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DOI: 10.1177/0263276406065116 Beyond a Boundary (of a Field of Cultural Production)Reading C.L.R. James with BourdieuDepartment of Sociology, Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences, University of Glasgow This article responds to the suggestion that C.L.R. James discussion of cricket, and particularly his defence of the spirit of the game, represent an ideological blind-spot on his part. James autobiographical account of the cricketing field, it is argued, is comparable to Pierre Bourdieus account of the fields of culture more generally. In particular, James recognized that what was at stake in the defence of cricketing ethics was a defence of the principle by which the sport was able to operate with a relative autonomy from the forces of political and economic power. It was only in this respect that cricket was able to provide, within contexts such as those of the pre-independence Caribbean, a field on which an expressive critique of those very forces of power was possible.
Key Words: Bourdieu C.L.R. James colonialism popular culture sport
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