‘The ball and the rhythm in her blood’: Racialised imaginaries and football migration from Nigeria to Scandinavia

Abstract

This article provides an analysis of how Nigerian women migrants are represented and constructed as racial others by officials in the Scandinavian football clubs that recruit and employ them. Situated against scholarship on race, gender, and sport, within and outside the Scandinavian region, we highlight consistencies in stereotypical representations of black athletes. We use theories of racialisation to draw attention to how ideas about race and gender are mutually imbricated in shaping Scandinavian representations of Nigerian women football migrants. Based on interviews with Scandinavian football club officials, and Nigerian women football migrants, we expose and critique the ways in which Nigerian women’s migration as professionals, and their competencies as athletes, are constantly undermined by racially inscribed representations.

Keywords

Sports labour migration gender racialisation women’s football Scandinavia

Introduction

I went to Nigeria actually on a visit. And I came back, and I was at the airport just getting my luggage and I was coming out of the terminal and then the police stopped me. And they [said] ‘Open your bag’. And I got pissed because there was like a lot of white people going and nobody was stopped but me … ‘Why did you pick me?’ And they said ‘we just pick randomly’. I said, ‘because I’m coloured or what?’… ‘What are you doing in [Scandinavia]?’ I’m like, ‘what did you see there [in my bag]? Those are boots. What did you see?’ And he’s like, ‘you play football? Where do you play football?’… And I’m like, ‘I play football and I play on this team’ and … you could just see that they were not convinced, and I was getting mad you know, like I was really pissed … ‘yes we’ve had a lot of people say they play football but they come here to prostitute’, and I flipped. (Desiree)¹

This is the account of a (now former), football migrant’s not atypical experience of a border-crossing moment in her journey from Nigeria to Scandinavia.² In this narrative, Desiree recalls an incident that occurred as she was exiting a Scandinavian airport after returning from a short holiday in Nigeria. Because the police officers who stopped and questioned Desiree did not believe that she was, in fact, a professional footballer, she angrily suggested that they call the president of her football club to confirm her employment. The police officers did call the president of the club and, upon receiving confirmation that Desiree was one of the players in the club, apologised and allowed her to leave the airport. We begin our article with Desiree’s story to illustrate that, although in popular imaginations, the Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden and Denmark) tend to appear as essentially ‘colour-blind’ (Hübinette and Tigervall, 2009) and innocent as far as the history of colonial conquest and expansion goes (Mulinari et al., 2009), many migrants nonetheless are framed and fixed in terms of historically produced schemas that rely on racialisation of the Other.

The Scandinavian countries have historically been assumed to be characterised by ethnic and cultural uniformity (Necef, 2001), although streams of emigration and immigration have been central in the development of modern Nordic society (Coleman and Wadensjö, 1999). In all three Scandinavian countries, self-representations as being liberal, tolerant and multicultural societies predominate. Media representations in Norway, for example, have contributed to the maintenance of a self-image as being a leading provider of development aid, and superpower of human rights (Browning, 2007; Gullestad, 2004). Ideals of ‘egalitarianism, social democracy, internationalist solidarism, and gender equality are also terms linked with the Nordic region’ (Sawyer and Habel, 2014: 1).

In the last decade, however, scholars utilising critical feminist and postcolonial perspectives have begun to deconstruct notions of Scandinavian exceptionalism and colour-blindness, illustrating, for example, that race and skin colour have been fundamentally important in boundary-making processes (Andersson, 2008; Hübinette and Tigervall, 2009; Sawyer and Habel, 2014). Hübinette and Tigervall (2009) argue that, in Sweden, a self-image based on social justice, gender equality and of being a post-racial utopia, has muted public and academic engagements with discussions of race and racism.

In this article, we provide an analysis of how Nigerian women migrants are represented and constructed as racial others, by officials in the Scandinavian football clubs that recruit and employ them. We provide an analysis of the process of racialisation, drawing particular attention to how ideas about race and gender are mutually imbricated in shaping Scandinavian understandings and representations of Nigerian women football migrants. We draw on Fanon’s (2008 [1952])) argument that the Other, quite apart from their actual experience, is defined by a ‘historico-racial schema’, in a manner wherein blackness is presumed to be already known. Of particular relevance to our analysis of sports labour migration is the way in which this schema rests on ‘a gaze that insists upon the power to make others conform, to perform endlessly in the prison of prior expectation’ (Williams, 1997: 74).

Although some scholars have considered the role of sport in identity making among migrants, only a few key studies have shed light on experiences of racialisation and racist practices in Scandinavian sports (e.g. Andersson, 2008; Massao and Fasting, 2010; Scott, 2015). Massao and Fasting (2010) argue that practices of racial stacking and myths about the superior athletic capacity of black athletes render the successes of black athletes in certain sports (such as football and track and field) as expected rather than the result of hard work and training. It is against this backdrop that we aim to make a contribution to emerging scholarship on the intersections of race, gender and sport in the Scandinavian context. We contend, along with Adjepong and Carrington (2014: 170) that, also in the Scandinavian context, the rhetoric of colour-blindness is ‘increasingly able to produce racist effects whilst simultaneously denying that racism exists as a meaningful aspect of contemporary “post-racial” societies’.

