Paul Darby
Biographic Data
| ID | 249059 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paul Darby |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paul |
| FAMILY NAME | Darby |
| SIGNATURE | DARBY P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Ulster |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4654-476X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 272 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Sport as migrant work: Transnational athletic migration and belonging in English professional women’s football
The transnational mobility of women footballers has been subject to scant academic attention. However, the pace and scale of the professionalization of the women’s game and the concomitant internationalization of playing rosters over the last decade warrants further research. This study explores the experiences of migrant footballers in the women’s professional game in England. Through semi-structured interviews (n.6), this article investigates p…
Challenging ableism and disablism in English football fandom: Disabled supporters and repertoires of ‘everyday resistance’
Recent research has shown that disabled people who attend professional football matches in England are confronted with a series of barriers rooted in ableism and disablism. However, we know significantly less about how they respond to, navigate and resist these. Addressing growing calls among scholars of disability activism to capture the whole spectrum of resistance articulated by disabled people, particularly more individual, spontaneous forms,…
Interpreting and enacting ‘empowerment’ in sport for development: The perspectives of UK stakeholders on a partnership-based programme in Malawi
This article examines the interpretation and enactment of ‘empowerment’ in a transnational Sport for Development programme that involved a partnership between a UK university and local stakeholders and practitioners in Malawi. In addressing whether the programme was underpinned by a neoliberal or more radical, progressive variant of empowerment, we employed semi-structured interviews with three categories of UK actors: university senior managers;…
Disabled people's experiences of English football fandom: Inclusion, exclusion and discrimination
This article employs a novel theoretical framework, rooted in the social relational model of disability alongside the concept of ableism, to critically analyse disabled football supporters lived experiences of inclusion and exclusion in English Football. In seeking to shed light on this hitherto neglected field, this study utilised a dual-phased qualitative approach comprised of two complementary netnographic methods, specifically online observat…
Women's transnational migration through football: Possibilities, responsibilities, and respectability in Ghana
The growth of girls' and women's football in Africa, coupled with increased professionalisation in Europe and the United States, has led to rising international migration of African female players. This trend reflects the longer standing culture of independent, transnational migration among African women since the late 1980s and of enlarged possibilities and responsibilities triggered by neoliberal reform across the continent. This article explor…
Sport and migration in the age of superdiversity
Taking Steven Vertovec's concept of Superdiversity as a starting point, this special issue examines the dynamic interaction of diversity variables in the field of sport and migration issues. The articles published this Speical Issue span from studies on sports labor migration ( sports as migration) to consideration of the role sport plays in the everyday lives of disparate groups of migrants ( sport in migration). Considering the contemporary div…
African football migration: Aspirations, experiences and trajectories
Spectral Nation: Characterizing British Haunted Landscapes through the Lens of the 1970s ‘Ghost Gazetteer’ and a Folk Horror Perspective
Within the wider context of popular occult publishing in the United Kingdom, a distinctive subgenre can be defined. The ‘ghost gazetteer’ combines the function of a road guide with additional information on supernatural happenings, all tied to specific locales within Great Britain. Taking four popular and important examples of the genre dating from the 1970s, this article analyses the content and context of the books in terms of branding, selecti…
Children's rights and the regulations on the transfer of young players in football
Children who interact with football's recruitment and transfer processes encounter a complex web of regulations and practices. Debates over how to ensure that the interests and well-being of young football players are adequately protected, and that risks to their rights and welfare are identified and addressed, have become a topic of academic, political and media concern. This commentary article provides an overview of the Fédération Internationa…
Politics, resistance and patronage: The African boycott of the 1966 World Cup and its ramifications
The 1966 World Cup Finals are remembered primarily for on-field events, not least the host’s capture of the Jules Rimet trophy, the performances of the minnows of North Korea in reaching the quarter-finals and the Eusebio-inspired exploits of the tournament’s other debutants, Portugal. What is less prominent in this history but more significant in impacting the longer-term trajectory of the World Cup and the global game, are events off the field …
Rights, Risks and Responsibilities in the Recruitment of Children within the Global Football Industry
