How Race Affects Participation In Research

Research Project
How Race effects participation In Cricket

This project will explore the impact race has on competitive male club cricket. Race is defined as: “A concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies”.
Racial groups in society are based on certain biological or cultural characteristics, which are labelled as inferior by dominant groups in society. Races are often singled out for differential and unfair treatment. It is not the biological characteristics that define racial groups, but how groups have been treated historically and socially. Society assigns people to racial categories (White,
Black, etc.) not because of science or fact, but because of opinion and social experience. In other words, racial groups are defined as a social process; they are socially constructed. There are several sociological theories upon race in sport; they explore the impact which race has on sports. In particular this study looks to explore the influence of race in competitive male’s cricket clubs. Sociological theories focus on explaining the existence of racism. The major sociological perspectives (functionalist theory, interaction theory, and conflict theory) each have their own explanations to the existence of racism.
The Functionalist theory argues that for race and ethnic relations to be functional and contribute to the harmonious conduct and stability of society, racial minorities must adapt into that society. Assimilation is a process, where a minority becomes absorbed into the dominant society socially, economically, and culturally. This theory can be related to sport as factionalism sees society as system of interrelated parts. Sport links into this matrix, as sports are studied in terms of their contributions to the system.
The interaction theory looks at the role of social interaction and how it reduces racial hostility. The interaction theory also looks at how race is socially constructed. In principle, this theory explores what occurs when participants from different races come in contact in with one another.
The conflict theorists are class-based conflict, which is inherent and fundamental part of society. It argues that racial and ethnic conflict is tied to class conflict, in order to reduce racial and ethnic conflict; class conflict must first be reduced.
Issues such as race and the impact on cricket have been identified through the journal article, ‘No racism here? A preliminary examination of sporting innocence. This article identifies racism in sports, primarily focusing on the structure of cricket, heightening how the sport can be represented creating opinions of racial discrimination. Additionally the journal, ‘Asians cricket and Ethnic Relations in north England’ discusses whether the participation of cricket by Asians in England represents acceptance of Asian principles or adaptation to English culture.
This outlook on cricket explores race relations and discusses the impact on cricket participation. The journal identifies the past issues, whereby ‘white’ cricket clubs have felt superior to other ethnicities participating in cricket. Furthermore, the increase in Asian participation has links to stereotyping where ‘white’ clubs have preferred not to play with Asian clubs; there has been harmony in participating together. This stereotype is based upon identity and historical influences. The above article can also be associated with the integrationist theory, as it explores the outcome of different races participating in cricket together and recognises the outcome effect on participation. Moreover the article ‘Cricket, Race and the 2007 World Cup’, explores social inequalities in sports. Specifically it discovers the implications for racial differences currently affecting cricket. It recognises race through identification of what racial backgrounds are participating in cricket, repercussions and trends such as stereotyping with race and cricket participation. This emphasises is represented through incidents which have occurred in professional cricket. For example the Bangladesh cricket team first began
participating in Test cricket; the commentator’s views were negative and spoke about their performance as a “…two-tier system”. In comparison New Zealand’s poor debut performances were not commented upon like this. The article can be associated to the conflict theorists approach. This association is developed as stereotyping creates opinions, therefore creating the cricketing ideologies. Additionally the added pressure from the media, relates back class perception, where stereotyping is exaggerated in public. Additionally inequalities which are recognised in this literature can also be related to a newspaper article: Cricket test for Asians, from the guardian newspaper. This recognizes the inequalities in the 2007 World cup, England, It is heightened through the Asian subcontinent travelling to England for the world cup, whom were subjected to unique tests on their knowledge of the game and the team they support by British high commission officials before getting visas. In comparison to this no restrictions were placed for the South African, Australian and New Zealand. This shows prejudice and stereotyping of spectators in relation to race. This discrimination can also be transferred onto how the Asian subcontinent cricketers may be subjected to whilst participating. Another journal, ‘Representing Australia, Race the Media and Cricket’ looks into this approach in depth. The article looks predominantly at Australian media coverage of the racial incident with the Cricketer Lehmann, whom in 2003 was charged by the ICC for racial misconduct. This charge came from after Sri Lankan officials overheard Lehmann shouting ‘black cunts’, whilst heading to the dressing rooms after getting out in a one day match verses Sri Lanka. This article looks at how events such as this impacts participation in cricket. It looks at the stereotyping on how white supremacy in cricket overpowers other nations, in this case Sri Lanka. Further to this using this literature it can also be related to India-Australia controversies in February 2008. This journal can be linked to this controversy, as it related through the manor which the media covered the issue. Furthermore it can also be related to the article: Cricket, Race and the 2007 World Cup, as it explores racial inequalities on how the incident was portrayed and dealt with. Sanctions which were placed were only based on the Australian player’s evidence disregarding the Indian teams input. This was only overridden through the protest, and legal movements which the Indian team undertook. The journal ‘On the Moral Economy of Racism and Racist rationalizations in Sport’ further reconnoitres the questions of responsibility and liability for both committed and unrecognised racism in sports. It can be used to critically evaluates sportspersons attempts to justify it. This journal is important as it helps to identify the similar themes, the common theme being stereotyping. The theme of stereotyping, has been shown as the most frequent approach in cricket to discuss and explore racial implications and issues affecting participation.