Perspectives from research on race, gender and sport

The significance of racial, ethnic, gendered, and national lines on processes of identity and group boundary making has been a concern of sport studies scholars since the 1990s. Sociological studies of sport and race have variously drawn on critical race theory (cf. Hylton, 2010, 2015; Massao and Fasting, 2010), established-outsider relations (cf. Dunning, 1992; Maguire, 1991) postcolonial theory (cf. Darnell, 2007; Darnell and Hayhurst, 2012) and, more recently, intersectional feminist theory (cf. Adjepong and Carrington, 2014; Douglas, 2002, 2005; Douglas and Jamieson, 2006; McDonald, 2012, 2014). An early, though still key, concern in research on sport and race has been the exploration of racial stereotypes and ‘racial stacking’; the ways in which racial imaginaries and categorisations affect the distribution of athletes in different positions on the field (Coakley, 1998; Hylton, 2008; King, 2004; Maguire, 1991). Although most research on racial stacking has traditionally focussed on male sports in North America, similar trends can also be found, for example in men’s Australian Rules Football (Hallinan et al., 1999; Hallinan and Judd, 2009) and women’s netball in Europe (Chappel et al., 2004).

Most research on racial stacking in sports has illustrated that through processes of stacking ‘racialised Others were less likely to be viewed as important, thinking, central players but more likely as physical, unintelligent, peripheral players’ (Hylton, 2008: 7). Processes of racial stacking have been maintained and perpetuated by popular beliefs concerning the superior athletic abilities but inferior mental capabilities of black athletes (Carrington, 2010, 2013; Hylton, 2008; McDonald, 2012). Douglas (2002) argues that, as a result of the persistence of racialised stereotypes, black sporting bodies currently have ‘a particular cultural currency in the popular imagination, and much is at stake in maintaining beliefs about black athletic superiority’ (2.3).

Susan Birrell, as early as 1990, lamented the absence of black women’s voices and experiences in sport scholarship, yet it was only 10 years later that scholarship incorporating the experiences of black women in sport started to emerge. While many studies of sport and race had previously focussed on men, perpetuating the construction of black sportsmen as universal subjects (Carrington, 1998), studies of gender and sexuality in sport, have tended to focus on the experiences of white women (Douglas and Jamieson, 2006).

In response, the early 2000s saw the emergence of intersectional analyses of sport management and participation (Scraton et al., 2005), including the construction and experience of black sportswomen (Adjepong and Carrington, 2014; Douglas, 2002, 2005) and the invisibility and normativity of whiteness in sport (Adjepong, 2015; Douglas, 2005; McDonald, 2012, 2014). In their examinations of women’s football in England, Scraton et al. (2005) illustrated that, by utilising intersectional analyses sport scholarship could start to engage more meaningfully with the complexity of black women’s experiences in sport, without essentialising difference(s), and/or reducing black women’s experiences to victimhood.

More recently, research has started to move beyond analyses of race and gender to critically examine the universality and invisibility of whiteness in the world of sport (Hylton, 2008; McDonald, 2012, 2014). Adjepong (2015: 10), in her study of women’s rugby in the United States, illustrates how white privilege can facilitate and legitimate transgressions of gender and sexual norms and expectations in sports. A key component of white privilege in sport is the ability to act and be seen as ‘just people’, not a racialised being that is seen as representative (only) of one’s own racial grouping (Douglas, 2005; Dyer, 1997; Hylton, 2008).

The myth of natural black athleticism is also a deeply gendered discourse (Azzarito and Harrison, 2008), wherein black women are represented as being inherently masculine and powerful (Vertinsky and Captain, 1998), and hence positioned outside dominant definitions of womanhood (Douglas, 2002). Delia Douglas (2005) has explored the normativity of whiteness to draw attention to how everyday practices of racialisation give rise to dehumanising and humiliating representations of black women athletes. Adjepong and Carrington (2014: 170) argue that black sportswomen are faced with ‘a different set of assumptions than white women about their femininity (or lack thereof) and their sporting ability’. Hence, they expose how norms and expectations around sporting femininities are deeply centred around norms of white, heterosexual and middle-class femininity.

Recent scholarship on race and gender in sport has made a significant contribution to new knowledge production by exposing the salience of representational regimes that portray black sportswomen through racial stereotypes. Moreover, this set of scholarship has also engaged critically with the agency and resistance of black women athletes in relation to racist and sexist stereotypes, and shown how ‘controlling images’ are resisted and reshaped by athletes themselves (Adjepong and Carrington, 2014; Douglas, 2002).

Engaging racialisation

In this article, we use the concept of racialisation to explore when and how ‘race’ is articulated in Scandinavian football clubs’ representations of, and engagements with, Nigerian women footballers. As a general term, racialisation refers to ‘a process of categorization, a representational process of defining an Other (usually but not exclusively) somatically—[it] is a dialectical process in which the defining of others necessarily entails the definition of a sense of Self’ (Miles, 1989: 75). To explore the process of racial exchange(s) in Scandinavian women’s football, we draw on Didier Fassin’s ‘three-persons approach’ to racialisation. Fassin (2011: 422) argues that, following racialisation, three ‘persons’ are paradigmatically present: the first person who ascribes a racial qualification, the second person who recognizes herself as racialised, and a third person who objectifies and accounts for the racial interaction.

The foundational acts of racialisation, racial identification and ascription, involve two of these figures; the person who does the racialisation, and the person who is racialised. However, through identifying an ‘other’, the first person also reveals her or his own racial positioning. In this article, we explore this positioning through analysing how whiteness is reproduced as an invisible norm when Scandinavian club officials identify and ascribe otherness and difference to Nigerian women footballers. It is through naming whiteness, and exploring the process through which its normativity and invisibility is sustained, that the authority of whiteness can begin to be challenged (Dyer, 1997; Frankenberg, 1993).

