Issues of inclusion and belonging of youth of immigrant background are at the forefront of policy discussions and media discourses across Europe. Football offers a compelling site of inquiry for such issues. As a country of relatively short immigration history and with a great passion for the sport, Italy makes an ideal case study.

The popularity and globalization of sport have led to an ever-increasing migration of Black athletes from the global South to the United States and Western Europe. While the hegemonic ideology surrounding sport is that it brings diverse people together and ameliorates social divisions, sociologists of sport have shown this to be a gross simplification. Instead, sport and its narratives often reinforce and re-create stereotypes and social boundaries, especially regarding race and the prowess and the position of the Black athlete. Because sport is a contested terrain for maintaining and challenging racial norms and boundaries, the Black athlete has always impacted popular (white) perceptions of Blackness in a global manner. The Black Migrant Athlete analyzes the construction of race in Western societies through a study of the Black African migrant athlete. Munene Franjo Mwaniki presents ten Black African migrant athletes as a conceptual starting point to interrogate the nuances of white supremacy and of the migrant and immigrant experience with a global perspective. By using celebrity athletes such as Hakeem Olajuwon, Dikembe Mutombo, and Catherine Ndereba as entry points into a global discourse, Mwaniki explores how these athletes are wrapped in social and cultural meanings by predominately white-owned and -dominated media organizations. Drawing from discourse analysis and cultural studies, Mwaniki examines the various power relations via media texts regarding race, gender, sexuality, class, and nationality.

2021 saw the centenary of the formation of the League of Ireland, the Republic of Ireland’s primary professional association football league. This new collection draws on the work of a number of leading historians of Irish soccer and seeks to examine a number of previously under-researched aspects relating to the league. The book examines the initial growth of clubs in Dublin and the Free State League’s early turbulent history, while the impact of Irish players and administrators on the development of soccer clubs at home and abroad is also assessed. Following the partition of Ireland in 1921, players continued to move from Dublin clubs to those in Northern Ireland and this is also discussed, particularly in light of the Troubles of 1968–1998. Despite the migration of many Irish-born players to Britain, the League of Ireland has also attracted internationally based players and the impact of this is also examined. The role of the league in the provision of players for the Irish Olympic team is also explored, as is the work of SARI in its attempts to eradicate racism from Irish sport. This publication aims to commemorate some of those who have strived to maintain the League of Ireland’s presence against the backdrop of what has become the world’s most attractive football league, located in Ireland’s neighbour, England. It will be of interest to researchers and advanced students of Sports, History, Sociology and Politics. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal, Soccer & Society.

Afropean Female Selves: Migration and Language in the Life Writing of Fatou Diome and Igiaba Scego examines the corpus of writing of two contemporary female authors. Both writers are of African descent, live in Europe and write about lives across Europe and Africa in different languages (French and Italian). Their work involves episodes from their lived experience and complicates Western understandings of life writing and autobiography. As Hogarth shows in this study, the works of Diome and Scego encapsulate the new and complex identities of contemporary "Afropeans." As an identity coined and used frequently by prominent authors and critics across Europe, Africa and North America, the notion of "Afropean" is at the cutting edge of cultural analyses today. Yet each writer occupies unique and different positions within this debated category. While Scego is a "post-migratory subject" in postcolonial Europe, Diome is an African writer who has migrated to Europe in her adult life. This book examines the different trajectories and packaging of these two specific postcolonial writers in the Francophone and Italophone contexts, pointing out how and where each author practices life writing strategies and scrutinizing the trend that emphasizes the life writing, autofictional, or autoethnographic strategies of African diasporic writers. Afropean Female Selves offers a comparative study across two languages of a notion that has so far been explored mainly in English. It explores the contours of this new discursive category and positions it in regard to other notions of Afrodiasporic identity, such as Afropolitan and Afro-European.

Ultras are the most prominent form of football fandom in the 21st century, from their origins in Italy in the 1960s, this style of fandom has spread across Europe and then across the globe. This book provides the first European-wide monograph on the ultras phenomenon.

