Conference Contribution Details
Mandatory Fields
Carr, J. Power, M. Haynes, A. Garland, J., Schweppe, J.
Sociological Association of Ireland Annual Conference 2015
More than a club; more than a game.
DIT
Oral Presentation
2015
()
Optional Fields
02-MAY-15
02-MAY-15
Diverse City is an all-female football team, based in Dublin, and the centerpiece of the ongoing Hijabs and Hat-tricks project initiated and supported by Sports Against Racism Ireland.[1] [2]As a club, Diverse City is unique in that it is the first, and still only, football team founded specifically to facilitate access to sport for young Muslim women and girls in Ireland. Research (see for example Bradbury 2010; Collins and Kay 2014) has shown how, faced with exclusion and limited opportunities to participate in sports, members of minority communities respond by forming their own teams. These teams are more than just football clubs, they become spaces for players to be themselves, to express their own identities with confidence and in a safe environment. Diverse City is no different. Drawing on focus group discussions undertaken with players from Diverse City, as one part of a broader evaluation of the Hijabs and Hat-tricks project, this paper reveals some of the barriers experienced by these young women in playing sports and how they tackle these head on. Faced with experiences of racism and the lack of an outlet wherein they could play the ‘beautiful game’, Diverse City has become more than a club and football, for the young women involved, has become more than a game. Not only has Diverse City has provided these young women with a route to participate in sport, it has also provided them with a platform from which they can challenge negative stereotypes around gender and racialised religious identity. The findings presented here conclude by identifying routes for further research.

[1] The ‘Hijabs and Hat-tricks’ project has been funded and/or supported by Sony, FIFA and Street Football World.

[2] The researchers were not remunerated for their work as part of this evaluation.