Migratory labour of New Economic Order sport (NEOsport)

This project examines the power relations of transnational sport migrants with the various local, national, and global organisations that regulate the movement of these professionals throughout their career. It broadly considers questions of governance, career trajectory, labour and labour rights, and family influence on migration and impact of migration on families.

Project timeframe

Project began in May 2000 and continues at present.

Project aims

This ongoing project aims are:

  • explain the power relations inherent in the production of global sport
  • use transnational migrants experiences of labouring in this industry to address exploitation
  • provide critiques of NEOsport structure including INGOs attempting to challenge dominant organisations’ practices.

Project findings and impact

The multiple phases of this project deal with the politics and experiences of transnational sport migrants. It has found that these migrants deal with convoluted, complicated restrictions at local, national, and international level that restrict and constrain professionals’ abilities to pursue their careers on a global scale.

Our work led to us advising researchers on the European funded research project “Global Precarity of Masculinity” at the University of Amsterdam (2012) and nationally funded “Offside” project at the University of Jyvaskyla (2015).

Research team

Dr Thomas Carter

Dr Sine Agergaard, Aarhus University, Denmark

Dr Paul Darby, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland

Output

Agergaard, Sine, and Nina Clara Tiesler, ed (2014) Women, Soccer and Migration. London; Routledge.

Carter, Thomas F (2013) “Re-Placing Sport Migrants: Moving beyond the Institutional Structures Informing International Sport Migration.” International Review of the Sociology of Sport. 48 (1): 66-82.

Carter, Thomas F (2011) In Foreign Fields: The Politics and Experiences of Transnational Sport Migrants. London: Pluto Press.

Carter Thomas F (2007) “Family Networks, State Interventions and the Experiences of Cuban Transnational Sport Migration.” International Review of the Sociology of Sport. 42 (4): 371-389.

Darby, Paul (2014) International Football Migration and Africa: Feet Drain or Feet Exchange. Panorama: Insights into Asian and European Affairs, 5 (1). pp. 75-82.

Darby, Paul (2011) Out of Africa: The Exodus of Elite African Football Labour to Europe. In: Sport and Migration: Border, Boundaries and Crossings . (Eds: Maguire, Joseph and Falcous, Mark), Routledge, pp. 245-258.

Engh, Mari Haug, and Sine Agergaard (2015) Producing mobility through locality and visibility: Developing a transnational perspective on sports labour migration International Review for the Sociology of Sport December 2015 50: 974-992,

Partners

Sport Migrant Network