170, 174, 175, 189, 193–195, 197, 200, 201 Bike Bridge 7, 36–45, 47, 50, 103, 119, 152 biopolitical subjects 35 bio-politics, biopolitics 3, 13, 22, 23 Blackshaw, T. 3, 15, 74, 78–80, 144, 145, 151 bodily practices 124 border/borders 3, 5, 8, 12, 16 Brazil 8, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 96, 97, 98, 99 British 142, 144, 145, 147, 148, 150 British-Somali diaspora 8–10, 139 camp/camps 1, 5, 7, 14, 42, 43, 49, 53, 63; emergency 64; informal 7, 55, 56; provisional 52; 53; refugee see refugee; spontaneous 14 children of immigrants 193, 194, 200, 201 circle talks/talking circles 88, 93, 95, 100 citizenship 3, 9, 32, 52, 57, 58, 85, 94, 96, 98, 121, 135, 139, 144, 145, 162 colonial15, 17, 79, 136, 158, 160, 165, 173, 182, 191 colonialism 11, 25, 69, 192; see also settler colonialism coloniality 10, 15, 159, 161 coloniality of power 15; see also Mayblin, L. community: 9, 38, 41, 45, 46, 48, 55, 61, 64, 71, 77, 86, 87, 89–92, 96, 139–142, 144–150, 161,166, 167, 169, 170, 176–180, 181, 185, 186, 192–196; approaches 117 see also participatory action research; cohesion 2, 6, 13, 38; organisations 70, 79; pressures 45, 46; projects 90; sport 69; theatre,

206 Index 176–181, 184–186 see also theatre, applied theatre, participatory theatre, refugee theatre community of practice 90, 93 compassionate repression 3 contingent insider 73 co-researchers 10, 157, 159, 160–166, 168, 169, 171, 172; see also participatory action research critical discourse analysis 111 cross-gender 86; see also gender binary, gender non-conforming cross-pressure 115 cultural anaesthesia 184 cultural broker 193 cycling 7, 35, 42–50 Danish 9, 105, 106, 109, 110, 112, 124, 135 decolonial 15, 96, 157, 159, 160, 161, 163, 171, 174 dehumanise 3; dehumanising 4, 14 Denmark 8, 9, 105–107, 109–116 Derrida, J. 71–77 devotional leisure 10, 140, 142, 144–146, 151; see also leisure, Blackshaw, T. diaspora 8, 9, 46, 139–142, 144–146, 149, 183 discrimination 8, 88, 95, 137, 169, 181, 191–193 displacement 5, 12, 13, 14, 15, 128, 133, 134, 162, 165, 179, 182, 184–186 double consciousness139, 151 drama 180–182, 185 Eastern women 47, 48; see also women newcomers, migrant women, asylumseeking women embodied 2, 7, 9, 11, 23, 37, 46, 48, 59, 67, 74, 88, 93, 94, 108, 116, 121, 123, 124, 127–129, 133–136, 196, 198–200 embodiment 37, 48, 85, 121, 147 ethics 5, 69, 88, 161, 163, 178, 186, 187 ethics of care 94, 96 ethnography 79, 80; ethnographic 6, 7, 9, 21, 24, 38, 63, 65, 69, 70, 72, 78, 79, 118, 119, 124, 125, 129–132; see also ethnography everyday 4, 8, 22, 24, 25, 28, 32, 35, 41, 55, 56, 58, 72, 73, 76, 91, 92, 94, 106, 111, 112, 115, 116, 124, 128, 131, 164, 178, 184, 200, exile 2, 59, 60, 73, 166, 184

