Black Fugitivity in the Sporting Workplace: The Story of Eniola Aluko

Being a Black fugitive involves constant movement: to find and cultivate spaces of safety and hope. In this paper, I curate a sporting archive about the UK Black women’s elite football player Eniola Aluko to read her as a Black fugitive. I demonstrate how she traversed a racist and anti-Black sporting workplace - where she was unfairly demonised and policed by white male guardians of the women’s game as well as her fellow white women team-mates - to find spaces of self-care, solidarity, and career satisfaction. This article provides new knowledge about the sporting workplace relevant to feminist and anti-racist scholars in and beyond the U.K. who want to understand how Black women understand, navigate, and transcend discriminatory workplace environments.