Reimagining Play

Abstract

Sabah Khan’s essay is an intersectional recount, of how football has been instrumental in enabling young Muslim women from a ghettoized suburb of Mumbai to engage with community and society imposed boundaries, illustrating the sports-for-development agenda. This engaging chapter serves as an illustration of the possibilities inherent in sport for enabling women, especially from disadvantaged and vulnerable communities to overcome social restrictions as well as patriarchal, gender-specific norms of dress and behaviour. The author describes her engagement with a group of women in the outskirts of Mumbai in their struggle to play, to stake claim to a public space and to participate in an activity that community and society do not view as being appropriate for women. The chapter serves to point to the many ways the study of sport and its participants may assist in the exploration of how change may occur in increments.