Open AccessFootball as means of building social capital of refugees in Croatia
Author(s) -
Rahela Jurković
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
glasnik etnografskog instituta/glasnik etnografskog instituta sanu
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2334-8259
pISSN - 0350-0861
DOI - 10.2298/gei2102477j
Subject(s) - refugee , football , social capital , embodied cognition , meaning (existential) , cultural capital , sociology , capital (architecture) , political science , gender studies , social science , psychology , epistemology , geography , law , philosophy , archaeology , psychotherapist
The article is based on the results of cultural-anthropological research conducted from 2017 to 2020 with the aim of shedding light into the meaning of football for the refugees that have arrived in Croatia in the last few years. The meaning of football for refugees and social connections they acquire through it are considered within the Bourdieu's theory of cultural and social capital. The research has indicated that football represents an embodied state of cultural capital as well as important means of building social capital of refugees that allows them not only to be active and enjoy moments of oblivion in the situation of refugeeness, but it also connects them with the society they arrived in as refugees. By playing football refugees make social connections that bring them closer to the receiving society, thus enabling them to understand it better. Such social connections also show refugees how they can move through the new society and make progress within it.