Email:

parthianshot@hotmail.com

RESEARCH TOPIC:

The impact of Pacific Islander players on rugby league in Sydney’s western suburbs.

PROJECT OUTLINE:

Identity issues are crucial to rugby league players of Pacific-Islander heritage in junior competitions. The proposed research will analyse to what extent notions of Pacific-Islander identity and culture have been accommodated by officials of junior league competitions and development oficer4s of National Rugby League (NRL) clubs in the greater western suburbs of Sydney since the 1990s. It will also assess the impact that this sizeable Pacific-Islander presence has had on the traditional rugby leagues cultures of Sydney’s west, on the recruitment policies of NRL clubs, which develop these players and on notions of identity within the wider Australian sporting culture.

BIOGRAPHY: 

Teaching creative writing to students with cerebral palsy and completing a novel.

OUTCOMES:

Associate Lecturer, School of Humanities, University of New South Wales  Sydney.: The Tom Brock Scholarship award contributed to a presentation to the Centenary of Rugby League conference and submission to the accompanying publication entitled “Suburban Footballers of Pacific Island Ancestry: The Changing Face of Rugby League in Greater Western Sydney.”

Chris Valiotis, ‘Suburban Footballers of Pacific Islander Ancestry: The Changing face of Rugby League in Western Sydney’, Centenary Reflections: 100 Years of Rugby League in Australia. edited by Andrew Moore and Andy Carr (ASSH Studies no. 25, 2008), pp. 141–56.