Para além dos limites da agência: Mobilidade das “crianças de rua” no sul do Gana

Em resposta às conceitualizações generalizadas da infância de rua no Sul global como um estado de miséria e marginalização, estudos recentes tendem a descrever as crianças de rua como agentes sociais. No entanto, muitos referem-se à agência “tática” ou “fraca”, para salientar o limitado alcance das práticas desses jovens. Porém, o problema de reconhecer um grau de agência mais reduzido é que ele separa as crianças e jovens que vivem em ambientes “fora da norma” daqueles que ficam com os seus pais e frequentam a escola. Esta constelação é particularmente inadequada na esfera da infância de rua no Sul global, já que constrói entidades fixas de diferentes mundos de vida que de facto são fluídos, uma vez que frequentemente as crianças de rua circulam entre os vários domínios de socialização. Proponho que as mobilidades sociais, espaciais e temporais das crianças de rua podem ser melhor exploradas através das histórias de vida das crianças, focando aqui as crianças de rua no sul do Gana.As a response to widespread conceptualizations of street childhood in the global South as a state of misery and marginalization, recent studies tend to portray street children as social agents. However, many refer to “tactical” or “thin” agency in order to point out the limited scope of those young people’s practices. Yet, the problem of acknowledging a lower degree of agency is that it separates children and youth living in environments “outside the norm” from those who stay with their parents and attend school. This constellation is particularly inadequate in the realm of street childhood in the global South, as it constructs fixed entities of different life worlds that are indeed fluid since street children frequently move between the various domains of socialization. I propose that the social, spatial and temporal mobilities of street children can best be explored through children’s biographical life stories, focusing here on street children in southern Ghana.aceit

Beyond agency's limits. "street children's" mobilities in southern Ghana

As a response to widespread conceptualizations of street childhood in the global South as a state of misery and marginalization, recent studies tend to portray street children as social agents. However, many refer to "tactical" or "thin" agency in order to point out the limited scope of those young people's practices. Yet, the problem of acknowledging a lower degree of agency is that it separates children and youth living in environments "outside the norm" from those who stay with their parents and attend school. This constellation is particularly inadequate in the realm of street childhood in the global South, as it constructs fixed entities of different life worlds that are indeed fluid since street children frequently move between the various domains of socialization. I propose that the social, spatial and temporal mobilities of street children can best be explored through children's biographical life stories, focusing here on street children in southern Ghana.Em resposta às conceitualizações generalizadas da infância de rua no Sul global como um estado de miséria e marginalização, estudos recentes tendem a descrever as crianças de rua como agentes sociais. No entanto, muitos referem-se à agência “tática” ou “fraca”, para salientar o limitado alcance das práticas desses jovens. Porém, o problema de reconhecer um grau de agência mais reduzido é que ele separa as crianças e jovens que vivem em ambientes “fora da norma” daqueles que ficam com os seus pais e frequentam a escola. Esta constelação é particularmente inadequada na esfera da infância de rua no Sul global, já que constrói entidades fixas de diferentes mundos de vida que de facto são fluídos, uma vez que frequentemente as crianças de rua circulam entre os vários domínios de socialização. Proponho que as mobilidades sociais, espaciais e temporais das crianças de rua podem ser melhor exploradas através das histórias de vida das crianças, focando aqui as crianças de rua no sul do Gana

A social negotiation of hope: male West African youth, ‘waithood’ and the pursuit of social becoming through football

This paper examines the present-day perception among boys and young men in West Africa that migration through football offers a way to achieve social standing and improve one’s life chances. More specifically, we use the case of aspirant young Ghanaian footballers as a lens to qualify recent conceptualizations of African youth, such as ‘waithood’, which have a tendency to overlook the multifarious attempts and visions of young people on the continent to overcome social immobility. Drawing on various and long-term ethnographic fieldwork among footballers in urban southern Ghana between 2010 and 2016, we argue that young people’s efforts to make it abroad and ‘become a somebody’ through football is not merely an individual fantasy; it is rather a social negotiation of hope. It is this collective practice among a large cohort of young males – realistic or not – which qualifies conceptualizations of youth transitions such as ‘waithood’. By this, we highlight how examining the contemporary fusion of sport with a desire to migrate furthers our understandings of social mobility for West African youth, and extends literature on the strategies used by young people in the region as they try to bypass the structural barriers blocking their path to ‘becoming a somebody’

Women's transnational migration through football: Possibilities, responsibilities, and respectability in Ghana

