The globalization of football: a study in the glocalization of the 'serious life'

Sport, in particular football, constitutes one of the most dynamic, sociologically illuminating domains of globalization. This paper examines the globalization of football with particular reference to Robertson's theorizations of global processes. We examine football's cultural globalization through the concept of 'glocalization', which highlights the interdependence of local and global processes within the game's identities and institutions. We address economic globalization in football by considering the world's leading clubs as 'glocal' transnational corporations. We assess the political globalization of football with reference to the possible enhancement of democracy within the game's international governance. We conclude by affirming the utility of sport in advancing our empirical and theoretical understanding of globalization processes.     

Sport and globalization: transnational dimensions

Abstract The aims of this special issue are to both raise the social scientific status of sport and to advance understanding of transnational processes through the role of sport in global change. The Introduction argues that sport, like globalization, can be understood in transdisciplinary terms, and the papers included contributions informed by sociology, anthropology, political sciences and history. As well as placing the issue in the context of recent studies of sport and globalization, the Introduction outlines the seven papers. Placed together they move from analyses of broader globalizing and multi‐sport issues towards consideration of how transnational processes impact upon individual sports – with examples from cricket, baseball and association football – ending with regional and national dimensions.     

Internationalism and Sport in the Making of Nations

It has been suggested that nationalism is becoming obsolete as a result of globalization and that the role of sports in the making of nations is weakening. Global sport has presented fundamental challenges to local and national sport, but it has also created the opportunity for sport to be more international. The role of sport in terms of reconciliation is rarely mentioned within contemporary discussions of global sport, power, and culture; the same is true for sports' contribution to the process of anti-globalization. This article begins to address both of these issues while at the same time questioning the simplicity of framing contemporary sport purely in global or local terms, which for this author at least is deemed to be a false choice.     

Not playing around: global capitalism,modern sport and consumer culture

Abstract The development of modern sport is bound up with processes of economic and cultural transformation associated with the global diffusion of capitalist forms of consumption. In this article I draw attention to aspects of the globalization of modern sport that were becoming apparent towards the close of the nineteenth century and then move on to consider the factors that contributed to sport becoming a truly global phenomenon in the course of the twentieth century. Consideration is given to the development of international sport and sports goods companies, the growth in media interest and the increasing significance of sponsorship, consumer culture and sporting celebrities. The global diffusion of modern sport that gathered momentum in the course of the twentieth century involved a number of networked elements, including transnational communications media and commercial corporations for which sport, especially through the iconic figure of the transnational celebrity sport star, constitutes a universally appealing globally networked cultural form. Association with sport events and sporting figures through global broadcasting, sponsorship and endorsement arrangements offers commercial corporations unique access to global consumer culture.     

Between global and glocal: content analysis of the Chinese Web Sites of the 100 top global brands

This study examined the Chinese web sites of the 100 top global brands. It revealed that 58 of the 100 top global brands sponsored a Chinese web site. Refuting the argument that globalization is a homogeneous process, this study found that a glocal strategy, as opposed to a standardized global strategy, was being practiced in cyberspace by many of the companies with top brands. These companies glocalized their Chinese web pages by integrating local cultural characteristics into their brands’ strategies, thus presenting themselves as being socially accommodating to the local market. This study confirmed that glocalization is an outcome of the interaction between globalization and localization.     

Empowered inclusion: theorizing global justice for children and youth

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that contemporary child and youth experiences of globalization call for retheorizing global justice around a new concept of empowered inclusion. The first part of the paper examines three case studies in globalization – child labour movements, child and youth migration, and young people’s organization around climate change – and shows how, in each case, young people, through their struggles against injustice, are simultaneously disempowered and empowered by their deep global interdependency. The second part proposes new theoretical advances in global justice that better respond to child and youth experiences through a childist concept of the empowered inclusion of both children and other marginalized groups. And the third part advances some preliminary suggestions about how a more child-responsive conception of global power and justice might be operationalized in practice across global policies, institutions, and culture.     

Creating intentional spaces for sustainable development in the Indian trans-Himalaya: reconceptualizing globalization from below

In an era of globalization, multifaceted and complex changes have increasingly interconnected geographically dispersed places. A central question of globalization studies concerns whether top-down forces of globalization are forging a global culture or whether processes of globalization from below are able to push back against homogenization by appropriating global forces rather than simply being overwhelmed by them. In this paper, I develop the concept of intentional spaces to show how ideas move globally and how local communities appropriate these ideas, revealing the actual practices that happen in the middle of top-down and bottom-up processes of globalization. I identify three types of ‘intentional spaces’ – physical, pedagogical, and ideological – to document the middle: where top down global forces meet local responses, and how these processes unfold. These intentional spaces enable processes of globalization from below, particularly the development of a mode of critical education that is both political and anti-hegemonic. This critical education empowers local people to adapt global/Western perspectives and influences to indigenous perspectives and practices, creating its own discourses of globalization. I use the context of the trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh to consider how national and international forces intersect with the local, and how local communities re-envision their participation in a modern, global economy.     

