Leisure, Racism, and National Populist Politics

Leisure, Racism, and National Populist Politics responds to the rise and revival of nationalistic, ethnocentric, and authoritarian forms of hegemony, power, and control. Importantly, as a collection of essays, it foregrounds and (re)politicises debates around race and racism, recognising the significance of leisure spaces to the emergence of bottom-up, polymorphous, and dynamic forms of community, resistance, and belonging. A range of authors present a critical and varied exploration of the global manifestations of state-based, increasingly mainstream, racist politics, whilst concomitantly unpicking connected assemblages of power and control. For example: how homonormativity and whiteness structure queer visibility, sexual and civic rights; how white supremacist rhetoric is transformed and differently coded through anti-Black university traditions and state pride; how Western nation-states structure Muslim identity as opposite to national identity; how leisure becomes the site of protest against larger classist and corporate ventures; and how the hegemony of neoliberal, state, and municipal planning practices, and policies about rights to spaces of the neighbourhood, city, and sport, are understood, negotiated, and challenged. The book serves to not only enhance understanding of populist politics but, also, to demand an end to ethnic and racial violence perpetuated through nationalistic and racialised discourses about belonging, citizenship, and social rights to the nation. This edited volume will be a key resource for students and scholars interested in the dynamics of race, gender, and nation, and the politics of belonging in the realm of leisure. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Leisure Studies.

Aarti Ratna is Associate Professor of Sociology at Solent University, UK. Ratna is the co-editor of Race, Gender and Sport: The Politics of Ethnic 'Other' Girls and Women (2017). Erica Rand is Professor of Art and Visual Culture and of Gender and Sexuality Studies at Bates College, USA. Rand is the author of Barbie's Queer Accessories (1995), The Ellis Island Snow Globe (2005), Red Nails, Black Skates (2012), and The Small Book of Hip Checks (2021). Daniel Burdsey is Reader in the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics, University of Brighton, UK. Burdsey is the author of British Asians and Football: Culture, Identity, Exclusion (2007), Race, Place and the Seaside: Postcards from the Edge (2016), and Racism and English Football: For Club and Country (2020). Stanley Thangaraj is Associate Professor of Anthropology, Gender Studies, and International Studies at the City College of New York, USA. Thangaraj is the author of Desi Hoop Dreams (2015) and co-editor of Asian American Sporting Cultures (2016).

Foreword: The white open Lala Zannell 1. Leisure and the racing of national populism Stanley Thangaraj, Aarti Ratna, Daniel Burdsey and Erica Rand 2. Queer inclusion precludes (Black) queer disruption: media analysis of the Black lives matter Toronto sit-in during Toronto Pride 2016 Ali Greey 3. Heritage as hate: racism and sporting traditions Gabby M.H. Yearwood 4. In the garden of domestic dystopia: racial delirium and playful interference Brian E. Kumm and Corey W. Johnson 5. Enacting and resisting the politics of belonging through leisure. The debate about gender-segregated swimming sessions targeting Muslim women in Denmark Verena Lenneis and Sine Agergaard 6. Making a locality: the politics of land and football in North Kerala Veena Mani and Mathangi Krishnamurthy 7. Anti-colonial critiques of sport mega-events Heather Sykes and Manal Hamzeh 8. Public leisure space and community-based action Rodrigo Tramutolo Navarro, Daniella Tschöke Santana and Simone Rechia Afterword: A commitment to the task at hand Urooj Shahzadi