faith 121, 126, 133, 135; Islamic 121, 127, 129, 131 Fassin, D. 2, 124, 128 FC St. Pauli 6, 21, 33 Fiddian-Qamsiyeh, E. 4, 5, 16, 65, 80, 97, 100, 104, 121, 122, 124, 136, 179, 188, 189 football 6, 7, 8, 16, 17, 21–34, 35, 67–81, 87, 92, 111, 119, 152, 157, 162, 165–170, 173–174, 195; informal 21; men’s 7 football consumption 8, 71–73, 76, 77 football fans/fandom 8, 21, 22, 67, 68, 71–74, 76–79, 81, 165, 169 Football Unites Racism Divides (FURD) 69, 70, 79 forced migrants 2, 3, 5, 6, 9–11, 16, 21, 24, 25, 69, 71–73, 77–79, 116, 127, 135, 157, 159, 172, 201, 202 forced migration: contexts 86–89, 92–95, 97, 98, 121, 133; and gender see gender and forced migration; and leisure see leisure and forced migration; studies 4, 11, 115, 180, 184, 188; trajectories 40 Freire, P. 94–96, 101, 103, 160, 173 friendship 21, 22, 31, 32, 167 fun 21, 22, 42–44, 149, 157, 165–167, 187 funding 8, 91, 94, 97, 125, 180, 182, 184 gender 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 17, 21, 37, 40, 45, 48, 70, 86, 87, 90, 93, 106, 109, 121, 142, 162–164, 192, 194, 197; binaries/dichotomy 85, 86, 198, 203; and forced migration 100, 103; hierarchies 142, 145; identity/identities 85, 86, 91, 92, 99, 115, 191; non-conforming 8, 86, 89, 93, 99; norms 48, 198; roles 142, 198 gender-based: homicides 88; stigma 46; violence 89, 95, 99, 133 gendercide 8, 86, 88, 90, 95, 99; prevention 88, 90 Germany 7, 35, 36, 38, 40–43, 46, 49, 118, 189; German 21, 35, 41, 143 harari 140; see also Miraa, khat health, 2, 5, 6, 9, 13, 14, 32, 85–87, 93, 96, 99, 105–108, 111, 113–117, 123, 125, 135, 148, 158, 162, 193, healthism 107, 108, 113, 114, 116, 118 hegemony 14, 177, 178, 186

Index hierarchies of belonging 71 Home Office 6, 15, 21–32, 151, 179 hormone therapy 86; see gender nonconforming, travesti hospitality 4, 53, 57, 58, 63, 64, 66, 71–81 host community 29, 47, 48 humanity 3, 16, 58, 75, 76, 122 humanitarian 3, 12, 13, 87, 89, 92, 95, 122, 124, 178, 179 hybrid identity 194, 201, 202; see also hyphenated identity, transnational identities hyper-precarious 144, 146; see also Lewis, H. hyphenated Identity 194; see also hybrid identity, transnational identities ice hockey 191, 192, 194, 195, 197 immigrant 162, 191–195, 198–201 immigration policy/policies 30, 32, 85, 105, 106, 122, 190, 191,192; see also policy immobility 121, 127, 129; see also mobility integration 2, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17, 47, 60, 61, 63, 71, 106–108, 115–118, 122–124, 127, 135, 158, 159, 166, 169, 170, 172 intersecting inequalities 4, 5, 8, 13 intersectionality 18, 108, 109, 118, 151, 202; intersectional 121, 123, 124, 133, 137, 151, 194, 200; intersectionalities 15, 108 introduction programme 9, 105, 106, 112–116 Iran 8, 40, 67, 161, 162, 165; Iranian 161, 162 Iraq 8, 67; Iraqi diaspora 70; see also diaspora Isolation 28, 38, 43, 144, 199 Italy 7, 41, 52, 54, 58, 63, 65, 66, 181 Kant, I. 75, 79 khat 9, 10, 140, 142, 145–152; khat ban 142; khat-chewing 9, 10, 139–141, 146–150 Khorasan 161, 162; Khorasani 10, 164, 172 knowledge/power 40 Lefebvre, H., 4, 16, 36, 37 leisure: activities 38, 59, 61, 62, 64, 73, 74, 92, 94, 97–99, 106, 115–117, 145,