Fassin’s (2011) approach to racialisation requires that the third ‘figure on the scene’ – the observer who accounts for the racialised interaction and gives it ‘a public life’ (425) – also engages with their own racial positioning. In this article, it is us – the authors – who constitute the third person. This offers some analytical and methodological possibilities for examining ‘race’. Analytically, it makes whiteness visible through its interrogation of Scandinavian self-understanding as ‘without race’. Methodologically, the racial identity of the observer(s) is made visible – the authors of this article include two white, female and Scandinavian sport, migration and gender scholars, and a black, male and South African sociologist of race and religion. In our collaboration, the importance of the racial positioning of the observer(s) became evident through our differentiated experiences of the normativity of whiteness in the Scandinavian region.

We agree with Fassin (2011) that racial identification does not necessarily equate with racism. However, we hold that racial ascription is never ideologically neutral, and that regardless of whether such racial ascriptions of the black other are invoked in narratives of affirmation, or of stigmatisation, they nonetheless rely on a repertoire of ideas and images (Said, 1978) that informs the initial identification with particular meanings. In the Scandinavian countries, as in the rest of Europe, race is seldom explicitly mentioned, although it remains salient through coded terms such as ‘integration’, ‘ethnicity’ and ‘culture’ (Goldberg, 2006). Because of this ‘racial avoidance’ (Goldberg, 2006: 343), we include into our usage of racialisation a recognition of the linkages between racial biology and contemporary cultural racism (Mulinari et al., 2009).

Further, our approach to racialisation demands interrogation both of marked (i.e. blackness, femininity) and unmarked (i.e. whiteness, masculinity) positions (Phoenix, 2006: 22). In the context of professional sports, race and gender are often considered to be fundamental markers of particular material and physical capacities; they are inscribed both with significant meaning and currency. Race and gender are not, however, distinct axes of differentiation that can be explored in an additive fashion (Yuval-Davis, 2011). Hence, we include in our use of ‘racialisation’ the recognition that, as a social categorisation, race is mutually imbricated and co-constituted with gender (Crenshaw, 1989; Phoenix, 2006). Meaning that we explore not merely representations of race but also how racialisation is gendered, and how normative gender regimes reassert whiteness as the norm (Collins, 2004).

Methods and material

The empirical material presented in this article is drawn from the first author’s PhD project on Nigerian women’s football migration into, and within, Scandinavia.³ This project was concerned with the production of Nigerian women footballers’ movements into Scandinavian women’s clubs. Women’s football migration is a well established, yet growing, phenomenon. Research indicates that migrant players make up 36–50% of players in the core countries (which includes Scandinavia) of women’s football (Tiesler, 2011). The project focused on the Scandinavian region, as the women’s football leagues here have become increasingly popular to international players from a variety of countries (Botelho and Agergaard, 2011). During the 2008/2009 season, nearly 50% of players in the Swedish top league ‘Damallsvenskan’ were international migrants (Tiesler, 2011), indicating that the Scandinavian countries form part of the ‘core’ of recruiting countries in women’s football migration.⁴

Many women football players, especially in the global South, need to migrate in order to be able to make a living as professionals. Figures suggest that 28% of African national women football team players were international migrants in the 2008–2009 season (Tiesler, 2011). At the time of this study, Nigerian women were the only football migrants from the African continent employed in Scandinavian clubs, indicative of the leading role the country has played in the development of women’s football on the continent. In 2013, Nigerian women footballers made up the second largest group of international players in the Swedish top league, outnumbered only by players from Finland. Over the last 12 years, at least 30 Nigerian women have played professionally in Scandinavia for varying lengths of time (from six months to 10 years).⁵

A case study of this growing phenomenon provides insight into complex issues at the intersection of processes related to the globalisation, commodification and professionalisation of women’s football, and sport more generally. Moreover, this case study offers a valuable vantage point into discourses and experiences of gender and racialisation in Scandinavian sport, a hitherto under-researched field. Last, we find that the racialisation of Nigerian women football migrants offers insights into how Scandinavian societies read, receive and represent women migrants from the postcolonial South in line with stereotypical notions of victimhood.

The PhD project utilised multi-sited fieldwork (Marcus, 1995) and in-depth semi-structured interviews as the main research methods. Twelve current, and former, sport administrators, directors and coaches were interviewed, at six different women’s football clubs in Scandinavia. These six clubs were chosen as they were the clubs that had the most (longest and most sizeable) experience with employing women footballers from Nigeria. Eleven current, and former, Nigerian women football migrants were also interviewed, at their places of residence in Scandinavia and/or Nigeria. The interviews with officials inquired into the clubs’ strategies for, and experiences of, recruitment and employment of international migrants in general, and Nigerian footballers in particular. Their perspectives on the potentials, capacities and actual performances of players are key in making sports labour migration possible. The interviews with migrant players explored their wishes for, and experiences of, migration into/within Scandinavia, as well as their experiences with Scandinavian clubs to date. All but one of the interviews were voice-recorded and subsequently transcribed⁶ and anonymised. The transcripts were coded according to themes, in two stages, and analysed using a holistic-content approach (Lieblich et al., 1998) and critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003).⁷

The positionality of the first author (who was also the interviewer) shaped the interactions between the researcher and the different participants, as well as the content of the interviews. Her being a white, middle-class, Norwegian woman meant that, in discussion with the white (and mostly older male) Scandinavian club officials, their ‘shared status’ with her was frequently emphasised through appealing to presumed common-sense knowledge. In the interviews with the (black, Nigerian) migrant players, the racial position of the researcher was less of an advantage. Hence, discussing race and racism became a protracted process. When asked about whether they had experienced racism in Scandinavia, the participants typically responded in the negative. Yet, over time, and with increasing trust and ease with each other, the participants shared their experiences with stereotyping and ideas of racial difference more freely.