This paper examines children’s engagement with the increasingly global and commercialised football industry. By combining a Global Production Network approach and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child it is argued that, for children’s rights and best interests to be better upheld and realised within the football industry, regulatory conditions need to account for geographical contextuality and incorporate scope for children to …
Sport and the Sustainable Development Goals: Where is the policy coherence
This article addresses the urgent need for critical analysis of the relationships between sport and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals enshrined in the United Nations' global development framework, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Importantly, there has yet to be any substantial academic exploration of the implications of the position accorded to sport as 'an important enabler' of the aims of 2030 Agenda and its broad set of Sustain…
The pride of east Belfast: Glentoran Football Club and the (re)production of Ulster unionist identities in Northern Ireland
It has become a truism that football provides a revealing window into how various forms of identity are (re)produced. There is a not insubstantial body of academic work which illustrates that football in Northern Ireland has long served as a vehicle for individuals to come together, develop a sense of belonging, share in common bonds of loyalty and articulate both semantic and syntactical forms of identity. This certainly holds true for the count…
The Downfall of a Man is Not the End of His Life”: Navigating Involuntary Immobility in Ghanaian Football
The burgeoning number of football academies in Africa are widely understood by young aspiring players and their family members as a conduit for transnational migration and a professional career in the game. However, for the vast majority of academy recruits the stark reality is involuntary immobility. While there is a growing literature on African football migration, the experiences of young players from the continent who are unable to translate …
Emigrant Players: Sport and the Irish Diaspora
Ireland and its inhabitants have often been described as being ‘sports mad’. As a relatively small geographical entity, Ireland, north and south, has produced a disproportionately high number of world class sports men and women who have excelled at the highest levels of their chosen sport. The significance of sport in Ireland though extends far beyond the achievements of such individuals. Sport has historically assumed a centrality in the lives o…
Africa, Football and Fifa: Politics, Colonialism and Resistance
This book explores the role of FIFA in brokering the development of football in Africa and its relationship with that continent's football associations and regional governing body. Africa is no longer on the periphery of world football but the economic disparities between the first and the third worlds hinder the development of the game. The author shows convincingly how Africa's advance within world football is tied to its national political eco…
Let Us Rally Around the Flag’: Football, Nation-Building, and Pan-Africanism in Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana
The nationalistic fervour that greeted Ghana's performances in the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa powerfully evoked memories of an earlier period in the history of the Ghanaian state that witnessed Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of independent Ghana, draw on the game as a rallying point for nation-building and pan-African unity. This article uncovers this history by analysing Nkrumah's overt politicisation of football in the late col…
Moving players, traversing perspectives: Global value chains, production networks and Ghanaian football labour migration
Gaelic Games, Irish Nationalist Politics and the Irish Diaspora in London, 1895–1915
This article makes an original contribution to the growing historiography on the role of sport, and more specifically, Gaelic games amongst Irish immigrant communities around the world. It does so by shedding light on the origins and early history of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century London. In particular, the article explores the ways in which membership of this organisation allowed sect…
Go Outside’: The History, Economics and Geography of Ghanaian Football Labour Migration
By the beginning of the new millennium, Ghana had become one of the primary exporters of football labour from the African continent. This article examines the history, geography and economic dimensions of this migratory trend. It reveals that the movement of Ghanaian footballers into the international football market was slow in developing. This was largely because of two factors. Firstly, during the colonial period, British football clubs, unlik…
Playing for Ireland in foreign fields: The Gaelic Athletic Association and Irish nationalism in America
With a few exceptions, the existing scholarship on the relationship between the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and Irish nationalism has largely overlooked the experiences of the Irish diaspora. This article seeks to redress this neglect by exploring the ways in which Irish nationalism has historically been produced, reproduced and contested amongst members of the GAA in the USA. In light of their status as focal points of Irish immigration an…
The Gaelic Athletic Association, Transnational Identities and Irish-America