Two dynamics of globalization in the context of a sports mega-event: the case of UEFA EURO 2012 in Poland

ABSTRACT

The article uses the theoretical framework of Saskia Sassen’s two dynamics of globalization in order to analyse the relations between a nation-state and a non-state global actor when applying and preparing for a sports mega-event, namely UEFA Euro 2012 in Poland. The first dynamic of globalization is created by global institutions, organizations – such as global sport organizations, regimes, and processes. UEFA used the application process, and preparation, to confirm and consolidate its role as a global governor of an increasingly important area of globalization. The way Polish public institutions accommodated the UEFA requirements illustrates the second dynamic of globalization. The context of sports mega-events – ‘organized’ by global sports organizations and ‘hosted’ by nation-states – merges the two dynamics and makes it possible to emphasize the mechanisms involved in forming the new global order, defined by the complex interplay between the nation-state and non-state actors.     

Neither global nor local: Heterogeneous connectivity in spatial network structures of world migration

For a long time, geographic regions were considered the dominant spatial arbiter of international migration of people. However, since the late 1970s, many scholars have argued that movements reach beyond contiguous regions to connect distant, dispersed, and previously disconnected countries across the globe. The precise structure of world migration, however, remains an open question. We apply network analysis that incorporates spatial information to international migration-stock data to examine what multilateral structures of world migration have emerged from the interplay of regional concentration (local cohesion) and global interconnectedness (global cohesion) for the period 1960–2000. In the world migration network (WMN), nodes represent countries located in geographic space, and edges represent migrants from an origin country who live in a destination country during each decade. We characterize the large-scale structure and evolution of the WMN by algorithmically detecting international migration communities (i.e., sets of countries that are densely connected via migration) using a generalized modularity function for spatial, temporal, and directed networks. Our findings for the whole network suggest that movements in the WMN deviate significantly from the regional boundaries of the world and that international migration communities have become globally interconnected over time. However, we observe a strong variability in the distribution of strengths, neighborhood overlaps, and lengths of migration edges in the WMN. This manifests as three types of communities: global, local, and glocal. We find that long-distance movements in global communities bridge multiple non-contiguous countries, whereas local (and, to a lesser extent, glocal) communities remain trapped in contiguous geographic regions (or neighboring regions) for almost the whole period, contributing to a spatially fragmented WMN. Our findings demonstrate that world migration is neither regionally concentrated nor globally interconnected, but instead exhibits a heterogeneous connectivity pattern that channels unequal migration opportunities across the world.     

Global Restructuring,Transmigration and Mexican Rural Women Who Stay Behind: Accommodating,Contesting and Transcending Ideologies

In a time when globalization has escalated the migration of groups of people there is still little known of the families and communities that stay behind. Based on over five years of ethnographic research with campesinas (rural Mexican women) in a highly migratory part of Central Mexico, this article examines the manner in which campesinas who stay behind as their husbands migrate are implicated in global processes. As a result of the movement of spouses to and from the United States new ideas, capital, bodies, and information are introduced that alter the roles and perspectives of women who stay behind. From a gendered glocal framework that links global and local processes and considers power relations stretched across various spaces and amongst gender relations, the author examines how women learn to accommodate, contest, and transcend their transmigrant state and changing ideologies. Women's integration in a non-governmental organization, reliance on family networks and cultural traditions, among others, help maintain their integrity and wholeness as single mothers, group leaders, and community participants.     

Olympic and world sport: making transnational society?

This paper introduces the special issue of the British Journal of Sociology on the subject of the transnational aspects of Olympic and world sport. The special issue is underpinned by the perspective that because sport provides a space for the forging of transnational connections and global consciousness, it is increasingly significant within contemporary processes of globalization and the making of transnational society. In this article, we examine in turn eight social scientific themes or problems that are prominent within the special issue: globalization, glocalization, neo-liberal ideologies and policies, transnational society, securitization, global civil society, transnational/global public sphere, and fantasy/imagination. We conclude by highlighting five 'circles' of future research inquiry within world sport that should be explored by social scientists.     

