Nationality swapping in the Olympic field

Towards the Marketization of Citizenship

Bibliographic Data

ID7724928
AuthorsJoost Jansen (0000-0002-1226-2919, Department of Public Administration and Sociology, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands), J R C Jansen (Erasmus University Rotterdam, corresponding author), Gijsbert Oonk (0000-0001-8493-3884, Gijsbert Oonk: Department of History, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands), Godfried Engbersen (0000-0003-4635-1247, Department of Public Administration and Sociology, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands)
Year2018
Volume22
Issue5
Pages523-539
Publication date2018-07-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCitizenship Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1362-1025 • E-ISSN: 1469-3593
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13621025.2018.1477921
OpenAlexW2807639456
LanguageEN
Citations received22
References cited24

Nationality swapping in sports is commonly assumed to be a rapidly expanding practice that is indicative of the marketization of citizenship. Sports are said to have become wholesale markets in which talent is being traded for citizenship. In this article, we seek to empirically explore such claims by analysing 167 athletes who have competed for two different countries in the Summer Olympic Games. It seems that most switches occurred after the 1990s. Then, following a citizenship as a claims-making approach, we introduce the work of Bourdieu so as to connect citizenship as both legal status and practice with normative claims. The analysis reveals that the practice of nationality switching is shaped by structural conditions of the Olympic field. First, a complex realm of citizenship laws and regulations produces conditions under which athletes make legitimate claims to citizenship. Second, through a mechanism of reverberative causation, prior migrations are often echoed in contemporary nationality swapping . Only a limited number of athletes acquired citizenship via the explicit market principle we call jus talenti. Claiming that instrumental nationality swapping is indicative of the marketization of citizenship obscures the complex interplay between structures of and practices within the Olympic field

China · Citizenship · Immigration · Law and economics · Marketization · Nationality · Normative · Political science · Politics · Realm · Sociology · Doping in Sports · Law · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Sports, Gender, and Society