Constructing a racialised ‘us’ and ‘them’

When Scandinavian clubs were asked about their approach to international recruitment, all six clubs were clear that they prefer to employ local and national players, but that there simply are not enough talented local and national players to form a competitive team on the highest level of Scandinavian women’s football. In an interview, one of the clubs presented the interviewer with a prioritised list of countries from which they recruit international players. At the top of their list, after Scandinavian players, were players from the Nordic region (Scandinavia, Finland and Iceland), followed by Europeans, North Americans and Australians. Last were players from South American and Africa. This suggests that there is a preference for recruiting players from countries within presumed geographic and cultural proximity.

For most club officials, it was their belief in football similarities that was the biggest motivating factor for recruiting players from Europe and North America, rather than Africa or South America. In these narratives, officials presented a geographic schema of football ‘cultures’ and styles. Per, one of the head coaches interviewed, expressed this clearly:

I think South American countries and African countries, if I can generalise a bit, I think they are more with the ball … whereas we others, Americans, Norwegians, Germans … understand that we also have to train the tough stuff.⁸

Per here presents an understanding of what it is that makes European and North American ‘more similar’ to Scandinavian players than African and South American, by drawing on common football stereotypes of African and South American football as being childish and amateurish, and European football as disciplined and tactical (Lanfranchi and Taylor, 2001; Ungruhe, 2013). Although Per acknowledges the stereotypical nature of this statement, he nevertheless presents white-majority Western countries as forming a stable group, united by shared approaches to, and talents for, football. In so doing, Per implicitly invokes race as a factor in boundary-making processes, where racialising the ‘other’, unites the ‘we’ category through its unmarked whiteness (Frankenberg, 1993).

Without explicitly mentioning race at all, both Per constructs a racial geography wherein whiteness is normative and universal, while remaining invisible. In these articulations, he is able to imagine a collective ‘we’ that extends beyond the Scandinavian context, a ‘we’ that is situated against South America and Africa as the racial ‘other’. Per argues that ‘we’ (Americans, Norwegians, Germans) have the same understanding of, and approach to, football, ‘we’ are more dedicated and hard-working because ‘we’ understand that football is not just fun and games. The association of white athletes with intellectual capacities, perseverance and hard work has been explored in research on race and sport (van Sterkenburg and Knoppers, 2012; McCarthy et al., 2003). The corollary to this is a racialised categorisation of ‘them’ founded in the belief that African and South American football is ‘trivial’, ‘light’ (Vidacs, 2006), childish and unspoilt and in need of further development to become fully professional (Ungruhe, 2013). Through this, the ‘we’ group is situated as the powerful, unspoken white norm, whereas the racial ‘other’ is peripheral and less gifted (Hylton, 2008).

Racialising bodies and physical talents

In the world of sport, a common racial stereotype is a belief that black athletes, and black men in particular, are naturally physically stronger than white athletes, making them more suitable for certain sports and certain positions on the field of play (Hylton, 2008; King, 2004). The coaches and administrators we interviewed expressed similar ideas about there being clear racial differences with regards to players’ physical strength and tactical abilities.

Erling, for instance, claimed that Nigerian players are really just ‘raw talents’. Erling categorised players from the African continent as having impressive bodily capital, but insufficient professional training and development. This is consistent with wider stereotypes about African football (Ungruhe, 2013). The idea that the Nigerian players have natural and inherent capacities that mark them as different from European and North American players was expressed by most of the club officials interviewed. Karl, for instance, argued that Africans have a genetic ‘upper hand’ on Europeans:

African people have more explosive muscles. If you look at an African you see, both boys and girls, they have bigger muscle-mass, that is my impression. They have a genetic little something I think. So they are quick but don’t always have as much stamina as Europeans. You can mix your training to get more stamina. But they are quicker and more muscular.

Karl here presents the common racial stereotype of black people being ‘natural athletes’ with superior physical strength and speed (Carrington, 2013; Hylton, 2008). Although he seems aware that he is drawing on a stereotype, Karl claims that his conclusion is valid because the differences are observable. In so doing, Karl rejects the idea that muscular difference is merely a racist stereotype, because he has seen this to be true. Through his assessment, Karl exposes how whiteness sustains its position as the unmarked norm; white bodies are ordinary, black bodies are exceptional and have a ‘genetic little something’.

Like Karl, Anna, a sports director, spoke of the natural and physiological advantages embodied by Nigerian footballers:

Gloria is an artist, she has got the ball and the rhythm in her blood … you can see she has the ball in her blood in a way, you see a clear difference between a [Scandinavian player] and Gloria. But not all Nigerians are like that, but they have … it in their blood, that rhythm.

Although Anna clearly admires Gloria’s talent and ‘rhythm’, she nonetheless represents Gloria as being a player endowed with ‘natural’ rather than achieved talents. Both Anna and Karl express respect and high esteem for the Nigerian players they are describing, yet through ascribing talents to inherent muscular capacities and ‘blood’ they are trivialising the achievements of Nigerian players. In short, the performances of Nigerian women footballers are to be expected because they are natural (Massao and Fasting, 2010). This tendency towards describing the success of black athletes with reference to their natural capacities, rather than hard work and intelligence, has been noted by scholars as common across various sports and countries (King, 2004; Kobach and Potter, 2013; Maguire, 1991). Illustrating that, although there may have been a decrease in negative representations of black athletes, stereotypical and trivialising notions of black athletic superiority persist, although such ideas are often articulated in positive terms (Kobach and Potter, 2013; McCarthy et al., 2003).

The ways in which club officials described the corporeal differences assigned to African bodies also illustrated the gendered dimensions of racialisation. Jan, a sports coordinator, articulated an understanding of African women as being exceptionally strong:

If you look at them, if I take Joy as an example, she is 19 years I cannot find a 19 year old here who is as physically strong [and] if you look at Rose when she gyms when she [works it] I would never be close to that, it is impossible. She is so strong throughout all of her [body].

