Rios, B. R. (2012). Culture, Migration, and Sport: A Bi-National Investigation of Southern Mexican Migrant Communities in Oaxaca, Mexico and Los Angeles, California.

 

This article focuses mainly on how sports, specifically basketball, help generate the identity of the communities in Oaxaca. The author points out how sport plays three roles. The first, and most important, role is to help build an identity by introducing the culture and community around the person. Getting to know one’s community helps build social cohesion, and from that stems pride and unity. Playing a sport locally could also lead to transnational ties through the sport. This research about how basketball has influenced the Oaxaca community provides a context to the relationship of sport and identity. The article ties together the ways in which sport has built a community’s identity and therefore, show the importance of the sport in its daily life.

 

Putnam, L. (2014). The Panama Cannonball’s Transnational Ties: Migrants, Sport, and Belonging in the Interwar Greater Caribbean. Journal of Sport History, 41(3), 401-424. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jsporthistory.41.3.401

 

This journal discussed the ways in which different sports helped build upon different aspects of identity. With cricket, people mainly embraced the sport with loyalty to various islands of the Caribbean. In boxing, the people associated with the nationality or race of the boxer. There was more of a color divide when it came to boxing so people’s support was more polar. A West Indies boxer who won against a white boxer was a symbolic win for the West Indies community against racism. This emphasizes the importance of sports for the Caribbean community. It focuses on how sports alleviate the struggles that the community faced which helps to establish benefits of sports.

 

Riess, S. (2015). Journal of Sport History, 42(3), 434-0436. doi:10.5406/jsporthistory.42.3.0434

 

This review of the book “Beyond C. L. R. James: Shifting Boundaries of Race and Ethnicity in Sport” mentions the symbolic meanings that sports stars of Caribbean origins bring to their community. These stars challenge the established norms society has placed on the community so that others may also destroy these blockades to greater heights. Sports provide people with various identities so that they could find the one they’re most comfortable with. This information also reaffirms the importance of sport for various communities and how sport could build an identity that allows people to defeat established boundaries of society.

 

Hall, J. (n.d.). Cricket in the Caribbean; the place of sport in the formation of a post colonial identity. [Scholarly project]. In Academia . Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/30538751/Cricket_in_the_Caribbean_the_place_of_sport_in_the_formation_of_a_post_colonial_identity

 

This essay forms the historical context in how and why cricket has placed such a prominent role in creating Caribbean identity. Cricket was a regional pride among the West Indies and it acts as a stance against colonialism. The success of various Caribbean individuals in the game of Cricket further boosts Caribbean pride, generating more identification with the sport. These reasons for why the Caribbean identifies with cricket are pretty universal. From sports, one can feel empowered to do beyond what one thought one was capable of doing. These positive effects are what motivates individuals to pursue a sport. In terms of the project, this essay provides a historical explanation of some of the motivations behind why people identify with a sport.

 

Joseph, J. (2014). Culture, community, consciousness: The Caribbean sporting diaspora. International Review For The Sociology Of Sport, 49(6), 669-687. doi:10.1177/1012690212465735

 

This study discusses the attitudes of a Canadian group of cricket players towards the game. Cricket allowed the players to have a chance to visit friends and family elsewhere in the diaspora. It also allowed them to create a new sense of home when they’re surrounded by people of similar origins. While it’s nice to be able for the players to develop that sense of community, they are also exclusive of people not of similar origins, specifically South Asians, who also play cricket. This study conveys the positives and tensions of a cricket community. It presents how other communities has been affected by sports, which builds into their identity and way of life.