The global footballer and the local war‐zone: George Weah and transnational networks in Liberia,West Africa

Abstract Elite sport is the vehicle for global interactions via both its shared practices and the relations engendered by its governing bodies and its global tournaments. This capability has attracted the attentions of those seeking both nation‐building and reconciliation in war‐damaged nations. The narrative that follows has global implications, telling as it does the story of George Weah, a Liberian‐born footballer who became a humanitarian ambassador, and later aspired to become his country's president. Weah's story informs debates on globalization, illustrating the transnational career of a man who developed a keen understanding of institutional politics and patronage and who allowed himself to be courted by various global figures. These scenarios took place in Liberia, a war‐devastated African nation. This tale thus provides for reflection on how sport can encourage and undermine practises of nationhood. As a former World Footballer of the Year, Weah was a Liberian success story and well aware of his populist appeal. However, the issue of who a people are and who is to be their national political representative has proven to be a very fraught issue in the Liberian context. Whether global sporting networks have made the world smaller and the people more knowing in the Liberian context is an issue this article raises in considering its most famous citizen.     

An overview of Middle East public relations practice,education, and research from isolation to globalization

ABSTRACT

Public relations has a critical role in addressing culture difference and enhancing research outreach. An analysis of practice, education and research in Middle East provides an exemplar of the need to move the discipline’s scholarship from global isolation to cultural inclusivity. A review of current scholarship in the discipline's journals documents the preeminence of “Western” theory. Research with culturally collaborative studies of media, culture, technology, and society is needed to provide global perspectives. The paper argues five initiatives are needed next steps for the discipline to achieve global inclusivity: * Enhance research collaboration – Culturally collaborative studies of media, culture, technology, and society are needed to provide global perspectives in our discipline. *Address bilingual scholarship – Public relations theory needs to acknowledge varied traditions and methodologies. Research journals need Middle Eastern faculty editorial board members and need to explore translation options. *Align research with the profession – Globally, public relations research needs qualitative understanding. Cultural differences often regress quantitative analysis to meaningless implications for both theory and practice. *Assess curriculum globalization – Educators need to increase cultural content in courses. Textbooks are needed that reflect the globalization of the field from multiple perspectives. *Develop international accreditation standards – An accreditation model based on bilingual, global, and contemporary careers in the discipline is needed. International accreditation site teams must include bilingual members.     

The Uses and Misuses of Globalization in the Study of Social Movements

On a general level this article seeks to improve our understanding of the relationship between the concepts of globalization and transnational mobilization; a question that is surprisingly rarely addressed in an explicit manner in the already extensive (and still growing) body of literature on these issues. The article proceeds from the assumption that globalization does not necessarily lead to transnational mobilization. The missing link between globalization and transnational mobilization is a process of social construction that seeks to link the local, the national and the global. Globalization, in this perspective, is both an objective process involving certain structural transformations and a subjective process intimately related to the way social actors interpret these changes and give them meaning. Proceeding from a critique of mono-causal and political economic approaches to transnational mobilization the main objective of this article is to outline an analytical framework able to encompass both of these dimensions; a task achieved by combining insights from the globalization literature and the social constructionist framing approach to social movements. This integration is captured in the concept of transnational framing.     

Globalizing history and historicizing globalization

In arguing for the twin projects of globalizing history and historicizing globalization, this paper locates the development of historical scholarship in its own historical context. For the most part, professional historical scholarship has focused on the experiences of national communities and has taken European modernity as the principal guide to the understanding of the world's various societies. In the interests of enhancing understanding of the world and its development through time, there is a clear need to globalize history and historicize globalization. From ancient to contemporary times, several distinct interests—notably those of empire, business and mission—have driven or at least informed efforts to understand the larger world. Since World War II, the production of knowledge about the larger world has come largely through area studies scholarship, which itself has clearly reflected the interests of contemporary states. While area studies projects have experienced remarkable success in developing reliable information and constructing meaningful knowledge about the larger world, it has become clear that scholarship focusing exclusively on individual states or local communities is inadequate for purposes of understanding large-scale globalizing processes that have touched many peoples and influenced the development of individual societies, as well as the world as a whole. Following up on this recognition, recent scholarship in world history suggests that globalization has a very long history indeed. In combination, the projects to globalize history and historicize globalization promise to yield an enriched understanding of the world and its development through time.     

From state-bound subjects to global subjects: notes toward an Althusserian theory of globalized subjectivity

ABSTRACT

This article puts Louis Althusser's conception of subjective production via ideological interpellation in dialogue with contemporary Global theories – especially those of Saskia Sassen and Manfred Steger. It does this to offer a more robust framework for understanding subjective production that captures subjective transformations in the age of globalization. The article looks at how Sassen's work captures transformations of social and institutional structures in globalization and then looks at Steger's account of subjective transformations. It then turns to the ways in which Althusser's understanding of the intertwining of subjectivity with institutions and social practices can help bridge the gap between Sassen and Steger and can also help us understand the rise of what I call ‘global subjects’ and a ‘global subjectivity’ that can be in conflict with more traditional ‘state-bound’ subjects. I use the example of globalized regimes of care work in order to help make sense of these distinctions.     