Jan here argues that the muscular differences between Nigerian women and Scandinavian women, and men, are visible and evident; through their athletic performance, Nigerian women prove their superiority. In the first instance, Jan compares Joy to Scandinavian women of the same age, in order to illustrate how much stronger she is than ‘normal’ (white) women. In the second sentence, Rose gets depicted as a woman of superhuman strength, able to train harder and lift heavier weights than a (white) man. Not only does this reassert the presumed natural physical superiority of black bodies, it also suggests that black women are so naturally strong that they defy gender differences.

By suggesting that Rose is stronger, ‘in her whole body’, than a man, Jan echoes historical and colonial representations of African and black women as being ‘closer to nature’, more masculine, and stronger than white women (Collins, 2004; Vertinsky and Captain, 1998). These myths about the ‘strength of black women’ posit them as akin to ‘superwomen’, who are physically intimidating and possess animalistic strength (Douglas, 2002). Here, the inordinate strength of black women is presented as consistent with qualities of blackness (natural strength and athletic ability), yet inconsistent with qualities of womanhood (weaker and less athletic than men). Through this positioning of black women’s strength as outside the white norm of femininity, discourses of gendered and racial difference are left intact. Because they are not like ‘normal’ (white) women, black women are not the standard-bearers of femininity, hence the strength ascribed to black and Nigerian women footballers does not threaten traditional gender regimes wherein (white) women are seen as naturally physically inferior to men.

Football as ‘escape’ from poverty and patriarchy

Although the form of migration that Scandinavian clubs and Nigerian players take part in concerns the movement of highly skilled and professional footballers, club officials frequently suggest that humanitarian and developmental concerns are key motivating factors for migration ‘out of Africa’. They argue that, whilst Nigerian women footballers migrate to gain international experience, movement into Scandinavia also provides opportunities for social mobility and freedom that are not available to them in Africa. While there are certainly financial incentives for (Nigerian) women’s international football migration (into Scandinavia), motivational factors for movement are also related to aspirations for professional development that cannot be measured in monetary terms (Botelho and Agergaard, 2011). Studies have shown that African women footballers primary incentives for migrating are sporting ambitions rather than escape from poverty and exile (Agergaard and Botelho, 2013).

Notwithstanding this, Tore, a sports director, suggested that coming to Scandinavia is a tremendous learning experience for Nigerian footballers, particularly because ‘we northerners are more civilised’ than Africans. These ideas of migration ‘out of Africa’ are consistent with the idea that, for women from the South, movement into the North facilitates liberation – freedom from gender-based violence and poverty – and movement towards modernity: access to education, employment and gender equality. In this, Scandinavia is represented as a civilised destination, shaped by ideals of egalitarianism, gender equity and international solidarity and development (Sawyer and Habel, 2014). Civility, hence, is defined as a Scandinavian norm, that Nigerian women can gain access to through migration.

One aspect of this representation of the differences between Scandinavia and Nigeria is related to the meaning assigned to a successful career in football:

It is their lives they play for every day. I mean you and I we study and we work and then we grow tired and we change jobs. But they grow up with, well I don’t know how Jane grew up but I can imagine it wasn’t very affluent. And that is how this is life-determining I think. They actually play football for real! (Kåre, sports director)

For Kåre, while football might be underdeveloped in Nigeria, it is nevertheless an avenue through which Nigerian women, like Jane, can get access to ‘a better life’. Although he admits to having little knowledge about the exact conditions under which Jane grew up, he nevertheless feels confident in asserting that she probably did not have a wealthy upbringing. As a result, Kåre suggests, Jane has had ‘no choice’ but to make the best of her football talents – she is playing for her life. Kåre and the interviewer, on the other hand, are characterised according to their freedom to chose and change careers as they wish. Scandinavia, then, is asserted as a place of freedom and liberty.

In this representation, Jane emerges not as a trained professional that left Nigeria for the purpose of career development, but as an underprivileged African women who plays football as a route out of poverty. Through this representation of the state of affairs for women in Africa, an image is formed of the ‘average third world woman’ as someone who ‘leads an essentially truncated life based on her feminine gender (read: sexually constrained) and being “third world” (read: ignorant, poor, uneducated, tradition-bound, religious, domesticated, family-oriented, victimized, etc.)’ (Mohanty, 1988: 65). The representational regime Jan draws on, in other words, is based on a long-critiqued trope concerning the victimhood of African and ‘Third World Women’.

Jan, another sports coordinator, expressed a similar sentiment when he argued that, through remittances, Nigerian players in Scandinavia can provide financial security for their families. In his opinion, African players use their employment in Scandinavia as a way in which to send social and financial support ‘down to Africa’. In this sense, when Scandinavian clubs employ Nigerian women footballers, they do not only get to see themselves as contributing to individual empowerment and betterment but also to the development of families and communities. For Jan, there were also important gendered dimensions of his understanding of African poverty:

I think the African women are, first of all when they are born … [they have to] fetch food, clean up at home, if you are lucky you get to go to school. I don’t think one understands what a big responsibility they are born with, a heritage that we have no idea about.

In Jan’s understanding, African women, in general, carry huge domestic burdens and are denied access to education. Hence, the opportunity of migrating ‘out’, and finding employment outside of Africa entails freedom from oppressive gender regimes, and possibilities for empowering both self and extended families. By presenting Africa (in general) as shaped by gender inequality and denial of educational opportunities for women, Jan is implicitly positioning Scandinavia as the opposite. Depictions of Africa as underdeveloped and patriarchal reinforce Scandinavian self-understandings of being benevolent guardians providing migratory opportunities for African escaping poverty (Engh et al., 2013).

