Migrants and sport

Football as an area for integration of refugees in Croatia

Rahela, Jurković

Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU

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http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/Article.aspx?ID=0350-08611803477J

2018-2020/03/24/16:40:37

Integration of refugees is an area that has been raising a relatively insufficient research interest, especially in the countries of the Southeast Europe, where the refugees, in the sense of persons who have been seeking for or were granted the international protection after the year 2000, and based on the 1951 Refugee Convention, represent a new migrant community. From the viewpoint of cultural anthropology and based on the qualitative research conducted from spring 2015 to autumn 2017, in this paper I discuss integration of refugees in Croatia through sport. The aim of the paper is to explore, based on the case study of Football Club Zagreb 041, which dimensions of integration participation in sport can have for persons that are seeking for or were granted asylum in Croatia. In doing so, the paper compares the results of other European empirical research with the ones obtained in Croatia, and it also questions theses of some scholars on questionable integrative role of sport, as well as the theses that sport is more an area of creating distinction and status than an area for inclusion and building social bridges between the host society and immigrants.

refugees, asylum seekers, integration, asylees, integration through sport