Maidaan-e-Khel: An ethnography of residential politics, citizenship and soccer in New Delhi

Wednesday, December 4 | 10am | Hybrid format in-person in HC 2270 (Vancouver Campus) on on Zoom

Abstract:
Soccer, or ‘football’ as it is known in South Asia, is a sport that has been played in the Subcontinent in various forms across language, region, religion, gender, and castes. In India, specifically in the capital city of New Delhi, soccer is played across varying types of age groups, class, castes and religions. This thesis is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in New Delhi to show how soccer is created as an urban practice and how soccer fields are a site of urban contestations. I outline and analyze the urban structure of two distinctly different parts of New Delhi and how the residents negotiate and shape spaces where sports are played. I look at the negotiation of space as a process, drawing from anthropological critiques of Henri Lefebvre’s Right to The City as well as Partha Chatterjee’s conceptualizations of citizenship in India. Soccer in this study shall be used to view and experience the city, its infrastructure, and its politics. I highlight and expand upon the conditions under which space for soccer is made within the city, and I argue that residents rely on a range of methods to make and claim such spaces. This thesis is based on fieldwork conducted from September 2023 to March 2024 and includes participant observation of soccer players across New Delhi and interviews with players and bureaucrats in the city.

Examining Committee:
Chair: Dr. Stacy Pigg, Professor, Sociology & Anthropology, SFU
Supervisor: Dr. Cristina Moretti, Assistant Professor, Sociology & Anthropology, SFU
Committee Member: Dr. Nicholas Scott, Associate Professor, Sociology & Anthropology, SFU
External Examiner: Dr. Priti Narayan, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, UBC

Please note that the defence will be held in a Hybrid format in-person in HC 2270 and on Zoom. If you'd like to be added to the Zoom attendee list, please contact gradsecsa@sfu.ca no later than 4PM on Monday December 2nd, 2024.