These depictions of black women athletes as, on the one hand, physically powerful, yet on the other as socially and culturally marginalised and disempowered, were articulated by several of the club officials. They suggested that while ‘the problem’ with male African footballers is perceived to be instilling discipline, the challenge with African women footballers is increasing their confidence in social situations. As one coach suggested, upon arriving in Scandinavia, Nigerian women footballers must be trained to be assertive and make eye contact with male coaches and administrators when speaking. In so doing, he also commented on the interviewer’s ability to do so. This coach took it upon himself to ‘teach’ the Nigerian players how to properly speak to and assert themselves among men – in doing this positioning himself as the protector of these women. Because of the work he put into this, he argues that the Nigerian women in question are much more confident in their dealings with (white) Scandinavian men. Here, ideas about the victimhood and submissiveness of African women enables this coach to present and imagine himself as a ‘white saviour’ – his integrity and good morals are made possible through the existence of a (black) woman in need.

Recognising and performing racialised expectations

Although they are reluctant to label situations where race is implicitly or explicitly invoked as constitutive of racism, Desiree and her co-nationals who have played professional football in Scandinavia are keenly aware of their ascribed difference from their white teammates. Gendered and racialised representation of African athletic superiority, and cultural patriarchy thus forms a key part of the interpretive frame through which Nigerian women footballers are read and assessed in Scandinavia. As the dominant representation, it is also a process of racialisation that Nigerian players become complicit in through forms of recognition, performance and mimicry. Several of the Nigerian players interviewed argued that African muscles are, in fact, different and stronger:

It is true that black players [are] stronger. It is natural. Black people from Africa [are] stronger and faster, maybe it is a gift from God. It is the time I came here that I saw. We are stronger than [Scandinavian] players, faster than white players. (Stella)

Like I have been [to] so many physiotherapists … They tell me my muscle is different from the European muscle they have been seeing … They tell me [my muscle is] different because I’m African. (Nneka)

Both Stella and Nneka here confirm ideas of African physical superiority, but both, interestingly, note that this ‘fact’ became evident to them after arriving in Scandinavia. This illustrates how racial difference is constructed in reference to an unmarked, white, norm, also by Nigerian players themselves. Though seemingly articulated as an asset for, and by, migrants, this differentiation reinforces an essentialist racial biology. Nevertheless, Stella sees her difference as a source of pride, a part of the uniqueness of African footballers. In his work on male African footballers in Germany, Ungruhe (2013) refers to this recognition and performance of ascribed racial otherness as self-charismatisation. This, he argues, entails ‘an active and continuous yet rather implicit endeavor of the individual player to style himself [sic] with qualities in order to receive recognition’ (Ungruhe, 2013: 198). In this sense, ascribed racial difference is performed so as to achieve success; by performing what is expected, players work towards ensuring and/or solidifying their employment.

Desiree articulated a particularly clear understanding of the need for her to perform in certain expected ways while she was an active footballer in Scandinavia. She said that, because she was expected to be the strongest player on the field, she needed to make sure that she in fact was:

Seriously like, you don’t have to be like only [a] technically good player. You have to be tough, you have to be like really strong. But, I think that’s what gives African players [an] edge over the Scandinavian players. Like if you’re tough, if you’re hard, you’ll easily get noticed.

Desiree exposes how, in order to increase their visibility and value to Scandinavian clubs, Nigerian players need to conform to, and mimic, stereotypes about their natural strength on the football field. Thus, complying with racialised stereotypes may function as a strategic move towards ensuring continued mobility and employment.

Conclusion

As our article has shown, racialised ascriptions do not always imply negative judgements; sometimes, they involve seemingly positive descriptions and expressions of admiration. Yet, even when the racialised other recognizes and mimics such ascription, ‘valorization of difference may … [nonetheless] result in paternalistic attitudes’ (Fassin, 2011: 423). In the context of Nigerian women’s football migration, Scandinavian clubs often construct the assumed difference embodied by African players positively, as having incredible raw talents and physical skills. Yet, they are also paternalistically considered deficient and in need of professional training and development so as to become fully fledged professionals.

These racialised imaginaries about Nigerian women football migrants serve to sustain the normativity of whiteness in Scandinavian sporting discourse, and maintain a Scandinavian self-image as post-racial and gender-equitable. This happens through three interrelated processes. First, African players are identified as racial ‘others’ who inhabit different cultural and bodily capital from the white norm. Through this process of assigning difference to others – locating otherness in their bodies and cultures – the invisible normativity of whiteness is sustained (Dyer, 1997). Yet, this is also precisely the moment at which white normativity is exposed, making challenges to, and critiques of, its privilege possible.

Second, the identified racial difference is ascribed meaning through drawing on ideas and narratives about the physiological differences between black and white bodies. In this, racial difference is naturalised and legitimised through assessments of athletic bodies and sporting performances. The ‘proof’ for racial difference is produced through a white gaze onto Nigerian women footballers; the uniqueness of their muscles and bodies is observable when they train, and their strength and rhythm is evident when they ‘trick’ and overpower other (white) players on the football field. By so doing, these representations trivialise the achievements and success of Nigerian women football migrants. Because they are seen to have natural strength and ‘rhythm in their blood’, their abilities and performances as professional footballers are not recognised as the result of years of hard work, dedication and professionalism.

