Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Kurdish Football in Sweden
Identities at Play
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publishing:1st Apr '27
£85.00
This title is due to be published on 1st April, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
This book discusses the intersections between Swedishness and Kurdishness expressed through football. The football team Dalkurd FF becomes an important social aspect in the lives of informants, because it expresses their relation as part of a Kurdish diaspora population in Sweden.
Ethnicity, Nationalism and Kurdish Football: Identities at Play is the result of almost two years of intensive ethnographic fieldwork within members of the Kurdish diaspora in Sweden, as it relates to a football club called Dalkurd FF. Tiago Duarte Dias reflects on the role that identity, ethnicity and football in understanding how Kurds in diaspora relate to both their Kurdish identity and to the nation that has received them. By focusing on football, Tiago analyses how a sports practice that has been a part of Swedish tradition for around 150 years has been instrumental in reinterpreting a Kurdish diaspora. The desire to affirm ethnic belonging to a historically persecuted identity, while at the same time claiming a stake in a multicultural Sweden, is the key aspect of this work. As football fandom brings a collective form of belonging, Ethnicity, Nationalism and Kurdish Football aims to clarify aspects related to this phenomenon in its multiplicity and how topics such as identity, diaspora, ethnicity, racial discrimination intertwines.
A scintillating, brilliant study of how football gives powerful expression to ethnicity, nationalism and belonging. Through Dalkurd FF, Dias illuminates Kurdish identity with exceptional insight, showing how a game without borders can embody identities that transcend them. Essential reading across anthropology, sociology, politics, nationalism, migration, diaspora and sports studies - and an absorbing book for anyone interested in identity and football. -- Bamo Nouri, University of West London, UK
This book demonstrates how football can serve as a vital catalyst for reinforcing national identities and social cohesion among displaced ethnic groups. The establishment of Dalkurd FF and its subsequent integration into the Swedish league underscores an allegiance to Kurdish values and symbols, articulated through the universal lexicon of football. Consequently, this study constitutes an essential contribution to the scholarship on the intersections of sport, identity, and politics. -- Luiz Fernando Rojo, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil
This book is a groundbreaking anthropological study of Kurdish football in Sweden. Tiago Duarte Dias’ insightful analysis shows how football organizes a public sphere where meanings and symbols are constantly produced and contested, allowing a complex interplay between Kurdish and Swedish identities. This is a fundamental contribution to the understanding of the role of sport in multi-cultural contemporary European societies. -- Paulo G. Pinto, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies (NEOM), Federal Fluminense University, Brazil
ISBN: 9781666969177
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
256 pages