Rethinking Identity Politics: The Multiple Attachments of an 'Exclusive' Sport Organization

This paper draws on a multi-sited ethnography of the North American Chinese Invitational Volleyball Tournament and examines the attachments and relationships that participation nurtures. I argue that rather than being exclusive, the NACIVT and its participants foster and nurture multiple relationships that extend beyond the NACIVT and Asianness. In doing so, I aim to do two things: 1) address the dearth of academic research on Asians and sport, particularly in the Western context and 2) explore the burgeoning work that offers a transnational analytic of sport, a key theoretical framework in exploring the sport experiences of Asian people in sport, that goes beyond discussions of stereotypes and barriers to participation, but brings into view the effects of how Asia is constructed and imagined.