ABSTRACT
Cricket due to its "missionary" role within British imperialism and colonialism, occupied a central site in many of the anticolonial struggles both within the Caribbean and elsewhere within the Empire. In this chapter, the author reports on his field research about a cricket club in England whose members were West Indian. He traces the meanings associated with cricket in relation to Black masculinity by examining the role of sport as a form of cultural resistance to the ideologies and practices of White racism. The author shows the absences within contemporary sociology of sport theorizing around race, which has led to incomplete understandings of the complex ways in which gender operates. It is argued that it is necessary to produce more critical theorizations of the intersections of race with gender, nation, and class if people are to fully appreciate how social identities are constructed. A theoretical account follows of the historical and contemporary significance of sport within racialized societies.
