Ambivalent football : an ethnographic approach to postcolonial player migration

Abstract

Abstract:

This thesis is based on data stemming from fieldwork conducted during the spring of 2007, in a professional football club in Lisbon, Portugal. I am interested in how migrant players from the former colonies are included in the local football community. This thesis thus explores the inclusion and exclusion mechanisms of Portuguese football. The ethnographic approach led me to an exploration of local manifestations of global migration processes. Foreign players are making their mark on Portuguese football, and have done so since the 1950s, when Eusébio dominated in Portuguese and European competition. Portuguese football is therefore a multicultural football. I view this multiculturalism in the context of Portugal’s semi-peripheral geographic position between Europe and her former Atlantic colonies. Due to modernization processes and obligations to the European Union the Portuguese are compelled to enforce their boundaries with their former colonies, at the same time as the ties to Brazil and Portuguese-speaking Africa are an important part of their tradition and history. Hence, there is ambivalence which is a recurring theme in this thesis. I further illustrate how this ambivalence is reflected in the practices and narratives of Portuguese football.