The experience of migration for Brazilian football players

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show how the phenomenon of migration in sports is affecting Brazilian football players. This paper aims to provide a theoretical and empirical analysis of the migration experience for those players and address how they construct a hybrid and ambiguous identity about themselves and their "family". Discourses on the experience of migration are fraught with cultural and political anxieties. The classic reactionary position of middle-class Western societies, where 'white' is assumed to be the norm, is to agonize over how black people can be assimilated or accommodated; how they can bring economic impetus but not tempt the racist response. Academic studies do not necessarily repeat this fretful construction, but instead focus critical insight upon the struggles of the migrant. We argue the stereotyped versions of Brazilian football players, combined with the structural opportunities, can be seen as a good contrast with other forms of sport migration.