The Global Sociology Blog

I love soccer, or as we Europeans call it, football. I also like network visualizations. So, how can I not love this network visualization of Ballon D’Or votes. If you don’t know what the Ballon D’Or is, check this out. Quick explanation: “The above visualization shows the network of votes of the Ballon d’Or 2012. [...]

I have to confess that I found Kath Woordward‘s Planet Sport to be a little mess of a book. As I have mentioned before, I am always on the lookout for short books that might make for some interesting readings in sociology for my freshmen / introduction to sociology class. Naturally, sports is a topic [...]

So, first, we had the whole Caster Semenya saga: a female athlete who is really good… so good indeed that it is suspicious. Is she really a woman? Let’s test. Ok, she is. But she is not feminine enough, so, let’s pump of her full of hormone to increase her femininity and lower her performance [...]

So, first, we had this: And now, we have this (H/T: Isabelle Germain on Twitter): The context for this last one is this: “The IFAB agreed to unanimously approve – temporarily during a trial period – the wearing of headscarves. The design, colour and material permitted will be defined and confirmed following the IFAB Annual [...]

Holy !@#$. Seriously. I guess this is the next stage in the controversy that followed the World Cup fiasco (which was discussed here). The political fall-out is this: it’s the Blacks and the Arabs that caused the mess in South Africa. There are too many of them in the French national team. Let’s impose a [...]

Stephane Béaud’s Traîtres À La Nation – Un Autre Regard Sur La Grève Des Bleus en Afrique du Sud (en collaboration avec Philippe Guimard) is perfect and great example of public sociology. It very nicely and powerfully shows what sociological analysis can do, especially with respect to a very high-profile event, such as the “strike” by [...]

Dave Zirin: “Over the decades that have marked the tenure of Egypt’s “President for Life” Hosni Mubarak, there has been one consistent nexus for anger, organization, and practical experience in the ancient art of street fighting: the country’s soccer clubs. Over the past week, the most organized, militant fan clubs, also known as the “ultras,” [...]

Via Denis Colombi, every year, we have to endure coverage of the Paris – Dakar (which is no longer from Paris to Dakar but never mind), where wealthy white men (and such races are gendered phenomena) get to use peripheral or semi-peripheral countries for their enjoyment, in a typical neo-colonialist fashion. Years ago, I got [...]

Tony Karon on football and globalization and how the European championship leagues “belong” to Africa in the sense that African audiences follow them assiduously, spot the jerseys of their favorite teams, etc.: At the same time, Raffaele Poli, in “Understanding globalization through football: The new international division of labour, migratory channels and transnational trade circuits”, [...]

I have to say that based on the title, I had high expectations for Andrei Markovits and Lars Rensmann‘s Gaming The World: How Sports are Reshaping Global Politics and Culture. Sadly, I was disappointed. Not that the book is all bad, no. It is interesting at times, but a bit tedious at others. But my [...]

I confess to knowing next to nothing about Americans’ favorite sports, football, basketball and baseball but I had heard of Dave Zirin thanks to the Grumpy Sociologist. I had read a few columns from him and enjoyed his writing. So, I decided to read Bad Sports – How Owners Are Ruining The Games We Love. [...]

Ok, one last post on the sociological aspects of football as the end of the World Cup nears. First, much has been made of Americans’ lack of interest in football. Of course, there is the idiotic conservative argument that football is boring, not enough goals are scored (Americans enjoy quantity over quality, as usual, in [...]

It is an interesting (and depressing) report but it is always annoying to have a “thank goodness white people are the only well-intended and honest people ready to save these poor African children” segment. That being said, it is still worth watching as a form of resource extraction from the Global South to the Global [...]

In this great post, Tony Karon channels David Held‘s analysis of globalization as multipolar phenomenon. Karon starts by enunciating what makes this World Cup actually quite interesting: “Les Bleus were trounced by Uruguay and South Africa, and plunged into a national crisis that required presidential intervention by their own implosion. Uruguay, refusing to accept the [...]

Denis Colombi is right to recommend this column by Marwan Mohammed and Laurent Mucchielli. As they state, it didn’t take long for some French right-wing philosopher (and yes, we have a few of them, each one more pathetic and intellectually bankrupt than the next) to blame the poor performance of the French team at the [...]