This article draws on the concept of transnationalism to examine the role and function of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) among Irish migrant communities in the United States. In particular, it examines the role of the GAA in the production and reproduction of shifting notions of Irish national identification in America. The analyses here are rooted in ethnographic research conducted in the US and Ireland and are informed, theoretically, by…
Ethnographie des académies de football au Ghana: Entre formation et commercialisation des jeunes joueurs
Comment comprendre la migration des footballeurs ghanéens et le rôle que jouent les académies de football dans ce processus ? Les académies constituent l’une des composantes des réseaux de migration de jeunes joueurs africains. Paul Darby propose d’en comprendre leur fonctionnement à travers un travail de recherche ethnographique réalisée au Ghana. Lieux de contact avec les marchés internationaux, les académies forment surtout les bases d’un foot…
Differing trajectories: Football development and patterns of player migration in South Africa and Ghana
This essay employs a comparative approach to the dynamics underpinning the transnational migration of African football players. More specifically, it assesses the extent to which divergent levels of professionalism and football development across the game in South Africa and Ghana shape and contour patterns of player mobility. This analysis, rooted in ethnographic research in both locales, reveals that significant economic divergences between the…
Stanley Rous’s ‘own goal’: Football politics, South Africa and the Contest for the Fifa presidency in 1974
The election for the presidency of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) in 1974 which saw João Havelange replace Sir Stanley Rous as incumbent was one of the most significant events in FIFA’s history. While the battle lines in the lead up to the vote reflected the broader caveats in FIFA politics at this time, South Africa’s status within the world body and more specifically, the positions of both Havelange and Rous on thi…
Football Academies and the Migration of African Football Labor to Europe
This article analyzes one of the key features of the increased trading in African football labor since the 1990s, the establishment of football “academies” in Africa. The article begins by setting out a broad explanatory framework that articulates the transit of African footballers to Europe and the role of football academies in this process as a form of neocolonial exploitation and impoverishment of the developing world by the developed world. A…
African Football Labour Migration to Portugal: Colonial and Neo-Colonial Resource
Recent critiques of African player migration to Europe have argued that this process has involved varying degrees of neo-colonial exploitation and impoverishment of African football. This essay critically builds on this discourse by exploring the place of Portugal in broader migratory patterns between African and European football. The essay focuses on the extent to which Portugal has used football talent from its former colonial 'possessions' su…
Moving players, traversing perspectives: Global value chains, production networks and Ghanaian football labour migration
Africa and the ‘World’ Cup: Fifa Politics, Eurocentrism and Resistance
The development of African football in the international playing arena during the last 25 years has been such that several noted commentators have predicted that the name of an African nation will soon be appearing on the World Cup trophy. [1 Most notably, Walter Winterbottom and Pelé expressed their belief that an African nation would win the World Cup before the new millennium. Such predictions remain unfulfilled, but the assertion of the forme…
Football, colonial doctrine and indigenous resistance: Mapping the political persona of Fifa's African constituency
(2000). Football, colonial doctrine and indigenous resistance: Mapping the political persona of FIFA's African constituency. Culture, Sport, Society: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 61-87
Let Us Rally Around the Flag’: Football, Nation-Building, and Pan-Africanism in Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana
The nationalistic fervour that greeted Ghana's performances in the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa powerfully evoked memories of an earlier period in the history of the Ghanaian state that witnessed Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of independent Ghana, draw on the game as a rallying point for nation-building and pan-African unity. This article uncovers this history by analysing Nkrumah's overt politicisation of football in the late col…
The Downfall of a Man is Not the End of His Life”: Navigating Involuntary Immobility in Ghanaian Football
The burgeoning number of football academies in Africa are widely understood by young aspiring players and their family members as a conduit for transnational migration and a professional career in the game. However, for the vast majority of academy recruits the stark reality is involuntary immobility. While there is a growing literature on African football migration, the experiences of young players from the continent who are unable to translate …
Stanley Rous’s ‘own goal’: Football politics, South Africa and the Contest for the Fifa presidency in 1974
