Contested conceptions of identity, community and multiculturalism in the staging of alternative sport events: a case study of the Amsterdam World Cup football tournament

Keeping it liminal. The Mondiali Antirazzisti (Anti-racist World Cup) as a multifocal interaction ritual

“…In fact, in the first years not all participating teams seemed to acknowledge and respect the spirit of the event. Especially in the second part of the tournament, when matches became more competitive and players 13 were increasingly tired, the intrinsically oppositive character of football matches (Armstrong & Giulianotti, 2001) tended to elicit a certain amount of conflict, which has also been observed in other similar events (Burdsey, 2008). The MA organisers have so far managed these potential tensions by creatively adapting the tournament's rules and ritual form.…”

Diaspora as aesthetic formation: community sports events and the making of a Somali diaspora

“…Cultural forms such as sport, music and literature are critical aspects of diaspora formation (Werbner 1996;Burdsey 2006Burdsey , 2008Joseph 2011;Burdsey, Thangaraj, and Dudrah 2013). Joseph (2011) shows how sports spaces can act as sites for the maintenance of both a homeland (e.g.…”

“…The research question we seek to address is how 'articulations of diasporism' (Clifford 1994, 302), such as the vision articulated by the Global Somali Diaspora (2016), become tangible in community sports spaces like AFT and embodied in subjects who participate in these spaces. We thus interpret sport as an embodied aesthetic practice through which diasporas materialise, with important implications for diasporic identity and belonging (Werbner 1996;Burdsey 2006Burdsey , 2008Joseph 2011;Spaaij 2012Spaaij , 2015. This paper is structured as follows.…”

De-sportizing physical activity: From sport-for-development to play-for-development

“…This happens for instance at the Mondiali Antirazzisti, an intercultural multisport festival organised every summer in Italy since 1998 to bring together football fans, migrant groups, anti-racist and human-rights activists, as well as informal groups of people simply attracted by the playful atmosphere of the event (Sterchele & Saint-Blancat, 2013). Similar versions of anti-racist tournaments, although smaller in scale, have been set up by like-minded associations throughout Europe, such as for instance the AntiRa tournament of St. Pauli fans in Hamburg (Davidson, 2014;Totten, 2011; (Burdsey, 2008) are football tournaments that similarly feature teams representing the different national communities living in the city. Through competitions where Afghanistan, El Salvador or Moldova compete for success instead of Germany, England or Spain, these initiatives clearly aim at creating a structural reversal (Turner, 1967) by giving visibility and glory to those groups who are usually excluded or underrepresented in mainstream sports events.…”

“…The importance of performance and results in the quest for visibility and recognition generates exclusive features such as the prevalence of highly selective all-male teams, the marginalisation of women as simple supporters or food and refreshment providers (Burdsey, 2008) and the commercialisation, mediatisation and spectacularisation of the event, with hundreds or even thousands of spectators-consumers and just a few participants in the actual sports activities (although the Balon Mundial has progressively evolved in order to address most of these downsides, for instance by creating a woman's tournament and increasing the multifocality of the event).…”