Two-Faced Hopes: Football, Migration, and Religion Between West Africa and Europe

Descripción del proyecto

Fútbol, migración y religión entre los africanos occidentales

Muchos jóvenes de África occidental aspiran a seguir carreras futbolísticas en Europa, pero a menudo son víctimas de agentes engañosos. Los investigadores han pasado por alto el papel de la religión en este contexto, en particular el cristianismo pentecostal y el islam. El equipo del proyecto JANUSHOPE, financiado por las Acciones Marie Skłodowska-Curie, estudia el concepto de esperanza entre los migrantes africanos en Europa mediante el análisis de la intersección entre el fútbol, la migración y la religión. Se centrará en los migrantes africanos del fútbol en Europa considerados en situación irregular. Su objetivo es analizar críticamente los aspectos más oscuros de la esperanza dentro de la industria mundial del fútbol mientras se lucha por el éxito. En el proyecto también se examina cómo las narrativas de esperanza basadas en la fe pueden criticar y perpetuar el capitalismo global y las desigualdades migratorias transnacionales. La investigación incluye la realización de entrevistas semiestructuradas y trabajo de campo etnográfico.

Objetivo

Since the 1990s and the commercialization of global football, an increasing number of young people in countries like Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Cameroon have aspired to play football as a career, a strategy to migrate abroad (ideally Europe), and an opportunity for social and class mobility. For the majority, however, the dream does not come true. International media and human rights organizations regularly report about thousands of young West Africans victimized by deceitful agents, stranded as undocumented migrants, and playing for clubs under exploitative conditions. And yet, young people continue to train to migrate and play. Scholars have studied these football-related migrations, but they have overlooked the fact that religions, especially Pentecostal Christianity and Islam, play a central role in migrants’ hopeful journeys. This project investigates the intersection of football, migration, and religion among African migrants in Europe in order to study hope, conceptualized as a belief that something desired may occur in the future. It makes a crucial critical intervention: while many interdisciplinary studies assume a depoliticized notion of hope and romanticize its positive and constructive qualities, JANUSHOPE also examines the dark side of hope that perpetuates inequality and exploitation. It turns to African “irregular” football migrants in Europe to understand how a critique of the global industry’s dark side of hope might co-exist with hopes for “making it” in the industry. It investigates how their faith-based narratives of hope might both critique and reproduce inequalities of global capitalism and transnational migration. The key research methods are semi-structured interviews and ethnographic fieldwork with “irregular” African football migrants in Europe. The results will be disseminated through refereed articles and communicated to a wide global audience interested in football and to key European policy makers in fields of migration and human rights.