207

158, 193, 199; domains 4, 9, 13, 14; experiences 92, 201, 203; interventions 6, 89, 98; opportunities 9, 43, 48, 97; participation 87, 94, 98, 193; practices 1–5, 7, 38, 45, 52, 57, 61, 134, 176, 188; provision 86, 96, 98; pursuits 17, 36, 43, 48, 77, 193; space/ spaces 4, 18, 23, 27–28, 30–32, 152; studies 3, 5, 6, 10–12, 15, 17, 61, 78, 188, 194; time 22–23, 29, 45, 61, 158, 165, 174; time physical activity 105–109, 111–117 leisure and consumption 63 leisure and forced migration 1–6, 12, 14, 116, 133, 135, 176, 188 leisure and identity politics 140 leisure and physical activity 9, 165; see also leisure time physical activity leisure and sport 11, 15, 22, 87, 97, 98, 191, 193, 196, 199–201 Lewis, H. 2, 12, 14, 22, 56, 61, 127, 129, 139, 141, 144, 146, 194 LGBTIQ+ refugees, 8, 85, 86, 87, 88, 91, 92 Liminality 56 liquid modernity 140, 142, 143, 144, 150, 151; see also Bauman, Z. Malkki, L. 2, 3, 13, 57, 99, 121, 129, 181 marginalisation 110 marginality 3, 5, 10, 139, 144, 145 marginalized, 193, 197; marginalised, 78, 144, 147, 148 marginal urban spaces 53; see also informal camps, public spaces masculine 8, 71, 77, 79, 141, 147; masculinist 10 masculinity 10, 69, 140, 145–147, 149, 150 Mayblin, L. 2, 4, 14, 15, 25, 31, 179 Mbembe, A. 1, 14, 25 Merleau-Ponty, M. 36, 37, 39, 50, 124, 137 methodological nationalism 108, 117, 118, 120 migrants 2, 6, 7, 9, 11, 14, 22, 29, 30, 47, 52–56, 60, 61, 63, 69, 71, 75, 106, 108, 116, 122, 139, 144, 150, 158, 159, 160, 162, 172, 177, 179, 181, 191, 193, 194, 199, 201 migrant women 47; see also women newcomers

208 Index Miraa 140; see also khat minoritized 197,199, 201 minority ethnic women 105, 107, 108; see also women newcomers, women of colour, Eastern women) mobility 23, 24, 41, 45, 46, 52, 60, 62, 121, 127, 129; see also immobility Muslim woman/women 8, 9, 11, 46–49, 112, 113, 116, 119, 121, 123, 124, 127, 128, 133, 135, 136, 152; female Muslim/Muslim female 191, 194–196, 201, 202 Muslim Canadian/Canadian Muslim 107, 119, 194 narrative/narratives 1–6, 10–12, 15, 45, 46, 60, 64, 85, 92–95, 98, 107, 110, 121, 124, 127, 142, 149, 150, 158, 163, 170, 179, 181–184, 188, 191, 194, 195, 201 necropolitical 3, 13, 14, 25; necropolitics 25, 28; necropower 25; see also Mbembe, A., Mayblin, L. neo-liberal 22–27, 33 non-Western 14, 45, 107, 109; see also Western operational groups 96; see also PichonRivière othering 6, 12, 94, 110, 133, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 166, 170, 172, 182–186; othered 75, 124, 159, 161, 198, 201 pain 63, 115, 121, 123, 125, 127–129, 133, 137, 185, 188 Pakistan 45, 162 Participatory Action Research (PAR) 8, 10, 69–70, 79, 88, 117, 136, 157, 159, 160, 173, 189 participatory evaluation process 90, 91, 95 participatory methodologies 8 participatory processes 8, 98 participatory theatre 11, 176, 177, 179–181, 185, 186, 188; see also applied theatre, community theatre, refugee theatre, theatre people seeking asylum 1–6, 12–15, 23 phenomenological 10, 36, 37, 39, 40, 49, 50, 121, 123, 124, 133–135; intersectional-phenomenological 121; spatialphenomenological 35