The election for the presidency of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) in 1974 which saw João Havelange replace Sir Stanley Rous as incumbent was one of the most significant events in FIFA’s history. While the battle lines in the lead up to the vote reflected the broader caveats in FIFA politics at this time, South Africa’s status within the world body and more specifically, the positions of both Havelange and Rous on thi…
Sport and the Sustainable Development Goals: Where is the policy coherence
This article addresses the urgent need for critical analysis of the relationships between sport and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals enshrined in the United Nations' global development framework, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Importantly, there has yet to be any substantial academic exploration of the implications of the position accorded to sport as 'an important enabler' of the aims of 2030 Agenda and its broad set of Sustain…
Africa's place in Fifa's global order: A theoretical frame
The increasing international significance of football and its governance has recently been recognized in academic circles, resulting in the publication of a number of notable studies examining the role of the game within global society. A common thread running through this body of work is the idea that football has become intertwined with a range of processes that have resulted in it becoming a major element of global culture. However, it was not…
Children's rights and the regulations on the transfer of young players in football
Children who interact with football's recruitment and transfer processes encounter a complex web of regulations and practices. Debates over how to ensure that the interests and well-being of young football players are adequately protected, and that risks to their rights and welfare are identified and addressed, have become a topic of academic, political and media concern. This commentary article provides an overview of the Fédération Internationa…
Go Outside’: The History, Economics and Geography of Ghanaian Football Labour Migration
By the beginning of the new millennium, Ghana had become one of the primary exporters of football labour from the African continent. This article examines the history, geography and economic dimensions of this migratory trend. It reveals that the movement of Ghanaian footballers into the international football market was slow in developing. This was largely because of two factors. Firstly, during the colonial period, British football clubs, unlik…
Sport and migration in the age of superdiversity
Taking Steven Vertovec's concept of Superdiversity as a starting point, this special issue examines the dynamic interaction of diversity variables in the field of sport and migration issues. The articles published this Speical Issue span from studies on sports labor migration ( sports as migration) to consideration of the role sport plays in the everyday lives of disparate groups of migrants ( sport in migration). Considering the contemporary div…
Differing trajectories: Football development and patterns of player migration in South Africa and Ghana
This essay employs a comparative approach to the dynamics underpinning the transnational migration of African football players. More specifically, it assesses the extent to which divergent levels of professionalism and football development across the game in South Africa and Ghana shape and contour patterns of player mobility. This analysis, rooted in ethnographic research in both locales, reveals that significant economic divergences between the…
The pride of east Belfast: Glentoran Football Club and the (re)production of Ulster unionist identities in Northern Ireland
It has become a truism that football provides a revealing window into how various forms of identity are (re)produced. There is a not insubstantial body of academic work which illustrates that football in Northern Ireland has long served as a vehicle for individuals to come together, develop a sense of belonging, share in common bonds of loyalty and articulate both semantic and syntactical forms of identity. This certainly holds true for the count…
Gaelic sport and the Irish diaspora in Boston, 1879–90
Although Gaelic sports have been played in an organised fashion for over a century in the United States, academic research on the development and role of these sports among the Irish diaspora has been extremely limited. This is hardly surprising, given the more general disregard of the significance of sport in the burgeoning literature examining the Irish experience in America. In its most general aspect, this study seeks to redress this neglect.…
Africa, the Fifa Presidency, and the Governance of World Football: 1974, 1998, And 2002
Abtract: Since the independence movements of the late 1950s and 1960s, most African nations have remained firmly rooted at the base of the world economic and political order; however, in global sports, Africa has made its presence felt, and it is perhaps in international football that the continent's sports stars have made their biggest impact. The World Cup, the Olympic football tournament, and FIFA's underage competitions have been enriched by …
Gaelic Games, Irish Nationalist Politics and the Irish Diaspora in London, 1895–1915
This article makes an original contribution to the growing historiography on the role of sport, and more specifically, Gaelic games amongst Irish immigrant communities around the world. It does so by shedding light on the origins and early history of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century London. In particular, the article explores the ways in which membership of this organisation allowed sect…
