Black bodies in white male spaces. Black Italians or migrant background female athletes in the Italian sport.

Abstract

Sport, as a complex and ongoing phenomena, necessarily riflects social transformations that take place within society. A deep analysis of children of foreign origins participation in the Italian sport system shows the existance of “racial spatiality” (Harrison, 2013). These contexts display a “geography of exclusion” (Sibley, 1995) which is due to federal sporting regulations which often limit youth of foreign origins born and/or grow up in Italian’s access to sport, not only linked to “de facto professionalism” sport levels. “There are no black Italians”, chant directed during a football match to Mario Balotelli, a black Italian of ghanain origins football player, highlights how “Italianness” definition process is still both conflicting and in progress. The presence in the Italian national teams of black Italians or foreign origins women athletes induce to think not only about the new colour of Italian sport, but also on the necessity to re-signify, in more inclusive way, the concept of “Italianness”. The blackness of the above mentioned women athletes allows us to investigate through an intersectional approach on the legitimate colour of the Italian sport. The Black Italians (Valeri, 2006) permits us to examine the way in which “Italianness” is constructed both by Italian sporting bodies and black Italian or foreign origins female athletes. Moreover the presence of these athletes in the Italian sport context allow us to understand how they construct and negoziate their belongings within sport and Italian society