In her book, The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Methodology[1], Dorothy Smith asserts that the social analyst is always part of the social scene they study.  Within these scenes Smith goes on to say that there are numerous dynamics at play which create relations between objects and people.  These relations influence our behaviours by imposing instructions and protocols upon and between objects and individuals that we interact with in our everyday settings.  For instance, at one layer of relations a field is deemed to be a soccer field by a series of relations that bestow meaning onto the field.  Without these relations the field is merely a large rectangular surface covered by some sort of green bladed plant: it has no meaning and no function.  However, by connecting a relation to the green rectangle, declaring it to be a soccer field, the area takes on a series of meanings, giving it a place and a purpose within our everyday setting.

At my field site, I am an assistant coach for a group of Bhutanese boys who grew up in refugee camps in Eastern Nepal.  When I think about Smith and her methodology of looking at a place and recognizing the relations that are projected onto the settings we are positioned in, I wonder about the relations that exist on the field we practice on and where on that field I am in relation to these boys.

Our practices are held at a school, close to where the boys now live.  Although the field is even and the grass is cut regularly, there are no lines to mark the boundaries of play and the nets that are there are chained to fences at the ends of the field.  These nets face the fence.  Attempts have been made to contact the school to unlock them, but there has been no response on the school’s part.  We make due by playing with the nets backwards.

The other night I played on a soccer field at UBC.  It was perfectly groomed and had solid visible white lines and eight nets on the field.  In both fields there are sufficient relations to declare them as soccer fields, but where one thrives, the other lacks.  And in this case, the lack of access to nets at the other school, in comparison to my experience at UBC, highlights a disparity in relations concerning membership.

As a UBC student and a campus resident I have access to one of the best soccer fields I have ever played on.  These fields are accessible to me because of my membership and proximity to UBC. Membership at their field, however, is locked away from these boys, and reserved for others  This field represents their home turf, but ironically they lack the membership which would grant them the full capacity to make the field into a fully functional soccer field: a field with at least usable nets.

This difference in membership made me realize my position in relation to these boys.  In one respect, my relation to them is that of an outsider who is trying to gain membership into their group.  On the flip side, however, they are the outsiders and I stand to represent the group they seek membership into: Canadian society.  Although we physically stand on the same field, we run under the constraints of many shared but also many different relations and the varied spectrums of the relations between us situate us on symbolically different fields.  In that sense, we live fields apart from each other, but not worlds apart by any means.

This distance can be bridged, and through playing soccer we can make this happen by helping build new relations – relations that extend memberships to these boys.  It is from this position that I realize just how important and meaningful playing soccer can be, and this is something I am now reminded of every time I see a soccer field.