Overview

This book examines the lives, decisions and challenges faced by transnational sport migrants - those professionals working in the sports industry who cross borders as part of their professional lives. Despite a great deal of romance surrounding international celebrity athletes, the vast majority of transnational sport migrants - players, journalists, coaches, administrators and medical personnel - toil far away from the limelight. Thomas F. Carter traces their lives, routes and experiences, documenting their travels and travails. He argues that far from the ease of mobility that celebrity sports stars enjoy, the vast majority of transnational sports migrants make huge sacrifices and labour under political restrictions, often enforced by sport's governing bodies. ""

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9780745330143

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Reviews

This is a remarkable book. Carter explodes facile assumptions about the mobility of sports players across playing fields and national boundaries. Combining vivid prose with shrewd analysis, he follows the lives and labour of both elite and lesser-known players. In doing so, he remakes the social scientific study of globalizing sport, while challenging its scandalous neglect in the discipline of anthropology. -- Simon Coleman, Chancellor Jackman Chaired Professor, University of Toronto, and co-editor of The Discipline of Leisure Based on more than a decade of ethnographic research in a wide variety of locations, this book make an enormous contribution to the anthropological study of sport and also to the social scientific understanding of sport more generally. In addition to vividly describing and forensically examining the lives of sport migrants as they ply their trade in 'foreign fields', Thomas Carter convincingly attacks his fellow anthropologists for their relative failure to appreciate the socio-cultural significance of sport. Even if they now take heed, however, Carter will remain their master for many years to come. -- Alan Bairner, Professor of Sport and Social Theory at Loughborough University, author of Sport, Nationalism, and Globalization (2001) Timely, innovative and provocative -- In Foreign Fields makes a significant contribution to how we understand transnational migration, sport and anthropology. With analytical rigour, sustained criticism and some finely presented ethnographic case studies, this book should be read by anyone interested in contemporary sport and its migration. -- Noel Dyck, Professor of Social Anthropology at Simon Fraser University and co-editor of Claiming Individuality: The Politics of Cultural Distinction (Pluto, 2006)

This is a remarkable book. Carter explodes facile assumptions about the mobility of sports players across playing fields and national boundaries. Combining vivid prose with shrewd analysis, he follows the lives and labour of both elite and lesser-known players. In doing so, he remakes the social scientific study of globalizing sport, while challenging its scandalous neglect in the discipline of anthropology. -- Simon Coleman, Chancellor Jackman Chaired Professor, University of Toronto, and co-editor of The Discipline of Leisure Based on more than a decade of ethnographic research in a wide variety of locations, this book make an enormous contribution to the anthropological study of sport and also to the social scientific understanding of sport more generally. In addition to vividly describing and forensically examining the lives of sport migrants as they ply their trade in 'foreign fields', Thomas Carter convincingly attacks his fellow anthropologists for their relative failure to appreciate the socio-cultural significance of sport. Even if they now take heed, however, Carter will remain their master for many years to come. -- Alan Bairner, Professor of Sport and Social Theory at Loughborough University, author of Sport, Nationalism, and Globalization (2001) Timely, innovative and provocative - In Foreign Fields makes a significant contribution to how we understand transnational migration, sport and anthropology. With analytical rigour, sustained criticism and some finely presented ethnographic case studies, this book should be read by anyone interested in contemporary sport and its migration. -- Noel Dyck, Professor of Social Anthropology at Simon Fraser University and co-editor of Claiming Individuality: The Politics of Cultural Distinction (Pluto, 2006)

Author Information

Thomas F. Carter is Principal Lecturer in Anthropology and Sport at the University of Brighton. He is the author of The Quality of Home Runs: The Passion, Politics and Language of Cuban Baseball (Duke University Press, 2008) and In Foreign Fields (Pluto, 2011).

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