Sport Migration and Gender in the Neoliberal Age

The intersection of sport, mobility, and gender gives a lens through which this collection of ethnographic chapters explore the effects of neoliberalism on the life projects of athletes in the Global South, examining gender relations, the dynamics of neoliberal sport and the way these redefine social relations.

Neoliberalism has reconfigured the sport industries since the 1980s, as sport clubs and federations have now become for-profit businesses, in conjunction with...
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The intersection of sport, mobility, and gender gives a lens through which this collection of ethnographic chapters explore the effects of neoliberalism on the life projects of athletes in the Global South, examining gender relations, the dynamics of neoliberal sport and the way these redefine social relations.

Neoliberalism has reconfigured the sport industries since the 1980s, as sport clubs and federations have now become for-profit businesses, in conjunction with television and sponsoring corporations. Neoliberal sport has had other important effects, which are rarely the object of attention: as the national economies of the Global South have collapsed under pressure from global capital, many young people dream of pursuing a sport career as an escape from poverty. But this elusive future is often located elsewhere, in the wealthy economies of the Global North that are able to support a sport infrastructure. The pursuit of this future has transformed kinship relations, social structures, and the subjectivities of people as they seek to take advantage of new global opportunities. This collection of rich ethnographies from diverse regions of the world, from Ghana to Finland and from China to Fiji, pulls the reader into the lives of young men and women who strive to migrate and break into professional sport to bring economic security to families, villages, and neighbourhoods. It shows that the ideals of neoliberal spread in surprising ways and how athletes' migrations provide a novel angle on the workings of neoliberalism around the world.

This book will be of key interest to scholars in Gender Studies, Anthropology, Sport Studies and Migration Studies.