physical activity 7, 8, 9, 10 Pichon-Rivière, E. 94–97, 103 policy 2, 9, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18; policydriven 2; policy-makers 2; policy narratives 121 political power 36, 95 politics of asylum 5, 96 power 3, 6, 22–26, 29–33, 36, 59, 71, 75–79, 110, 119, 126, 136, 139, 152, 163, 194, 197–199, 202–203; differences 98; dimensions 188; dynamics 136, 186; imbalances 91; relations/ relationships 4, 8, 40, 110–111, 158; structures 5, 12, 145, 199 prayer 129–131, 196 production of space 16, 36, 37, 43; see also Lefebvre, H., spatial triad public space 37, 45–48, 50, 60, 112, 113 race 3, 7, 11, 15, 25, 37, 48, 86, 87, 109, 112, 191–194, 197 racialised 4, 6, 11, 14; racialized 159, 193, 197, 199, 201 racism 5, 8, 58, 69, 79, 139–141, 145, 196, 199 refugee/refugees 2–9, 11, 14–16, 21, 29, 31, 32, 35, 38, 43, 52–64, 67, 69, 70, 72, 73, 75, 78, 85–99, 105–109, 114, 121–125, 129, 134, 176–188, 192–194, 199, 201; accommodation 7, 35–43, 48, 128; artists 180; camps 35, 42, 49, 51, 179; centers 35, 38, 48, 49, 58; communities, 86, 178; crisis 53, 64, 122,136, 178, 180; families 151; populations 2, 13; squats 18, 138; status– 31, 133; studies 2, 4, 17, 137, 181, 184; theatre 10, 11, 177–180, 182, 184, 186–189, see also theatre; women 8, 9, 16, 38, 43, 44, 47, 48, 106, 118, 121, 123, 124, 127, 128, 133, 134, 137, 152 refugeehood 12, 183 refugeness 14 religion 5, 11, 107, 109, 112, 121, 127, 129, 194, 201; see also faith, spirituality representation 4–6, 10, 96, 178, 181–186, 188; see also (self)representation resettlement, 2, 5, 6, 13, 14, 61, 121–124, 127–129, 133, 134, 162 residence permit 9, 43, 105 responsibility 2, 71, 94, 97, 106, 114, 134, 142, 144, 148

Index responsibilisation 122, 134; see also Uheling, G. ringette 11, 191, 193–201 Rojek, C. 3, 17 Rome 7, 53, 55, 56, 59, 62, 63, 64, 66 Rozakou, K.13, 55, 58, 59 salah 129, 131; see also wudu, faith, Islamic self-care 5, 128, 133 self-defence 89, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95 (self)representation 4, 5, 10; see also representation settler colonialism 11, 15, 192 sexuality 3, 5, 8, 21, 37, 86, 87, 92 Shia Ismaili Muslim11, 119, 191, 195, 196 single story/stories 6, 10, 157, 183, 184; see also stories slow violence 17, 25 –26, 28, 31, 33, 189 social identity 72, 73, 80 social mobility 38 sociality 2, 5, 13, 58, 141, 172, 187 solidarity 7, 13, 21, 43, 48, 52, 57, 58, 63, 64, 85, 89, 93, 94, 96, 97, 140, 143, 146, 147, 185 Somali: communities 145, 151; men–140, 145–147, 149, 150; women–39–41, 44, 141, 142, 148, 150, 151 Somalia 39, 41, 42, 45, 74, 150, 151 Somaliland 141, 145–147, 149–151 sovereignty 25, 76 spatial: boundaries 45; confinements, 7; experiences 36; politics 4, 37, 48, 50; practices 4, 5, 36, 41, 46–49; restrictions 40, 43 spatial-phenomenological see phenomenological spatial triad 36, 37, 50; see also Lefebvre, H. spirituality 201 see also faith, religion sport development 69 State/state 1, 2, 5, 13, 24, 28, 31, 32, 36, 53, 58, 59, 86, 106, 108, 122, 124, 134, 142, 143, 144, 150, 191, 195 stories 11, 40, 96, 124, 127, 128, 141, 157, 159, 161, 164, 171, 177, 179, 180–185, 187, 188, 193 suspension 7, 27, 43, 56–58, 62; see also time Sweden 8–10, 106, 121–125, 128, 133, 146, 157, 158, 162, 172; Swedish, 9, 120, 121, 122, 124–128, 134–136, 152, 157, 158, 161, 163, 166, 171, 172, 174

