Abstract
Abstract Outside of Europe’s top football leagues, migrant athletes are often subjected to short-term contracts, poor housing conditions, isolation and the ever-present risk of premature career termination due to injuries. This paper is part of a current multi-sited ethnography on Brazilian futsal and football migrants in Central and Eastern Europe. It is based on life-history interviews with migrant players and uses transnational lenses to approach sports migrants’ movements in these regions. The study conceptualises futsal and football as an ethnographic continuum. Football and futsal players participate in similar processes of early professionalisation. However, at the ages of 16 or 17, athletes become professionals in either football or futsal, seeking specialisation. The role that borders, families, injuries and emotions play in the lives of sports migrants are also analysed. The current study presents a diversified narrative of contemporary sports migration movements.
Highlights
Is there a more suitable research methodology for studying sports migration in “Central” and “Eastern” Europe?1 What are the difficulties and challenges these regions present to researchers? These are the questions I address in this paper
My current study reflects on the lives and careers of Brazilian football and futsal players in Central and Eastern Europe
While Brazilians are often seen as a “global football workforce” (Poli, Ravenel and Besson 2019), there is still much to be learned about the specificities of Brazilian sports migration to “Central” and “Eastern” Europe
Summary
Throughout this paper, I will approach Brazilian sports migration in Central and Eastern Europe by focusing on sports migrants in both football and futsal. Throughout this paper, I will approach Brazilian sports migration in Central and Eastern Europe by focusing on sports migrants in both football and futsal2 In this sense, I present one main argument: football and futsal should be conceptualised as an ethnographic continuum. While Marcus has warned ethnographers about the risk of erasing “the subaltern”, he did not offer a precise proposal about how to construct multi-sited ethnographies that focus on both “the subaltern” and the most mobile occupations In this sense, my analysis focused on both localised challenges athletes face in their professionalisation processes, their struggles to maintain their current positions, and constant transnational movements (GlickSchiller and Çağlar 2009, Agergaard 2018). The relationship between these two sports has emerged from the analysis of sports migrants’ career trajectories in Central and Eastern Europe
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