ABSTRACT
Studies indicate that refugee and family reunified women are particularly at risk in terms of their health, but that they also refrain from participating in health-promoting activities once asylum is granted. Furthermore, the lives of such women newcomers appear to be reversed by the increasingly restrictive asylum policy in receiving societies. In this chapter, we aim to contribute to a critical analysis of gendered experiences of the current restrictive asylum policy and of inequality in options for accessing leisure time physical activity. To do so, we suggest a transnational and intersectional perspective that combines insight into the experiences with sport and physical activity that particular groups of migrants bring with them, with the intersecting dimensions that shape their options for engaging themselves in leisure time physical activity in the receiving society. The analysis shows that all of the 12 interviewed Syrian and Eritrean women newcomers participated in sport as children, as well as everyday physical activity in their home countries, and wish to continue doing so. However, the analysis points to multiple dimensions that intersect in shaping unequal access to leisure activities for groups of women newcomers in the receiving nation states. The chapter provides some insight into the ways in which leisure time physical activity of the Muslim women in this research is contested, and how they negotiate such contestations.