Global neo-liberalism, global ecological modernization, and a swine CAFO in rural Bulgaria

Rural and development sociology studies have tended to credit globalization with low-wage, extractive, environmentally destructive outcomes. Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have been treated as a local manifestation of the destructive tendencies of globalization. However, recent scholarship on globalization suggests that globalization may also be credited with high-wage, value-added, environmentally friendly economic growth. Moving beyond a general emphasis on the destructive tendencies of globalization, these studies reveal that variation in industry, national and international policies, firm characteristics, and local geography (socio-economic and biophysical) may influence socioeconomic and ecological outcomes. We discuss how these factors help to create a more complex understanding of the relationship between agrifood globalization and local manifestations of CAFOs. We then highlight an example of a rural Bulgarian CAFO that is locally owned and has come to internalize its waste stream. Our findings support recent scholarship that distinguishes between global neo-liberalism and global ecologically modernization and that emphasizes a more complex understanding of how local socio-economic and biophysical factors interact with global processes to influence rural development.     

American-British Sporting Rivalries and the Making of the Global Sports Industry

Abstract

This article examines a key aspect of American sports history within a transnational context. Whilst the internal histories of American sport are exceedingly rich and voluminous, our general understanding of the nation’s contribution to the international, global scene is less well-known. The postcolonial rivalries between American and British sports communities fuelled the development of what became open, international cup competitions in such sports as tennis and golf which bolstered an emerging global industry in the first half of the twentieth century. The transnational process of initial American imitation and absorption of British models have been well documented within the scholarly literature and debates in American Studies for decades; however, the gradual reversal of this imitative process to a more reciprocal relationship has received far less attention (especially within sports history). The authors show how the Davis Cup competition is an example of the way in which Americans indigenised a cultural sporting import, namely tennis; created a nationalistic, international sporting competition; and effectively exported it back to Britain within the wider context of a burgeoning, imperial rivalry on the world stage between these two, rival sporting nations. This process not only expanded the worldwide consumption of sport but spreads a spirit of cultural emulation within twentieth-century global consumer culture. This transnational perspective also illuminates the thorough de-provincialising of the notion of “American Exceptionalism” within the field. When, for example, the respective imperial histories of the two nations are considered comparatively, the “American” story does not look so “exceptional” after all. Though American exceptionalism adapted some British sports to suit American sensibilities, the sporting cultures of the two nations and within their zones of influence remained similar in many respects. This was particularly true in amateur sports such as tennis, rowing and track and field (athletics to the Brits) as well as in the sport of golf. In the twentieth century, many sports adapted as focus shifted from nationalism and national worth towards professionalism and international spectacle.     

Recovering the social: globalization,football and transnationalism

Abstract In this article, we place the social and football (as a sporting realm) at the heart of social scientific analysis of globalization processes. Our theoretical framework sets out, in turn, the concepts of glocalization, with particular reference to what we term the ‘duality of glocality’; transnationalism, notably its socio‐historical aspects; connectivity, with particular reference to its antonym, ‘disconnectivity’; and cosmopolitanism, with strong focus on what we term its ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ variants. We explore the interplay of these concepts and processes within three broad domains of the ‘football world’: supporter subcultures, sport journalism, and Japanese football culture. We conclude in part by arguing for greater exploration of sport's role in regard to global processes and of the interrelationships between the duality of glocality and the thick/thin variants of cosmopolitanism.     

More than just the media: Considering the role of public relations in the creation of sporting celebrity and the management of fan expectations

This article considers the complex nature of sporting celebrity and the role of media and public relations in the creation of both sports celebrity and the fan expectations associated with that celebrity. While public relations literature has traditionally considered PR as a promotion and communication tool, this article acknowledges that in the cultural and ideological world of sport, PR has a much more sophisticated role to play. In the event of either positive or negative media attention, a sporting celebrity is subjected to unprecedented scrutiny and the increasingly high expectations of fans. However, the expectations of fans are not based on the simple notion of hero worship and role models, and this exploratory study suggests that fans are capable of very complex reactions to the behaviours and marketing personas of sporting celebrities. The use of PR in sport deserves close examination and the reactive spin doctoring techniques of the past should give way to the strategic integration of public relations and media planning in both the creation of the sporting celebrity, balancing the sport vs. private sides of that celebrity, and the varying fan expectations associated with each.