Drawing on original and innovative contributions from educators, practitioners and students, Challenges and New Directions in Journalism Education captures and informs our understanding of journalism pedagogy in the context of ongoing shifts in journalism practice. Journalism is once again facing challenges, accused of elitism and often branded as too far removed from the reality of people’s lives. The post-truth context has engendered a crisis of trust, and journalism is portrayed as core to the problem, rather than the solution. Citizen journalism and societal shifts have provoked a move away from ‘top-down’ reporting, towards greater interactivity with audiences, but inclusivity remains an issue with news organisations and industry councils intensifying protocols in a bid to create more diverse newsrooms. This poses multiple questions for journalism educators: How is journalism education engaging with these imperatives in the ‘post-pandemic’ context? How can student perspectives inform our response? What journalism should we teach? Against this landscape, and in response to these questions, this book engages with a series of key themes and objectives related to challenges and new directions in journalism education. These include discussions around safeguarding, sustainability, journalism’s ‘democratic deficit’, integrating media literacy and the ‘post-pandemic’ context. Each chapter draws on primary data, case studies and examples to describe and unpack the topic, and concludes with practical suggestions for journalism educators. Challenges and New Directions in Journalism Education is key reading for anyone teaching or training to become a teacher of journalism.

The project of interpreting contemporary forms of punishment means exploring the social, political, economic, and historical conditions in the society in which those forms arise. The SAGE Handbook of Punishment and Society draws together this disparate and expansive field of punishment and society into one compelling new volume. Headed by two of the leading scholars in the field, Jonathan Simon and Richard Sparks have crafted a comprehensive and definitive resource that illuminates some of the key themes in this complex area - from historical and prospective issues to penal trends and related contributions through theory, literature and philosophy. Incorporating a stellar and international line-up of contributors the book addresses issues such as: capital punishment, the civilising process, gender, diversity, inequality, power, human rights and neoliberalism. This engaging, vibrantly written collection will be captivating reading for academics and researchers in criminology, penology, criminal justice, sociology, cultural studies, philosophy and politics.

How do migrant youth negotiate their role in society through sport and leisure practices? How can political theory and qualitative critical research work together to make sense of these processes? These are among the questions that led to a long-term investigation of young males’ sport practices in Ireland, possibly the most fertile contemporary setting for the analysis of questions of sport and identity. Youth Sport, Migration and Culture emphasises the epistemological and ethical urgency of doing research with rather than on young people. Engaging with the social changes in Irish society through the eyes of children of immigrants growing up in Ireland, the book looks closely at young people’s leisure practices in multi-ethnic contexts, and at issues of inclusion in relation to public discourses around ‘national identity’ and immigration. Offering compelling analysis of how ideas of race and racism are elaborated through sport, this book is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the sociology of sport, sport development or youth culture.

A 2023 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title This book provides an accessible space for interdisciplinary scholarship and narrative through an analysis of the power of media and sports, focusing on the intersectionality of identity, politics, social justice, and social movements within this context. Contributors examine how identities coalesce in sports and discuss the ways in which sports provide spaces for marginalized communities and create unique platforms that shift how society defines identity. Athletes’ identities and actions—and mass media’s representation thereof—can influence both the perceptions of society as a whole and how individuals view themselves, contributors argue. Each chapter delves into how different aspects of identity, including race, gender, disability, and sexuality, have developed and influenced social change, with a strong focus on lived experiences of both scholars and athletes from marginalized communities. Scholars of media studies, communication, sociology, and kinesiology may find this book particularly useful.

The study of football fandom is a fast-growing area of research in the sociology of sport. The first work of its kind, this book explores football fan activism and its impact on contemporary football culture in England, Italy and the Czech Republic. Presenting a comparative study of fan activism in national and transnational contexts, it explores the characteristics of each country’s football fan culture as well as the varying and at times volatile dynamics between fans, authorities and the mass media. Its chapters address key themes and issues including: fans’ reactions to policing and security measures in football stadiums; the socio-cultural significance of symbols and rituals for fans at football games; and fans’ critical engagement with football club ownership and management. Offering original insights into the power of fan activism to influence social change, this book has wider implications for understanding social movements in other cultural and political spheres beyond Europe. Football Fans, Activism and Social Change is fascinating reading for all students, scholars and football fans with an interest in sport studies, fan culture, politics and society.