Sport and Secessionism

Sport and Secessionism examines how sporting cultures reflect, inform and sometimes frustrate secessionist movements around the world. Investigating a wide range of cases, the book explores key themes including nationalism, nation building, state-region antagonisms, independence movements, identity and ethnic politics, sovereignty and autonomy processes, all through the lens of sport. Sports are uniquely positioned to shed light on secessionist politics due to their pervasiveness in society, and their ability to absorb, reflect and produce political projections. The book presents analyses of a wide range of geographical, cultural and political contexts in which sports are deployed to pursue regional independence, or greater sovereignty and autonomy, and explores the dual processes of sub-national identity construction and state sovereignty deconstruction. The book includes fourteen cases from such diverse parts of the world as Ireland, Taiwan, Turkey, Catalonia, Biafra, Canada and the UK, among others. Offering a unique perspective on an important geopolitical issue, this book is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in sport and politics, the sociology of sport, political science, political geography, nationalism studies or international history.

Mariann Vaczi is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno, USA and author of Soccer, Culture and Society in Spain: An Ethnography of Basque Fandom (Routledge, 2015). Alan Bairner is Professor of Sport and Social Theory at Loughborough University, UK and co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Sport and Politics (Routledge, 2016).

Introduction.  1. Sport and the Unfinished Irish Revolution.  2. Sport and secessionism in Scotland.  3. Speaking for Wales: Sport and secessionism in a small nation.  4. A game of lions and devils: sport as a driver and inhibitor of Flemish secession.  5. The Tug of War of Nationalisms: Agonic Sports for Basque-Spanish Relations.  6. Visions of Building, Specters of Collapse: Alternative Routes to Secessionism in Catalonia.  7. Football in Corsica: From the pride of being French to the desire not to be?  8. Living Through Defeat: Hungarian-Romanian Relations through Szekler Hockey.  9. Two Styles of Engagement: Kurds and Football in Turkey.  10. Narratives of nationalist politics and sport in Sindh.  11. Assembling the Diasporic Nation; Kabylia at the CONIFA World Football Cup.  12. Sport and secessionism in Biafra.  13. "One China with Respective Interpretations" No more? - the struggle between China/PRC and Taiwan/ROC in sport.  14. The Montreal Hockey Nation: Ethnic and/or Civic Attachments?