Aisha Ahmad joins the research team

Aisha is an avid footballer and has been capped three times for the British Muslim women’s football team.  Aisha is CEO and founder of an inter-faith sports charity All Sports Women.  The charity was established to encourage cross-cultural dialogue through sports participation, with the hope of using sport as a means to bridge the gap between different faith groups and cultures.  Aisha continues to challenge stereotypical notions of the ‘Asian woman’ through her academic research and community involvement.  In this post Aisha tells us a little bit more about her research.

I am interested in the links between gender and ethnicity and the ways in which these impact on young people’s involvement in sport.  In my doctoral research I explored the power relations between religion, gender and sport through a case study of the British Muslim women’s football team. As a member of this football team I carried out interviews and focus groups with the team and travelled to Iran to compete and carry out field research at the Women’s Islamic Games. My work is lodged within a feminist framework and explores the contributions of Islamic feminism to the field of sport. I have been involved in research that looks at the ways in which gender and faith impact on sports participation and my work highlights the inequalities that still exist in sport today. I have written on various issues including Islamic feminism, racism and gendered Islamophobia in sport.     

I have worked within various research projects across several universities, including: a sexual and domestic violence project evaluating sexual violence agencies across the UK and a faith, empowerment and gender project.  Most recently, I have worked on a European study with young people in schools to explore the barriers and facilitators of leading an active lifestyle.  I am particularly interested in those young people that are often highlighted within international reports as ‘at risk’ of sustaining healthy lifestyles including girls, low income families and those in high migration areas.  I am also interested in the importance of ‘positive role models’ for young females and the influence that these can have on sports participation. 

I have joined the CelebYouth research team and will be working full time until the project ends in July. I will primarily be working on analysing the case study data, but will also work with Kim, Heather (and Laura) on developing the project outputs and other communication events.