Spectral Nation: Characterizing British Haunted Landscapes through the Lens of the 1970s ‘Ghost Gazetteer’ and a Folk Horror Perspective
Within the wider context of popular occult publishing in the United Kingdom, a distinctive subgenre can be defined. The ‘ghost gazetteer’ combines the function of a road guide with additional information on supernatural happenings, all tied to specific locales within Great Britain. Taking four popular and important examples of the genre dating from the 1970s, this article analyses the content and context of the books in terms of branding, selecti…
Playing for Ireland in foreign fields: The Gaelic Athletic Association and Irish nationalism in America
With a few exceptions, the existing scholarship on the relationship between the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and Irish nationalism has largely overlooked the experiences of the Irish diaspora. This article seeks to redress this neglect by exploring the ways in which Irish nationalism has historically been produced, reproduced and contested amongst members of the GAA in the USA. In light of their status as focal points of Irish immigration an…
Without the Aid of a Sporting Safety Net?’: The Gaelic Athletic Association and the Irish Émigré in San Francisco (1888– c .1938)
This article builds on an emerging corpus of work that seeks to uncover the history and social, cultural and political significance of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in the United States. However, it also marks a departure from any of the published work to date because for the first time it addresses the place of Gaelic games in the lives of the Irish émigré in the San Francisco Bay area. The article accounts for the origins and early hist…
Becoming Irlandés: Hurling and Irish Identity in Argentina [1]
It is unsurprising to note that Gaelic games have been and continue to be played in those locales around the world that have traditionally been recipients of large numbers of Irish immigrants. Indeed, some of the essays in this collection reveal this to be the case. However, it is perhaps more unusual to observe these sports being played in destinations around the globe that welcomed relatively small numbers of Irish migrants. This essay deals wi…
Emigrants at Play: Gaelic Games and the Irish Diaspora in Chicago, 1884– c. 1900
This article uncovers the origins and early history of Gaelic games in late-nineteenth-century Chicago and examines the ways in which membership of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) allowed sections of the city's Irish population to preserve and express their ethnic specificity and support for Irish nationalism. In doing so, it adds to the author's earlier research which has begun to redress the neglect of Gaelic sport in the broader historio…
The Swedish Model and International Sport: Lennart Johansson and the Governance of World Football
One of the most striking features of the development of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) during the 1990s has been the emergence of a political and economic alliance between the Union des Associations Européennes de Football (UEFA) and the Confédération Africaine de Football (CAF). What is remarkable about this state of affairs is that the relationship between the two confederations has traditionally been characterized…
Women's transnational migration through football: Possibilities, responsibilities, and respectability in Ghana
The growth of girls' and women's football in Africa, coupled with increased professionalisation in Europe and the United States, has led to rising international migration of African female players. This trend reflects the longer standing culture of independent, transnational migration among African women since the late 1980s and of enlarged possibilities and responsibilities triggered by neoliberal reform across the continent. This article explor…
Africa's place in Fifa's global order: A theoretical frame
The increasing international significance of football and its governance has recently been recognized in academic circles, resulting in the publication of a number of notable studies examining the role of the game within global society. A common thread running through this body of work is the idea that football has become intertwined with a range of processes that have resulted in it becoming a major element of global culture. However, it was not…
Football, colonial doctrine and indigenous resistance: Mapping the political persona of Fifa's African constituency
(2000). Football, colonial doctrine and indigenous resistance: Mapping the political persona of FIFA's African constituency. Culture, Sport, Society: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 61-87
The Swedish Model and International Sport: Lennart Johansson and the Governance of World Football
One of the most striking features of the development of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) during the 1990s has been the emergence of a political and economic alliance between the Union des Associations Européennes de Football (UEFA) and the Confédération Africaine de Football (CAF). What is remarkable about this state of affairs is that the relationship between the two confederations has traditionally been characterized…
Gaelic sport and the Irish diaspora in Boston, 1879–90
