03 Sep Student Seminar Day 2
by Vitaly and Daryousch
What a great way to start a conference!
Exciting start to the conference! It has been a busy first day. Visiting Malmö FF to hear about their community projects, education campaign against racism followed by lectures about inclusion activities in Swedish sports and race in sports offered a good platform for settling into to the topic of the conference. We listened to a presentation about the Malmö FF’s education campaign (the campaign against racism). It was very interesting to get introduced to the methods and the idea of the club campaign. This sure will be helpful for the group work and it’s a good insight and practical experience we will take with us for today. Furthermore we visited the club museum and got on the pitch. As passionate football fans this field trip was definitely the highlight of the day. We learned about the way a club can promote education and children’s rights and get knowledge about a successful traditional Swedish football club.
There are a lot of expressions from the day. Meeting a lot of new people is fun and challenging since we are so many (looking forward to continuing meetings and getting to know the participants in the next days). The lecture of race and whiteness in sport was very interesting. Obviously, a topic of racism is a sensitive one. The reason this sticks out is because the lecture made us think how people relate to others is unconsciously affected by past experiences, beliefs and stereotypes that we are exposed to in a society.
What we will take away is the knowledge that it is impossible to not take a stand to this topic. Hiding or being blind to the topic means we do not acknowledge the challenges and the negative outcomes that unfortunately exists. At the same time, it is a double bind. Being aware of it and categorizing thoughts and stereotypes about races reinforces the differentiation we are trying to disrupt. It seems to be a paradox that is impossible to escape!