BELONGING: TIGER BAY BOXING CLUB

Belonging: Tiger Bay Boxing Club (2024) was co-created as part of the Co-POWeR (Consortium on Practices of Wellbeing and Resilience) research project, which examines how Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic communities redefined wellbeing and resilience during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. The film employs participatory and observational documentary methodologies to foreground lived experience within a community sports setting, positioning resilience as a relational and collective process rather than an individual trait. Informed by the WARM (Wellbeing and Resilience Measure) framework (Mguni & Bacon, 2010), the research conceptualises wellbeing as emerging through care, mentorship, and shared practice.

Set in Cardiff’s Butetown area, the film explores how Tiger Bay Boxing Club functions as a safe and nurturing space in a context shaped by social and economic marginalisation. Under the mentorship of coach Wasem Said, participants cultivate confidence, discipline, and belonging while navigating the pressures of the pandemic. Through participatory authorship, club members actively shape the film’s narrative and representation, determining what stories and images best reflect their experiences. This approach extends Catalin Brylla’s (2023) participatory documentary framework and responds to Paula Rabinowitz’s (1994) call for the political necessity of representation, ensuring participants are positioned as co-producers rather than subjects.

The film combines sustained observational sequences of training sessions and everyday interactions with narrative and semi-structured interviews, allowing meaning to emerge through action, rhythm, and embodied practice rather than exposition. In dialogue with theories of representation (Hall, 1997; Rabinowitz, 1994), Belonging treats visibility as an ethical and political act, foregrounding how being seen and heard contributes to identity formation and social recognition.

By resisting deficit-based portrayals of Black and minority ethnic youth, the film reframes community sport as a site of care, resilience, and collective value. As practice-based research, Belonging demonstrates how ethically grounded participatory documentary can generate original insights into wellbeing, representation, and belonging while supporting inclusive and affirmative modes of storytelling.