Third, the ’otherness’ embodied by Nigerian women footballers in the Scandinavian context is attributed also to ideas about African under-development. The clubs assert that through migrating to Scandinavia, Nigerian women have the chance of achieving individual empowerment (by learning to assert themselves in the company of men) and ensure a safe financial future for their families ‘down in Africa’. As a result, Nigerian women’s football migrations are interpreted as a way of escaping African poverty and patriarchy, not as the result of strategic decisions and actions taken by highly skilled athletes. In this, their status as professionals is undermined.

It is through the figure of the third person – in this case the authors – that these racialised representational regimes can be exposed and challenged. By giving racialised incidents and stereotypes a ‘public life’, new insights can be brought into debates about race and racism in sport, within and beyond the Scandinavian region. We have illustrated that, although it does not require racist intentions or articulated experiences of racism, ascriptions and valorisations of racial difference serve to arrest black women athletes in gendered and racial tropes. These stereotypes trivialise the performances of black women on the sporting field, and expose Scandinavian complicity in colonial legacies of racial ascription and categorisation. As was the case with Desiree (whose narrative we introduced at the beginning of this article), gendered and racialised interpretations of Nigerian women’s mobility posit them as being ‘out of place’ in Scandinavia, despite being actively recruited and desirable migrants. Hence, illustrating that, amidst claims to colour-blindness, multicultural tolerance and developmental benevolence, racialised imaginaries and white normativity remain central in defining who does, and does not, belong in Scandinavian public spaces.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research project this article draws from was funded by NOS-HS: Nordic Research Councils for Humanities and Social Sciences.

Notes

References

Adjepong A (2015) “We’re like a cute rugby team”: how whiteness and heterosexuality shapes women’s sense of belonging in rugby. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. Epub ahead of print 28 April 2015. DOI: 10.1177/1012690215584092.

Adjepong

Carrington

(2014) Black female athletes as space invaders. In: Hargreaves

Anderson

(eds) Routledge Handbook of Sport, Gender and Sexuality, New York: Routledge, pp. 169–178.

Agergaard

Botelho

(2013) The way out? African players' migration to Scandinavian women's football. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics 17(4): 523–536.

Agergaard

Ryba

(2014) Migration and career transitions in professional sports: Transnational athletic careers in a psychological and sociological perspective. Sociology of Sport Journal 31(2): 228–257.

Agergaard S and Tiesler NC (eds) (2014) Women, Soccer and Transnational Migration. New York: Routledge.

Andersson

(2008) Flerfarget idrett. Nasjonalitet, migrasjon og identitet, Bergen: Bokforlaget.

Azzarito

Harrison

(2008) ‘White men can't jump': Race, gender and natural athleticism. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 43(4): 347–364.

Birrell

(1990) Women of color, critical autobiography, and sport. In: Sabo

Messner

(eds) Sport, Men and the Gender Order: Critical Feminist Perspectives, Champaign: Human Kinetics, pp. 185–201.

Botelho

Agergaard

(2011) “Moving for the love of the game?” International migration of female footballers into Scandinavian countries. Soccer & Society 12(6): 806–819.

10.

Botelho

Skogvang

(2013) The pioneers – Early years of the Scandinavian emigration of women footballers. Soccer & Society 14(6): 799–815.

11.

Browning

(2007) Branding Nordicity: Models, identity and the decline of exceptionalism. Cooperation and Conflict 42(1): 27–51.

12.

Carrington

(1998) Sport, masculinity and black cultural resistance. Journal of Sport & Social Issues 22(3): 275–298.

13.

Carrington

(2010) Race, Sport and Politics: The Sporting Black Diaspora, London: Sage.

14.

Carrington

(2013) The critical sociology of race and sport: The first fifty years. Annual Review of Sociology 39: 379–398.

15.

Chappel

Burdsey

Collinson

(2004) ‘Race' and ethnicity in English netball. Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal 13(1): 50–61.

16.

Coakley

(1998) Sport in Society, 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

17.

Coleman

Wadensjö

(1999) Immigration to Denmark. International and National Perspectives, Aarhus: Aarhus University Press for the Rockwoll Foundation Research Unit.

18.

Collins

(2004) Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender and the New Racism, New York and London: Routledge.

19.

Crenshaw

(1989) Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex. The University of Chicago Legal Forum 140: 139–167.

20.

Darnell

(2007) Playing with race: Right to play and the production of whiteness in ‘Development through Sport’. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics 10(4): 560–579.

21.

Darnell

Hayhurst

(2012) Hegemony, postcolonialism and sport-for-development: a response to Lindsey and Grattan. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 4(1): 111–124.

22.

Douglas DD (2002) To be young, gifted, black and female: A meditation on the cultural politics at play in representations of Venus and Serena Williams. Sociology of Sport Online. Available at: http://physed.otago.ac.nz/sosol/v5i2/v5i2_3.html (Accessed 16 June 2015).

23.

Douglas

(2005) Venus, Serena, and the Women's Tennis Association: When and where “race” enters. Sociology of Sport Journal 22(3): 256–282.

24.

Douglas

Jamieson

(2006) A farewell to remember: interrogating the Nancy Lopez farewell tour. Sociology of Sport Journal 23: 117–141.

25.

Dunning

(1992) Figurational sociology and the sociology of sport: Some concluding remarks. In: Dunning

Rojek

(eds) Sport and Leisure in the Civilizing Process: Critique and Counter-Critique, Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp. 221–284.

26.

Dyer

(1997) White, London and New York: Routledge.

27.

Engh

Agergaard

(2013) Producing mobility through locality and visibility: Developing a transnational perspective on sports labour migration. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 50(8): 974–992.

28.

Engh

Agergaard

Maguire

(2013) Established–outsider relations in youth football tournaments: an exploration of transnational power figurations between Scandinavian organizers and African teams. Soccer & Society 14(6): 781–798.

