Broadly social mobility research has focused on either the intergenerational (from parents to children across generations) or the intragenerational (across one’s own career) movement between strata such as social class. Anthropologists have looked at social mobility through the lens of aspirations, educational and occupational attainment and migration. Research on social mobility has recently begun to focus on sports and the opportunities that access to sports may provide (Spaaij and Ryder 2022). Sport, particularly elite or professional sports, provides aspirations for those from a range of social locations to better their position, and it also provides a possible avenue for equalizing opportunities for class mobility for those from diverse caste, class, religious and regional backgrounds.
Going beyond the research on gender discrimination in sports, this paper aims to look at sports as a potential avenue for upward social mobility and focuses on the gendered nature of the opportunities available for social mobility.
This paper looks at the discourse, both media and academic, on and around the recently floated Women’s Premier League in cricket while comparing that to other professional sporting opportunities for women in India. It studies the possibilities of seeing sport as a place of exploring social mobility options and imagination of social mobility. This paper will study the barriers and opportunities that women face when they consider sport as a profession by analysing the role sport plays in both aspirations and the attainment of social mobility. This research will be positioned within the anthropology of sport and the literature on social mobility.