Although Gaelic sports have been played in an organised fashion for over a century in the United States, academic research on the development and role of these sports among the Irish diaspora has been extremely limited. This is hardly surprising, given the more general disregard of the significance of sport in the burgeoning literature examining the Irish experience in America. In its most general aspect, this study seeks to redress this neglect.…
Africa, the Fifa Presidency, and the Governance of World Football: 1974, 1998, And 2002
Abtract: Since the independence movements of the late 1950s and 1960s, most African nations have remained firmly rooted at the base of the world economic and political order; however, in global sports, Africa has made its presence felt, and it is perhaps in international football that the continent's sports stars have made their biggest impact. The World Cup, the Olympic football tournament, and FIFA's underage competitions have been enriched by …
Soccer and Disaster
The word disaster is much used in the world of soccer - conceding a penalty, a sending off, an untimely defeat. Comparing these with real life disasters puts things into perspective and the results of the games become insignificant. Soccer is not more important than life or death!For the first time, real life tragedies in the world of soccer are explored in one volume. From the loss of life of talented young players in the Munich and Zambian air …
A Context of Vulnerability: The Zambian Air Disaster, 1993
In the introduction to this volume the editors explored the difficulties associated with establishing what actually constitutes a ‘disaster’. It was argued that this conceptual problem can be overc
Africa and the ‘World’ Cup: Fifa Politics, Eurocentrism and Resistance
The development of African football in the international playing arena during the last 25 years has been such that several noted commentators have predicted that the name of an African nation will soon be appearing on the World Cup trophy. [1 Most notably, Walter Winterbottom and Pelé expressed their belief that an African nation would win the World Cup before the new millennium. Such predictions remain unfulfilled, but the assertion of the forme…
Emigrants at Play: Gaelic Games and the Irish Diaspora in Chicago, 1884– c. 1900
This article uncovers the origins and early history of Gaelic games in late-nineteenth-century Chicago and examines the ways in which membership of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) allowed sections of the city's Irish population to preserve and express their ethnic specificity and support for Irish nationalism. In doing so, it adds to the author's earlier research which has begun to redress the neglect of Gaelic sport in the broader historio…
Becoming Irlandés: Hurling and Irish Identity in Argentina [1]
It is unsurprising to note that Gaelic games have been and continue to be played in those locales around the world that have traditionally been recipients of large numbers of Irish immigrants. Indeed, some of the essays in this collection reveal this to be the case. However, it is perhaps more unusual to observe these sports being played in destinations around the globe that welcomed relatively small numbers of Irish migrants. This essay deals wi…
Football Academies and the Migration of African Football Labor to Europe
This article analyzes one of the key features of the increased trading in African football labor since the 1990s, the establishment of football “academies” in Africa. The article begins by setting out a broad explanatory framework that articulates the transit of African footballers to Europe and the role of football academies in this process as a form of neocolonial exploitation and impoverishment of the developing world by the developed world. A…
African Football Labour Migration to Portugal: Colonial and Neo-Colonial Resource
Recent critiques of African player migration to Europe have argued that this process has involved varying degrees of neo-colonial exploitation and impoverishment of African football. This essay critically builds on this discourse by exploring the place of Portugal in broader migratory patterns between African and European football. The essay focuses on the extent to which Portugal has used football talent from its former colonial 'possessions' su…
Stanley Rous’s ‘own goal’: Football politics, South Africa and the Contest for the Fifa presidency in 1974
The election for the presidency of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) in 1974 which saw João Havelange replace Sir Stanley Rous as incumbent was one of the most significant events in FIFA’s history. While the battle lines in the lead up to the vote reflected the broader caveats in FIFA politics at this time, South Africa’s status within the world body and more specifically, the positions of both Havelange and Rous on thi…
Without the Aid of a Sporting Safety Net?’: The Gaelic Athletic Association and the Irish Émigré in San Francisco (1888– c .1938)
This article builds on an emerging corpus of work that seeks to uncover the history and social, cultural and political significance of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in the United States. However, it also marks a departure from any of the published work to date because for the first time it addresses the place of Gaelic games in the lives of the Irish émigré in the San Francisco Bay area. The article accounts for the origins and early hist…
Differing trajectories: Football development and patterns of player migration in South Africa and Ghana
