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In the past few decades, Spanish football has undergone a significant transformation, both on and off the pitch. Llopis-Goig analyses these trends, questioning the role of football in contemporary Spanish society and examining the historical reasons for its social hegemony.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, a generation of children crossed the border from the United States to begin their lives anew in Mexico. While all were international migrants, their roots spread far and wide. Some were migrant returnees born in Mexico; others had only ever known a life in the United States. Distinguishing returnees from new arrivals seems simple, but defining these youths' affiliations in their new homes in Mexico is much more complex and yields new insights that enrich our contemporary understanding of inclusion and belonging. This book is the product of twenty-five years' worth of fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue and research on these children's trajectories, tracing their journeys and studying integration—or lack thereof—into Mexican society and institutions.
Spanish soccer is on top of the world, at international and club level, with the best teams and a seemingly endless supply of exciting and stylish players. While the Spanish economy struggles, its soccer flourishes, deeply embedded throughout Spanish social and cultural life. But the relationship between soccer, culture and national identity in Spain is complex. This fascinating, in-depth study shines new light on Spanish soccer by examining the role this sport plays in Basque identity, consolidated in Athletic Club of Bilbao, the century-old soccer club located in the birthplace of Basque nationalism. Athletic Bilbao has a unique player recruitment policy, allowing only Basque-born players ...
This book provides an overview of perspectives and approaches to the cultural meaning of sport volunteering in different countries. The main objective is to reflect on the diversity of meanings with regard to volunteering in different cultures and societies. Additionally, this book will shed light on volunteering practices and the impact of volunteering from both an economic and a sociological perspective. The book begins with an introductory section that gives an overview of the rationale of the text and the diversity of sport volunteers in general. From there, the book's 25 chapters each discuss a specific country case study provided by researchers from the respective country. These studie...
Few cultural activities speak more powerfully to international histories of the modern world than football. In the late nineteenth century, this cheap and simple sport emerged as a major legacy of Britain's formal and informal empires and spread quickly across Europe, South America, and Africa. More slowly and hesitantly, it made inroads into the sports cultures of North America and Australasia. Today, football (known to many as soccer) is arguably the world's most popular pastime, an activity played and watched by millions of people around the globe. It has also become the focus of a rich and diverse body of scholarly research. Contested Fields introduces readers to key aspects of the global game, synthesizing research on football's transnational role in reflecting and shaping political, socio-economic, and cultural developments over the past 150 years. Each chapter uses case studies and cutting-edge scholarship to analyze an important element of football's international story: migration, money, competition, gender, race, space, spectatorship, and confrontation.
This book examines how and why sport in general, and football in particular, entered the country and developed successfully between 1890 and the 1920s, while placing that growth within the context of Spain’s larger historical experience. The introduction of sport in the late 19th century permanently changed the day-to-day lives of thousands of Spaniards. Initially, the country’s growing urban middle-classes embraced the new activity as they built community identities and were introduced to it through economic and educational connections to foreigners. To justify this, these proponents argued that the adoption of physical education and sport would physically regenerate the nation. In resp...
This book explores the rise, size and shape of the European fitness industry by using harmonised data as well as in-depth analyses of national surveys in fifteen European countries. Following an introduction to the socio-historical and conceptual aspects of fitness, the collection presents the scope of fitness as a business and participatory activity. Furthermore, both policy and governance issues as well as community and supply angles are considered. Drawing on this unique material, the book will appeal to students and scholars of sport business, sport economics, sport management, and social sport sciences, but also to administrators, policymakers and entrepreneurs in the international and national sport and health community.
This book explores the tradition of left wing political thinking in the culture of fans of professional football in Europe. It sets out to chronicle and celebrate the fraternal, communal and radical tradition of football - seen to best effect in demands for democratic fan ownership and control of clubs, in fan campaigns against racist and fascist mobilisation of football supporters, and in a firm commitment to anti-corporatism. Drawing on the rich and varied traditions of fan cultures across Europe, the book examines how football, as a cultural form, carries with it the possibility of promoting the voices of the disenfranchised and the marginalised, and so the basis for nurturing solidarity against oppression, alienation and exploitation current in modern capitalist society. This book was published as a special issue of Soccer and Society.
This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online.
This book examines the experiences of amateur players in women’s football, challenging conventional discourses that centre male, masculine, and heterosexual identities and offering a new narrative that re-positions women’s voices. Based on original empirical research, including extended interviews with female players, the book outlines current debates in women’s football around gender, identity, and intersectionality. It explores football as a space of contestation, examining the creative ways in which women have negotiated opportunities to play football and the friendships and sociality that emerge from playing the game. The book examines resistance to historically bound cultural norms that privileges men’s participation, reflecting on mixed-sex football, femininity, embodiment, physical capital, and authenticity, and considers how this deeper understanding of football cultures might help in the future development of the women’s game. This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in football, women’s sport, the sociology of sport, or gender studies.