Socio-Cultural Mobility and Mega-Events

This interdisciplinary book uses Brazil's 2014 World Cup to explore how mega-events articulate socio-cultural problems. Critically examining the aesthetics and ethics of mobilities in the mega-event, this book explores these socio-cultural issues and controversies: the background of staging mega-events, including the bidding process and the host's expectations for returns; ceremonial staging and communications between artistic representations and national symbolism; and the clear reaction mega-events almost always generate in national, regional and global activist circles, including accusations of overspending and human rights violations.

Rodanthi Tzanelli is Associate Professor of Cultural Sociology at the University of Leeds, UK. She is author of over 60 papers and six monographs, including Heritage in the Digital Era: Cinematic Tourism and the Activist Cause (Routledge, 2013) and Olympic Ceremonialism and the Performance of National Character: From London 2012 to Rio 2012 (2013).

1. Cosmographies of riches and cosmologies of desire 2. Aesthetics and practical action: Euro-Brazilian clashes and harmonisations 3. Complementary articulations: characterising ideal human types and communities 4. The ceremonial script: from tropicalism and Brasilidade to cosmographic mobilities 5. A defeated people: the loss of riches and the return of debt 6. The script of post-colonial desire: positive excess, negative reciprocities