Soccer and the politics of identity for young Muslim refugee women in South Australia

Abstract

This study explores the ways in which a group of young Muslim refugee women in Adelaide, South Australia, draw upon their experiences of playing in a soccer team as a way of establishing and embellishing a particular cultural identity that both affirms and challenges many of the traditions of Islam. Based primarily on qualitative interviews with the players, this study examines some of the ways in which they construct notions of self, sameness and difference as young Muslim women growing up in Australia’s fifth largest capital city. The study is centrally concerned with the ways in which these young refugee women articulate their social identities through the traditions Islam and the resources of western popular culture. As is argued in the following pages, the soccer team provides a unique site through which to explore the politics of identity for young refugee women in contemporary Australia.