29.

Fairclough

(2003) Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research, London: Routledge.

30.

Fanon

(2008 [1952]) Black Skin, White Masks, London: Pluto Press.

31.

Fassin

(2011) Racialization: how to do races with bodies. In: Mascia-Lees

(ed.) A Companion to the Anthropology of Body and Embodiment, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 419–434.

32.

Frankenberg

(1993) The Social Construction of Whiteness: White Women Race Matters, London: Routledge.

33.

Goldberg

(2006) Racial Europeanization. Ethnic and Racial Studies 29(2): 331–364.

34.

Gullestad

(2004) Blind slaves of our prejudices: debating ‘culture’ and ‘race’ in Norway. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 69(2): 177–203.

35.

Hallinan

Bruce

Coram

(1999) Up front and beyond the centre line: Australian Aborigines in elite Australian rules football. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 34(4): 369–383.

36.

Hallinan

Judd

(2009) Race relations, indigenous Australia and the social impact of professional football. Sport in Society 12(9): 1220–1235.

37.

Hübinette

Tigervall

(2009) To be non-white in a colour-blind society: Conversations with adoptees and adoptive parents in Sweden on everyday racism. Journal of Intercultural Studies 30(4): 335–353.

38.

Hylton

(2008) ‘Race' and Sport: Critical Race Theory, New York: Routledge.

39.

Hylton

(2010) How a turn to critical race theory can contribute to our understanding of ‘race’, racism and anti-racism in sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 45(3): 335–354.

40.

Hylton

(2015) ‘Race’ talk! Tensions and contradictions in sport and PE. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy 20(5): 503–516.

41.

King

(2004) Race and cultural identity: Playing the race game inside football. Leisure Studies 23(1): 19–30.

42.

Kobach

Potter

(2013) The role of mediated sports programming on implicit racial stereotypes. Sport in Society 16(19): 1414–1428.

43.

Lanfranchi

Taylor

(2001) Moving with the Ball: The Migration of Professional Footballers, Oxford: Berg Publishers.

44.

Lieblich

Tuval-Mashiach

Zilber

(1998) Narrative Research: Reading, Analysis and Interpretation, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

45.

McCarthy

Jones

Potrac

(2003) Constructing images and interpreting realities: the case of the black soccer player on television. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 38(2): 217–238.

46.

McDonald

(2012) Thinking through sport, analyzing whiteness. Journal of Multicultural Discourse 7(3): 235–241.

47.

McDonald

(2014) Mapping intersectionality and whiteness: troubling gender and sexuality in sport studies. In: Hargreaves

Anderson

(eds) Routledge Handbook of Sport, Gender and Sexuality, Routledge: New York, pp. 151–159.

48.

Maguire

(1991) Sport, racism and British society: A sociological study of England’s elite male Afro/Caribbean soccer and rugby union players. In: Jarvie

(eds) Sport, Racism and Ethnicity, Routledge: New York, pp. 94–123.

49.

Marcus

(1995) Ethnography in/of the world system: the emergence of multi-sited ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology 24(1): 95–117.

50.

Massao

Fasting

(2010) Race and racism: Experiences of black Norwegian athletes. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 45(2): 147–162.

51.

Miles

(1989) Racism, London: Routledge.

52.

Mohanty

(1988) Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Feminist Review 30: 61–88.

53.

Mulinari

Keskinen

Irni

(2009) Introduction. In: Keskinen

Tuori

Irni

(eds) Complying with Colonialism: Gender, Race and Ethnicity in the Nordic Region, Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 1–16.

54.

Necef

(2001) Indvandring, den nationale stat og velfærdsstaten. In: Seeberg

(ed.) Ubekvemme udfordringer. Aktuelle tendenser i den danske og europæiske indvandrerdiskussion, Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag, pp. 31–64.

55.

Phoenix

(2006) Interrogating intersectionality: productive ways of theorising multiple positioning. Kvinder, Køn og Forskning 2–3: 21–30.

56.

Said

(1978) Orientalism, New York: Random House.

57.

Sawyer

Habel

(2014) Refracting African and Black diaspora through the Nordic region. African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal 7(1): 1–6.

58.

Scott

C-G

(2015) African Footballers in Sweden: Race, Immigration, and Integration in the Age of Globalization, London: Palgrave McMillan.

59.

Scraton

Caudwell

Holland

(2005) ‘Bend it like Patel': Centring ‘race', ethnicity and gender in feminist analysis of women's football in England. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 40(1): 71–88.

60.

Tiesler NC (2011) Main trends and patterns in women’s football migration. In: Foomi-net Online Sources. Available at: http://diasbola.com/PDF/foomios/TIESLER_Main%20Trends%20WFM_Maastricht.pdf (accessed 16 February 2016).

61.

Ungruhe

(2013) “Natural Born Sportsmen”: Processes of othering and self-charismatization of African professional footballers in Germany. African Diaspora 6: 196–217.

62.

Van Sterkenburg

Knoppers

(2012) Sport as contested racial/ethnic discourse: processes of radicalization in Dutch sport media and sport policy. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 7(2): 119–136.

63.

Vertinsky

Captain

(1998) More myth than history: American culture and representations of the black female’s athletic ability. Journal of Sport History 25(3): 532–561.

64.

Vidacs

(2006) Through the prism of sports: why should Africanists study sports? Africa Spectrum 41(3): 331–349.

65.

Williams

(1997) Seeing a Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race, New York: The Noonday Press.

66.

Yuval-Davis N (2011) Power, intersectionality and the politics of belonging. FREIA Working Paper Series, 75. Aalborg: FREIA Feminist Research Center.