Negotiations of minority ethnic rugby league players in the Cathar country of France

This article is based on new empirical, qualitative research with minority ethnic rugby league players in the southwest of France. Drawing on similar research on rugby league in the north and the south of England, the article examines how rugby league, traditionally viewed as a white, working-class male game (Collins, 2006; Denham, 2004; Spracklen, 1995, 2001) has had to re-imagine its symbolic boundaries as they are constituted globally and locally to accommodate the needs of players from minority ethnic backgrounds. In particular, the article examines the sense in which experiences of minority ethnic rugby league players in France compare with those of their counterparts in England (Spracklen, 2001, 2007), how rugby league is used in France to construct identity, and in what sense the norms associated with the imaginary community of rugby league are replicated or challenged by the involvement of minority ethnic rugby league players in France. Questions about what it means to be (provincial, national) French (Kumar, 2006) are posed, questions that relate to the role of sport in the construction of Frenchness, and in particular the role of rugby league (and union). © Copyright ISSA and SAGE Publications