Footballing journeys: migration, citizenship and national identity

Sport, in particular football, can provide a useful means through which to explore the related issues of migration and national identity. Sports stars migrate from one country to another often mirroring patterns of more widespread migration from periphery to core. Such movements are influenced by a range of factors. In an increasingly commercialised and globalised sport, the exploration of footballers’ roots and the routes they take feeds into a consideration of issues of place identity and belonging. In international sporting competition, competitors don the national colours, sing the anthem and “fly the flag”, and in doing so become the embodiment of the wider imagined community. Traditionally those who compete for countries have usually been born and raised there or have lived there for sizeable periods of their lives. In recent years, however, the selection by international sports teams of competitors born in other countries has become increasingly common. The use of these footballing examples provides insights into migration, diaspora, citizenship, globalisation, and the multi-layered and contingent nature of national identity. Sport can offer a useful means of illuminating these various geographic themes and socio-spatial processes, thereby rendering them more accessible and interesting to students.