Category Archives: Football and Globalization

Race, Nationalism, Globalization and Sports – by Eamon Bousa

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In the first set of readings race is defined as emerging from the capitalist and colonist experiences of Europeans who sought to justify their dominance and control foreign resources, land and people. The concept of race defined individuals according to physical characteristics and implied a certain disposition and character that would be unchangeable for the individual and their descendants.

The “science” behind race though proved to be shaky and ever changing based on individual circumstances and a non-uniform number of classifications across the world. Some societies, such as the US used the “one drop rule” which classified a person with any African ancestry as black, while the South African government under Apartheid would classify mixed race individuals as colored. Some racial theorists would also break down groups even further and consider the white race to actually be a collection of races.

This disparity in definitions and classifications along with a lack of biological evidence in favor of a biological differential between the popular concepts of race led modern scientists to discard the classification in the physical sciences but the concept lives on in the social sciences. The beliefs people still hold about race and its implications continue to affect modern societies despite its lack of scientific grounding.

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Race, Nationalism, Globalization and Sports – by Cole Sylvester

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Cole PCQ 1/6/2014

The article, Theories of “Race” by Michael Banton, takes a look at the idea that “race” does not have a biological reason or empirical existence. Rather, the idea that there are separate “races” of humans who are in some way cognitively or physiologically different from one another gets turned on its head in the 1920s with the advent of racial sociology. Race became known as a mental reaction that “made [distinctive peoples] conscious of what distinguished them” thus “social life built up frustration which individuals released on to scapegoats in the form of displaced aggression”.

The “distinctive peoples” mentioned in Robert E. Park’s ecological theory were only made separate by European capitalism’s need for cheap un-free labor. Because of the early advent of the idea of separate distinctive races, human society has created an environment of subconscious discrimination for anyone who is perceived as different, much like the thinking of 19th century scientists divided Homo sapiens into three subspecies (or races). Instead of a philosophy of inferiorization and exploitation of the 19th century subspecies, our modern globalized society has instead turned to ethnic, religious, and economical “races” that we still create prejudices and discriminate against. Continue reading →

Race and Science, Nationalism and Globalization – by MS

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Unequal Development:

In the eighteenth century was the first attempt to utilize race as a scientific concept. A French anatomist Cuvier started this in 1817 and he divided the races into three subspecies Caucasians, Mongolians and Ethiopians.  All this make different races start being more superior to others. Cuvier states “ whites had gained dominion over the world and made the most rapid progress in science. ‘Yellows’ were less advanced, and blacks degraded”. So race was used as a taxon. To spread the ideology they used novels and people who were notable.

Early Social Science:

The ecological theory developed by Robert E. Park in Chicago maintained that migration brought distinctive people into contact; competition made them conscious of what distinguished them, and those in a superior status developed prejudice as a defensive reaction.

Reaction: Competition creates racial tension and this is why we see migrant people face difficulties when they migrate to a new country. How can science be the way Continue reading →

Race, Nationalism, Globalization and Soccer, by Gabriel Maletta

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The first article, Banton’s Theories of ‘Race’ seeks to define Race as a social construct born out of the scientific and social enlightenments of the last few centuries. He argues that the development of race as a science was adopted in order to find meaning to what was, at the time, a complete European domination of other cultures. Banton shows, along with Mariel Mikaila and Arthur Lemonik’s article “Race”, how race is an inherently social construct stemming from geographic, political, cultural, economic and religious factors. Their articles shed light on late 19th and early 20th century attempts by social scientists to create a scientific approach to racism, such as Curie ‘European, African, Mongoloid theorem’ or social Darwinist principles. Mikaila and Lemonik go on to argue the consequences of race in modern society particularly in its limiting factor and its ability to create social, political and economic stress on society.  Continue reading →

Race, Nationalism, Globalization and Soccer, by Seth Browner

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Race, as Michael Banton details in the article Theories of “Race”, was first academically described by the intellectuals in Europe. Observing the inequalities between European colonizers and the impecunious colonized, many “attributed inequality in development to different biological inheritance” (Banton 1).

Furthermore, race was used as a classification system, as discussed in another article by Mariel Mikalia and Arthur Lemonik. One can certainly claim today that race is not the sole cause of poverty or underdevelopment; the first analyzers of race, I believe, were mistaken. I believe the educated Europeans who initially explored race studies confused with an observation with an explanation and failed to delve deeper into certain topics.

To start, I believe these academics noted the disparities in the quality of life between themselves and those in their colonies. Unable to explain this phenomenon, they attributed the gap to race, since these trends of racial minorities in squalor were nearly ubiquitous throughout the age of imperialism. Then, these academics hence failed to examine further than this point until Darwinism introduced new ideas of fitness and survival, which were subsequently linked to caucasian superiority. Continue reading →

Fandom, Nationalism, Globalization and Soccer, by Mac Daly

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In the definitions packet we received I noticed a link between two sections. Under Nation and Nationalism, on page 16 the author writes

“Among the Jews of the Old Testament and among the ancient Greeks we find the sence of belonging to a distinct people marked off from the rest of the world by special characteristics – an embryonic sense of national superiority”

Later on page 31 under Nationalism and Sport the author writes

“The desire, particularly on the part of fans, to express their national identity in the relm of sport is clearly linked to nationalism in the broadest sense or, at the very least, to patriotism”

Together these definitions explain fandom, especially on the national level. People feel that their nationality is superior and they look to sport to prove it.

In the 2nd article we read, a major point Ithought was interesting was the fact that the EPL has been on television in 211 nations. That is tremendous, I can’t think of any other thing that would be on so many televisions. It shows how important soccer is to so many people and how big of a market their is for the sport both in terms of fandom but also strictly business.

Something the essay doesn’t touch on to much is foreign investment in the EPL. While it does say many players come from outside England it doesn’t really dive deep into the surprising about of teams who are not owned by Brits. This is important to my topic of American’a making money in soccer.