Calypso cricket: connecting cultures in California

Abstract

This paper is an early field-report from an ongoing PhD project investigating socio-cultural phenomena displayed through cricket in the USA. The targeted location, Los Angeles, California, is a melting pot of cultures from English to Indian, Jamaican to Australian, and not forgetting American, so it is an ideal place for ethnographic research around this trans-cultural activity. The paper attempts to highlight the grounded nature of ethnography when using narratives to (a) approach the field, followed by (b) observation notes in the field through participant observation, arriving at (c) representation of emergent concepts or new themes to guide the research further. The field notes made in the USA (b) are chronological and written stylistically to include a rich, detailed description of events that took place across one social cricket match (in the 4th tier of the Southern California Cricket Association) between teams from Bangladeshi and Caribbean backgrounds. This glimpse into the world of cricket in the USA mimics a style of writing in minutia used by Nicholson Baker (1988) when describing his observations during a lunch hour at work.