Sisterhood and affective politics: The CaiRollers mobilising change through roller derby in Egypt

Abstract

This article narrates the affects and experiences of the CaiRollers, the first and only roller derby team in Egypt. Through visual affective discourse analysis of their Instagram account and interviews with team members, the article addresses the question: What do physical practices such as roller derby ‘do’ in e/affecting and mobilising change? In conversation with feminisms from the Middle East, our analysis highlights how the team’s ‘sisterhood’ is a site of affective politics that transcends the roller derby track. At the same time, a desire to be tough and to embrace risk permeated the CaiRollers discourses. Yet, while the team has established its legitimacy within the transnational roller derby community, we narrate the obstacles they face in Egypt. In sum, we found that the CaiRollers involvement in roller derby was entangled in mobilising change in political movements, gender politics, transnational mobilities and questions of legitimacy and sport.

“Troubled” derby subjectivities: Wellbeing and feminist new materialist movements in sport

“…In previous work, I have written about the ways in which roller derby was said to “save our souls”, providing a saviour to those who “discover” the sport. This notion of roller derby being a site of deep transformation for those who participate continued to emerge as I talked to women in different national contexts, including Egypt and China (Pavlidis, 2018; Pavlidis & O’Brien, 2017; Rodriguez Castro et al, 2021).…”