Othering in sport-related research: How research produces and reproduces images of ‘the immigrant Other’

Abstract

Abstract The article explores how sport-related research contributes to the construction and reproduction of immigrants and their descendants as ‘Others’. This process, referred to as ‘Othering’ in this paper, is to be understood as a hegemonic act of ascribing otherness to social groups, marking them as being essentially different, generalising these alleged differences and transferring this alleged otherness into inferiority. This paper elaborates on this process of Othering theoretically and empirically. Qualitative content analysis of sport-related German-language academic publications enables an investigation of how researchers deal with social constructs of difference, such as ‘immigrant’, ‘migrant’ or ‘migrant background’, as well as revealing whether and how Othering occurs in their publications. As a result, this article demonstrates that Othering is found in a substantial number of academic publications. Furthermore, it exemplifies and discusses how the various forms of Othering manifest themselves at different stages in the research process.