209

temporal politics 5, 6, 21–32 temporality 5, 23, 36; temporalities 4–7, 21–33, 65 theatre 10, 11, 61, 176–188 therapy 6, 93; group therapy 87–89, 91, 94, 95; trauma-based group therapy 87, 88, 89, 91 time 21–34, 37,41–43, 52–66, 85, 96, 105–117, 143, 151, 152; accelerated 56; dead 6, 23, 24, 27, 28, 30, 32; dilated 52; frantic 6, 30, 31, 32; free 23; indefinite 31; leisure see leisure; liminal 56; meaningful 52, 61; meaningless 30; neo-liberal 22; quality 52; politics 32; punitive 30; shared 6; slow 6; suspended 5, 27–28, 52, 57; waiting 6–7, 24, 27, 52, 55–56, 61, 62 transnational: aid organizations 87; football fandom/consumption see football fandom, football consumption; identities 111, see also hybrid identities, hyphenated identities; migration 108, 119; perspectives 106, 108, 110, 113, 116, 117 trauma 2, 9, 10, 95, 123, 127, 128, 132–135, 158, 159, 165, 181, 182, 185, 187, 188 traumatised 3, 9, 124, 128, 133 trauma-sensitive yoga 9, 123–125, 127–130, 132–134; see also womenonly yoga, yoga travesti 8, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94, 96, 98, 99; see also gender nonconforming trust 39, 57, 60, 89, 109, 126, 127, 136, 187 Uheling, G. 2, 18, 122, 129, 134, 138 unaccompanied: children 10, 157, 158, 162, 170, 171, 172, 175; migrants 10; minors 180 undocumented migrants 27 unhealthy subjects 107; unhealthy ‘others’ 116; see also healthism United Kingdom/UK 6, 8–11, 21, 24–28, 32, 68, 70, 72, 73, 77, 78, 125, 126, 166, 176–182 value sphere, 144, 147–150; see also Blackshaw, T. Venezuelan diaspora 86, 93; see also diaspora

210 Index victimhood 4, 10, 72, 171, 181, 182, 184, 187, 188 vulnerability 5, 9, 63, 86, 93, 106, 123, 124, 185, 188 waiting see time, waiting well-being 2, 6, 9, 16, 91, 94, 122, 123, 182, 184 Western 6, 9, 10, 14, 24, 45, 46, 67, 68, 85, 107, 113, 141, 157, 159, 165, 172, 182, 192; see also non-Western women of colour 198, 199; Black women 109 women newcomers 8, 9, 105, 106, 108, 109, 111–117

women-only accommodation/dormitory– 41, women-only project–7, women-only yoga (see yoga) women refugees see refugees, women women’s leisure 45, 46, 49 women’s mobility 45, 46 wudu 131; see also salah, faith, Islamic xenophobia 2, 5, 11, 88, 179 yoga 9, 60, 121, 123–136, 162; womenonly yoga 9, 121 youth 113, 128, 146, 149, 157, 158, 159, 165, 166, 171, 173–175, 192–194, 198, 200 Yorkshire St. Pauli 6, 21, 22