Borders, Youth, Neoliberalism: How Global Sport Undermines and Strengthens National Borders

European Netias Lecture by Niko Besnier, Professor of Cultural Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

  • Date: 08 OCTOBER 2020  from 17:00 to 19:00

  • Type: Lectures

Neoliberalism has permeated the bodies and subjectivities of youth around the world as global sport industries have expanded their reach across national borders, aided by the global expansion of technologies such as satellite television. At the same time, the national economies of the Global South have collapsed under pressure from global capital. A career in sport has become the object of desires that can only be fulfilled by crossing increasingly impenetrable national borders. Athletes’ migrations provide a novel angle on the global workings of neoliberalism.