In Foreign Fields

Thomas F. Carter

Description

This book examines the lives, decisions and challenges faced by transnational sport migrants - those professionals working in the sports industry who cross borders as part of their professional lives.



Despite a great deal of romance surrounding international celebrity athletes, the vast majority of transnational sport migrants - players, journalists, coaches, administrators and medical personnel - toil far away from the limelight. Thomas F. Carter traces their lives, routes and experiences, documenting their travels and travails.



He argues that far from the ease of mobility that celebrity sports stars enjoy, the vast majority of transnational sports migrants make huge sacrifices and labour under political restrictions, often enforced by sport's governing bodies.
Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction: Sowing Transnational Fields

1. Routes and Strategies of Transnational Migration

2. Striding Across Fields of Global Sport

3. Tensions of Sovereignty and Citizenship

4. NEOsport and the Production of Transnational Sport Migrants

5. Family Matters: Negotiating the Risks and Costs of Mobility

6. Illegal Motion: Undocumented Migration and the Production of Illegality

Concluding Remarks: Experiencing the Politics of Transnational Migration

Works Cited

Media Sources

Index

Sujets

• Anthropology
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Social Science

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 08 juillet 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783713806
• Langue: English

Extrait

In Foreign Fields
Anthropology, Culture and Society
Series Editors:
Professor Vered Amit, Concordia University and Dr Jon P. Mitchell, University of Sussex
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IN FOREIGN FIELDS
The Politics and Experiences of Transnational Sport Migration
Thomas F. Carter
First published 2011 by Pluto Press
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Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by
Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Copyright © Thomas F. Carter 2011
The right of Thomas F. Carter to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3015 0 Hardback
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ISBN 978 1 7837 1381 3 Kindle eBook
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Contents

Series Preface
Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction: Sowing Transnational Sport Fields
1
Routes and Strategies of Transnational Sport Migration
2
Striding Across the Fields of Global Sport
3
Sport and the State: Tensions of Sovereignty and Citizenship
4
NEOsport and the Production of Transnational Sport Migrants
5
Family Matters: Risks and Costs of Mobility
6
Illegal Motion: Undocumented Migration and the Production of Illegality
Closing Comments: Experiencing the Politics of Transnational Sport Migration
Notes
References
Media Sources
Index
Series Preface

Anthropology is a discipline based upon in-depth ethnographic works that deal with wider theoretical issues in the context of particular, local conditions – to paraphrase an important volume from the series: large issues explored in small places . This series has a particular mission: to publish work that moves away from an old-style descriptive ethnography that is strongly area-studies oriented, and offer genuine theoretical arguments that are of interest to a much wider readership, but which are nevertheless located and grounded in solid ethnographic research. If anthropology is to argue itself a place in the contemporary intellectual world, then it must surely be through such research.
We start from the question: ‘What can this ethnographic material tell us about the bigger theoretical issues that concern the social sciences?’ rather than ‘What can these theoretical ideas tell us about the ethnographic context?’ Put this way round, such work becomes about large issues, set in a (relatively) small place, rather than detailed description of a small place for its own sake. As Clifford Geertz once said, ‘Anthropologists don’t study villages; they study in villages.’
By place, we mean not only geographical locale, but also other types of ‘place’ – within political, economic, religious or other social systems. We therefore publish work based on ethnography within political and religious movements, occupational or class groups, among youth, development agencies, and nationalist movements; but also work that is more thematically based – on kinship, landscape, the state, violence, corruption, the self. The series publishes four kinds of volume: ethnographic monographs; comparative texts; edited collections; and shorter, polemical essays.
We publish work from all traditions of anthropology, and all parts of the world, which combines theoretical debate with empirical evidence to demonstrate anthropology’s unique position in contemporary scholarship and the contemporary world.
Professor Vered Amit
Dr Jon P. Mitchell
Acknowledgements

This project has taken more than decade to complete and there are so many people to thank for their support that it is hard to know where to begin. I am certain that I will forget to mention someone important; for that I apologize in advance.
All the material presented in this book would have been impossible to obtain without the express help of a vast range of individuals. There have been numerous officials, sport and others, journalists, athletes, coaches and families that have given time, access and knowledge to assist me, including members of the Ulster Branch of the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU), Belfast Giants, Sports Council for Northern Ireland, Sport Wales, Ice Hockey UK (IHUK), CubaDeportes, Instituto Nacional de Deportes Educación Física y Recreación (INDER), dozens of clubs and teams, and several different media organizations in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, Canada, United States, United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland. I also have to thank the ‘pirates’ of a couple of boats in the Caribbean who provided unquestioned access and logistical support. You know who you are.
While some ancillary field data from another ethnographic project suggested that transnational sport migration might be an interesting avenue for enquiry, the real beginnings of this project emerged out of a growing local concern about sport in Northern Ireland. I have to thank Dr Shaun Ogle, Director of Research for the then Sports Council for Northern Ireland for the opportunity to come to Northern Ireland and conduct commissioned research into the impacts that transnational sport migrants were having on the local infrastructure. Those two years of fieldwork were made all the more productive and fruitful through the partnership with Professor Hastings Donnan of Queen’s University of Belfast. Several other members of the then School of Anthropological Studies provided encouragement, advice, contacts, and occasional pints, and their help is gratefully acknowledged, most especially, Tracey Heatherington, Huon Wardle, Harvey Whitehouse and Lisette Josephides. Others outside the School of Anthropological Studies, such as John Fleck, Thomas Wilson, Dominic Bryan, Neil Jarman and Martin Bruhns, provided advice, contacts and other forms of assistance, including reading very early drafts of some of the material in this book. A special warm thank you must also go to David and his bookshop, No Alibis. It and he provided a welcoming circle of camaraderie, great coffee and laughter, plus you never knew who would wander in. It was where Alan Bairner and I first met and his advice on studying sport in Northern Ireland also proved invaluable.
Financial support came from the Sports Council for Northern Ireland, the Institute of Iberian and Latin American Studies at the University of New Mexico, the British Academy and the University of Brighton, where I continue to work.
Colleagues at the Chelsea School at the University of Brighton have been vital for their encouragement, support and criticism of the material in this book. Dan Burdsey, Alan Tomlinson,