The question, ‘How does race Impacts participation in competitive male club cricket? Will be discovered using literature and critically analysing the work which is available of races impact in cricket, which will be done through qualitative in-depth interviews of male club cricketers. Qualitative methods such as this help exploring issues, understanding the phenomena’s. In order to establish How does race Impacts participation in competitive male club cricket, two cricketers playing competitive club cricket will be interviewed in depth. The interview questions will look to ask questions from a sociological perspective, and look to get insights on stereotyping trends which the cricketers recognise. The data will then be analysed through coding. Coding is an informative technique which organises the data and provides a means to introduce the interpretations. It is done by reading the data and labelling parts. Each part is labelled with a code, usually a word suggesting how the associated data link together. This is also correlated to literature and theory which will discover the impact which race has on competitive club cricket.
The findings show that interviews highlight stereotyping through knowledge of the game and how media highlight cricket. This is shown by how race related assumptions are assumed with roles within the sport. This is further backed by literature from ‘Representing Australia, Race the Media and Cricket’ article. The connection can be made as this article and the information gathered through the interviews adopt ideology that a person’s race implicates their role within the sport. However there is a battle of hegemonic control and power in the game which can create racial discrimination. This also links with functionalist perspective of Assimilation, as it can show the minority race becoming absorbed into the dominant races society. Also the journal ‘On the Moral Economy of Racism and Racist Rationalizations in Sport’, shows stereotyping in cricket linking to the interviews by the representations by the media. These representations are accepted and used in the game. The representations can be simply the naming the aspects of the game, or ability association with the races. This was highlighted in the interviews and can be related to stacking. Stacking is recognised as the apportionment of positions in a sport, based on racial grouping. This was found from the interviews and was also recognised by the literature ‘Stacking in Cricket: A Figurational Sociological Reappraisal of Centrality’. This article explores that the racial groups in British cricket are stacked in different positions; Asians as high-status batters, and Blacks as low-status bowlers through the historical development of the game. Additionally from the interviews the matter of inequality which is expressed in the ‘Cricket, Race and the 2007 World Cup’ article can be identified. However it can be assumed that Integration, which is the process of mixing with the diversity of society, creates good relations. For club cricket it prevents extreme inequality from occurring; however where there are issues there has to be more structure to control the situations and prevent it occurring. The main impact for participation which the interviews express is equality in responsibility in the game. This issue is also identified in the ‘Asians cricket and Ethnic Relations in north England’ article. The critical theory distinguishes the racial inequalities in British sports and the exclusion of British Asians from positions within the sport. Despite high involvement of Asians in the sport, they are excluded from responsibility in the sport. Furthermore the information from the interviews addresses factors which affect cricket participation, due to historical events of the game and the media publications. The article ‘How a turn to critical race theory can contribute to our understanding of 'race ', racism and anti-racism in sport’ is helpful in understanding this influence as Critical Race theory provides a framework for exploring race. This theory can reveal the underlying social and institutionalised prejudices that preserve racial stereotypes particular to sport. This can relate to the data from the interviews, which shows racial stacking in the cricket highly dominates mind sets of cricketers, impacting how they participate, and pressure on performance.
This study looks critically at what affect race has on participation. The current literature available on ‘races impact on cricket’ outlines how the history of the game has an impact on the games is perception. This generates stereotyping and creates the judgments and prejudices in the game today, which can identified as racial impact effecting participation. This can also be explained through stacking, as it creates a clear role for different participants based on their race. For example Asians are good at batting and black coloured cricketers are good at pace bowling. This is intertwined with the game’s history and therefore is accepted through the rituals of the game, and therefore has not got a negative impact upon cricketers participating. However the media’s portrayal of some incidents and the politics behind the control of cricket is where and how racial discrimination can be identified. This cause’s negative impact on cricket as the media is very influential and creates social construction. Further the governing of the sport needs to express equality in order for there not to be an impact of race on their sport. This discrimination can be explained through hegemony, as it is one group striving to dominate another group. This on contrary this does impact participation as it creates frustration and feuds. Therefore the manor by which the game is governed is an area which should be tackled to prevent the media being able to publicise incidents which effect attitudes associated to races whilst participating in the sport.
References
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