In my father's shoes: an anti-colonial autoethnography of a sporting Indo-Fijian girl

While there is substantial literature on the sporting experiences of girls and women from the Global North and increasing contributions from the Global South, there remains a scarcity of narratives focused on minority and marginalised young non-Indigenous women and their athletic pursuits in involuntary postcolonial spaces, such as Indo-Fijians in Fiji. I am a fourth-generation descendant of Indian indentured labourers, who were brought to Fiji by British colonizers with false promises of a brighter future, only to become bound in servitude on the sugarcane plantations. Sports and physical activities have been an important part of my life since I was a child. I loved the thrill I got from playing soccer with my male cousins and the excitement I felt whilst sprinting barefoot under the blazing Fijian sun. The sweet ache in my small muscles and the sweat streaming from my nine-year-old frame made me feel like the fastest girl on earth. I must have been a brave child to embrace such a narrative in a postcolonial home where rugby is religion, and associated with Indigenous Fijian men, who are predominantly Christian. Soccer on the other hand is often seen as a migrant (Indian) sport associated with people perceived as 'softer.' The colonizers had meticulously separated the Indian indentured labourers from the Indigenous Fijians, and after they left, the two races struggled to coexist in harmony. During my childhood, I couldn't understand that my place in this "Promised Land," shaped by colonial history and defined by my gender and race, was subtly constraining my affordances and potential in sports. I reject all Fijian stereotypes that depict Indo-Fijian women as fragile and unathletic. How could such notions hold when my foremothers laboured from dawn till dusk in the Fijian sugarcane fields -putting their bodies on the line and their strength and endurance tested daily? This anti-colonial autoethnography channels my voice and lived experiences through an intersectional lens to unveil the multifaceted layers of marginalisation that Indo-Fijian girls face in both formal and informal Fijian sports arenas. Its aim is to craft counter-narratives and elevate the voices of those whose experiences have been overshadowed or ignored by colonial and outsider viewpoints.