Suchergebnisse

Using the findings of ethnographic fieldwork conducted at an inner-city football club, the article examines the relationship between superdiversity and understandings of human variation. It is argued that club personnel relied on what I have termed 'granular essentialisms' to make sense of their superdiverse surroundings. These were assertions about ethnicity and 'race' that resulted from sustained engagement across various categories of difference and saw these categories intersected in various ways, with notions of space and place being invoked in the process. This granular approach is compared with the attitudes to migration-related diversity encountered outside the inner city. I conclude that proponents of superdiversity should take greater account of the inequalities, tensions and prejudices evident in and around superdiverse areas if they are to construct a more comprehensive picture of the lived realities of contemporary cities and the understandings of ethno-racial difference which take hold there.

This ethnographic study of a mixed-occupancy housing estate near the centre of London refocuses the scholarly conversation around social housing in the UK after the 1980 Housing Act. As well as examining the long-term consequences of 'Right to Buy,' such as shortages in local authority stock and neighbourhood gentrifiction, James Rosbrook-Thompson and Gary Armstrong investigate the changes wrought on the social fabric of the individual estate. Drawing on four years of ethnographic fieldwork, the authors explore the estate's social mix and, more specifically, the consequences of owner-occupiers, council tenants and private renters sharing a cramped inner-city neighbourhood. Mixed-Occupancy Housing in London: A Living Tapestry humanizes the academic discussion of class, race, and gender in social housing through the occupants' tales of getting by, getting along, and getting out--back cover

Rosbrook-Thompson and Armstrong draw on four years of ethnographic fieldwork conducted on a mixed-occupancy housing estate in the Central London borough of Northtown. Their analysis considers how social and cultural categories cut across ethnicity. Many housing estates are today home to an incredibly diverse array of residents of various statuses, from owner-occupiers to renters and council tenants. This chapter addresses life in a 'superdiverse' estate, examining intra-group differences in an attempt to make sense of the encounters, solidarities and tensions experienced by residents: tenants of over 50 years; recent arrivals from within the European Union and further afield; undergraduate and postgraduate students unable to find accommodation within university halls of residence; and young professionals in search of affordable housing. Rosbrook-Thompson and Armstrong describe how these residents live in proximity to one another and how their lives intersect, often in unexpected ways.

The democratically elected President of Liberia was between 1997 and 2004 also the country's 'Chief Patron of Sport'. Enjoying tennis more than team games, the one-time President, Charles Taylor, realized that the electorate's enthusiasm for the game of football meant that the game could be a useful vehicle with which to associate. As well as funding the salaries of the national 'Lone Star' football team, Taylor also sponsored a football team in the national league drawn from his personal militia known as the 'Anti-Terrorist Unit' (ATU). Prone to random murder by night, the same players, out of their recognizable uniform and in match kit, respected the rules of the game and the position of the referee. Others seeking the same sporting enjoyment were, when on the field of play in 2003, captured and forced to join the Presidential militia when rebel forces sought to overthrow Taylor. Players of another team – mainly children – were killed mid-match when a rocket-propelled grenade – origins contested – landed in their midst. The Liberian nation's most famous citizen and one-time FIFA World Footballer of the Year, George Weah, twice fled the country in terror, once when threatened by the forces of the President, and again years later when an angry mob of irate football supporters blamed him for their national football team's failure to qualify for the World Cup Finals. There was no shortage of incidents in Liberia in the aforementioned years that could be classed as 'terrorist' and indeed terrifying; sporting practice at times exemplified the alternatives available to conflict, yet at other times it accentuated the fault lines in what BBC political journalist Fergal Keane famously called Africa's 'basket case'.

AbstractThe concept of the "African Personality" was celebrated by the continent's first post-colonial President, Kwame Nkrumah. Sweeping to power in Ghana's first general election in 1951, Nkrumah and his Convention People's Party—inspired by Marcus Garvey and W. E. B. Du Bois—espoused the doctrines of nationhood and self-reliance. The conceptual dimensions of Nkrumah's "African Personality" and the role he had in mind for Association Football (soccer) as an instrument of its expression are crucial points of this analysis. Here we attempt to locate Nkrumah's political ideal within the contemporary realities of the migration of young Ghanaian soccer talent, examining at the same time the socio-economic processes which act as "push" and "pull" mechanisms in the context of such migratory trends. While Nkrumah's "race-conscious," pan-African forces have been utilized in the face of post-colonial identifications, soccer loyalties and objectives which are far more immediate and parochial in character continue to supersede those surrounding national or "racial" interests. Ghana's domestic game and national selection are riven by ethnic and regional hostilities while interlopers from Europe—some acting alone, others as emissaries for European soccer clubs—have laid down roots in Ghana, recognizing the nation as a breeding ground for talented, and comparatively cheap, young soccer talent. We argue that such inveterate ethno-regional rivalries, along with the conditions of neoliberal capitalism and its instrumental system of uneven geographical development, have provided entry points for the post-colonial forces so maligned by Nkrumah. Furthermore, we question the wisdom of notions of belonging based on bounded units such as "race" and attendant expressions of "race-consciousness."

Over the past 15 years the genre now referred to as Sport for Peace and Development (SPD) has seen various policy initiatives in many theatres of conflict. Those in this field include variously non-governmental organisations (NGOs), charities, world organisations, sporting governing bodies, national governments, commercial entities, individual foundations and academics. The opportunities for debate on this issue are endless and have provided platforms for the most earnest humanitarians as well as the self-aggrandising and delusional. In the elusive search for world peace and reconciliation in war-damaged societies people will understandably try various means of bringing about reconciliation. In such circumstances two objectives dominate the political process. The first is that armed combat is prevented and peace – however tenuous –is sustained. Secondly, future stability has to be sought and promoted both by those who seek to keep the peace and by those that began or participated in the conflict. There are various issues integral to such pursuits. The most obvious concerns the best way of achieving such desired outcomes and begs the supplementary question as to the people best placed to pursue them. What follows permits an ethnographic account to consider the promotion and delivery of specific SDP projects in post-conflict Liberia, West Africa which provides for a micro-study SDP in action Such delivery can be positioned variously as both the intentional use of sport –more specifically football – for rehabilitation and peace-building and as an everyday practice and national obsession that presented opportunities to intersect the game of football with moral, social and politically motivated interventions focused towards building a peaceful civil society. A challenge in a country like Liberia, that is scarcely visited by its funders and often instils fear amongst those academics tasked to monitor projects, is regulating practices and evaluating impact in a meaningful way. Liberia often presents a seductive narrative and image to the SDP apparatachiks. But, we might ask, at what consequence to the local populations whose primary focus is daily sustenance and survival? Do such interests do no harm?

Anthropology is particularly well suited to explore the contemporary predicament in the coming of age of young men. Its grounded and comparative empiricism provides the opportunity to move beyond statistics, moral panics, or gender stereotypes in order to explore specific aspects of life course transitions, as well as the similar or divergent barriers or opportunities that young men in different parts of the world face. Yet, effective contextualization and comparison cannot be achieved by looking at male youths in isolation. This volume undertakes to contextualize male youths' circumstances and to learn about their lives, perspectives, and actions, and in turn illuminates the larger structures and processes that mediate the experiences entailed in becoming young men. The situation of male youths provides an important vantage point from which to consider broader social transformations and continuities. By paying careful attention to these contexts, we achieve a better understanding of the current influences encountered and acted upon by young people