This essay employs a comparative approach to the dynamics underpinning the transnational migration of African football players. More specifically, it assesses the extent to which divergent levels of professionalism and football development across the game in South Africa and Ghana shape and contour patterns of player mobility. This analysis, rooted in ethnographic research in both locales, reveals that significant economic divergences between the…
Go Outside’: The History, Economics and Geography of Ghanaian Football Labour Migration
By the beginning of the new millennium, Ghana had become one of the primary exporters of football labour from the African continent. This article examines the history, geography and economic dimensions of this migratory trend. It reveals that the movement of Ghanaian footballers into the international football market was slow in developing. This was largely because of two factors. Firstly, during the colonial period, British football clubs, unlik…
Playing for Ireland in foreign fields: The Gaelic Athletic Association and Irish nationalism in America
With a few exceptions, the existing scholarship on the relationship between the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and Irish nationalism has largely overlooked the experiences of the Irish diaspora. This article seeks to redress this neglect by exploring the ways in which Irish nationalism has historically been produced, reproduced and contested amongst members of the GAA in the USA. In light of their status as focal points of Irish immigration an…
The Gaelic Athletic Association, Transnational Identities and Irish-America
This article draws on the concept of transnationalism to examine the role and function of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) among Irish migrant communities in the United States. In particular, it examines the role of the GAA in the production and reproduction of shifting notions of Irish national identification in America. The analyses here are rooted in ethnographic research conducted in the US and Ireland and are informed, theoretically, by…
Ethnographie des académies de football au Ghana: Entre formation et commercialisation des jeunes joueurs
Comment comprendre la migration des footballeurs ghanéens et le rôle que jouent les académies de football dans ce processus ? Les académies constituent l’une des composantes des réseaux de migration de jeunes joueurs africains. Paul Darby propose d’en comprendre leur fonctionnement à travers un travail de recherche ethnographique réalisée au Ghana. Lieux de contact avec les marchés internationaux, les académies forment surtout les bases d’un foot…
Gaelic Games, Irish Nationalist Politics and the Irish Diaspora in London, 1895–1915
This article makes an original contribution to the growing historiography on the role of sport, and more specifically, Gaelic games amongst Irish immigrant communities around the world. It does so by shedding light on the origins and early history of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century London. In particular, the article explores the ways in which membership of this organisation allowed sect…
Emigrant Players: Sport and the Irish Diaspora
Ireland and its inhabitants have often been described as being ‘sports mad’. As a relatively small geographical entity, Ireland, north and south, has produced a disproportionately high number of world class sports men and women who have excelled at the highest levels of their chosen sport. The significance of sport in Ireland though extends far beyond the achievements of such individuals. Sport has historically assumed a centrality in the lives o…
Africa, Football and Fifa: Politics, Colonialism and Resistance
This book explores the role of FIFA in brokering the development of football in Africa and its relationship with that continent's football associations and regional governing body. Africa is no longer on the periphery of world football but the economic disparities between the first and the third worlds hinder the development of the game. The author shows convincingly how Africa's advance within world football is tied to its national political eco…
Let Us Rally Around the Flag’: Football, Nation-Building, and Pan-Africanism in Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana
The nationalistic fervour that greeted Ghana's performances in the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa powerfully evoked memories of an earlier period in the history of the Ghanaian state that witnessed Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of independent Ghana, draw on the game as a rallying point for nation-building and pan-African unity. This article uncovers this history by analysing Nkrumah's overt politicisation of football in the late col…
Moving players, traversing perspectives: Global value chains, production networks and Ghanaian football labour migration
The Downfall of a Man is Not the End of His Life”: Navigating Involuntary Immobility in Ghanaian Football
The burgeoning number of football academies in Africa are widely understood by young aspiring players and their family members as a conduit for transnational migration and a professional career in the game. However, for the vast majority of academy recruits the stark reality is involuntary immobility. While there is a growing literature on African football migration, the experiences of young players from the continent who are unable to translate …
Political science (33 works) · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts (32 works) · Sports, Gender, and Society (30 works) · Sociology (29 works) · Law (27 works) · Football (23 works) · Law (20 works) · Politics (16 works) · Gender Studies (15 works) · History (14 works)