The growth of girls’ and women's football in Africa, coupled with increased professionalisation in Europe and the United States, has led to rising international migration of African female players. This trend reflects the longer standing culture of independent, transnational migration among African women since the late 1980s and of enlarged possibilities and responsibilities triggered by neoliberal reform across the continent. This article explores how these sporting, cultural and economic transformations have coalesced to influence the aspirations and agency of female youth and young women in Ghana. To do so, we draw on original data from ethnographic fieldwork in Ghana, Sweden and Denmark undertaken between 2015 and 2021. Our findings reveal that for ambitious, talented female footballers, transnational football migration is increasingly viewed as a speculative route to improve ones’ life chances and negotiate intergenerational responsibilities to family. Significantly, the article also illustrates that in seeking to produce this highly prized form of migration, they must carefully navigate gendered social norms and hierarchies related to ‘respectable’ career and life trajectories. The conclusion proposes a critical research agenda to explore the interplay between sporting opportunities, migration aspirations and diverse socioeconomic conditions in Africa

Ein prekäres Spiel: Erfahrungen von Risiken und Unsicherheit unter afrikanischen Profifußballern in Deutschland

Dieser Artikel ist ein Beitrag, die vielfältigen Formen, Erfahrungen und Dimensionen von Prekarität unter afrikanischen Fußballmigranten im deutschen (und teilweise europäischen) Profifußball aufzuzeigen. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf den Erzählungen und Auseinandersetzungen der Spieler selbst. So möchte ich ein akteurszentriertes Bild zeichnen, das sowohl die Herausforderungen und Problematiken im professionellen Fußball für die spezifische Gruppe afrikanischer Spieler als auch mögliche Ambivalenzen innerhalb der prekären Erfahrungen aufzeigt. Auf diese Weise möchte ich auch die Frage klären, inwieweit das Theorem der Prekarität die vielschichtigen nachteiligen Bedingungen und Erlebnisse abbilden und so zur allgemeinen Debatte um Prekarität unter Hochqualifizierten und in begehrten Berufen beitragen kann. Grundlage dieser Studie sind 20 biographische und themenzentrierte Interviews, die ich mit aktiven und ehemaligen afrikanischen Profifußballern zwischen 2010 und 2016 in Deutschland und Ghana geführt habe

Introduction: Young people working for better lives in West and Central Africa

After more than a decade of emphasizing African children’s and youth’s agencies, possibilities and creativities in more or less challenging social, political and economic environments (see Bordonaro & Carvalho, 2010; Christiansen, Utas, & Vigh, 2006; Honwana & de Boeck, 2005; Martin, Ungruhe, & Häberlein, 2016; Spittler & Bourdillon, 2012), other recent studies increasingly highlight the young people’s powerlessness, bleak presents and uncertain futures. Doing so, the image of an enduring soc..

Why are East African Players Absent in European Football? Localizing African Football Migration Along Structural Constraints, Colonial Legacies and Voluntary Immobility

While studies on transnational African football migration have increasingly attracted scholarly attention, little is known about the continent’s regional particularities. However, in contrast to the massive influx of footballers from West and North Africa, squads of European professional clubs seldom include players from East Africa. Yet, the concentration on West Africa in academic studies runs the risk of overgeneralizing certain practices on the African continent and, hence, of reproducing Africa’s standing as the homogeneous peripheral other. By analyzing the various historical, structural, and socio-cultural reasons for the general absence of migrant footballers from East Africa, we aim at contributing to a more nuanced picture of African football migration and further discuss the ambivalent consequences of players’ spatial immobility for East Africa’s football development

Africa: SDP and Sports Academies

Within mainstream migration studies, there is a voluminous literature on migration development interactions and outcomes (cf. De Haas, 2010). As this Handbook reveals, there is also a significant and growing body of research on the relationships between sport and development. Falling between these two canons of academic work is a smaller literature which has explored the intersections between sports migration and development in the global South (Bale, 2004; Darby, 2000; Esson, 2015a; Klein, 2014). Much of this work has focused on football migration from the African continent, particularly West Africa, and has acknowledged that football academies, defined as facilities or coaching programs designed to produce talent predominantly for export, are pivotal in this process (Darby, Akindes and Kirwin, 2007). Recent scholarship has shown how aspirations to migrate and the academies that seek to facilitate this articulate with varying forms of social and economic development in complex ways, and produce more heterogeneous outcomes than were previously observed (Darby, 2013a; Dubinsky and Schler, 2017). This chapter explores these articulations in relation to football in Africa, predominantly Ghana where academies have become increasingly visible. While African football is the focus of this chapter, this discussion speaks to wider debates on the migration development nexus in the context of sport, namely the tension between sport development, the commodification of sporting talent, and aspirations to develop an individual through sport and thereby enact