Inclusivity, diversity, and the absent presence of class: a logics approach to England and Wales cricket Board (ECB) policy discourse

Abstract

Class is central to Englishness and English cricket. Conversely, despite the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) making an explicit attempt to address social issues in cricket, class has largely been excluded from ECB policy discourse. In response to this absence, this paper mobilises a Lacanian-inspired logics approach to examine ECB policy discourse from 2015-2023. Through this approach, the paper highlights the hegemony of inclusivity and social cohesion in ECB discourse, a hegemony that has been enabled by a political shift away from class analysis and politics. In response to this absence of class, the paper argues that a fantasmatic logic has emerged within ECB discourse in which the inescapable presence of class in English cricket is reframed as the more manageable problem of social exclusion, which can be overcome through more inclusive practices rather than structural changes.