Why Conduct Research on Portuguese Emigration and Football?

The project Diasbola analyses the role of football amongst Portuguese emigrants as a social/cultural linkage to contemporary Portugal within six “Lusophone spaces,” represented by communities abroad.

The examined hypothesis is that football, a major cultural and social phenomenon in Portuguese society, represents an especially strong element in migrant culture and everyday life, as well as being a crucial point of reference to the country and/or city of origin, people and places, left behind.

The central research issues which Diasbola attempts to answer are: how and through what media do Portuguese migrants and their descendents reconstruct elements of Portuguese culture outside the homeland and to what level does football contribute to and shape the perception and imagining of contemporary Portugal?
Futhermore, Diasbola reveals issues related to self-perceptions of belonging, cultural practices around and uses of football among young luso-descendants, the eventual impact of social mobility and educational level, the reception of Portuguese media among migrant communities, and the place of football celebrities in diasporic settings.

Where is Diasbola being Conducted?

This research is taking place in six different places:

• The City of London, namely Stockwell, Great Britain
• Hannover and surrounding area, Osnabrück and Hamburg, Germany
• The Southwest of New England, United States
• Paris, France
• Rio de Janeiro, Brasill
• Maputo, Mozambique
  
  

Why have we selected these Specific Localities?

Portuguese migrants and their offspring (“luso-descendants”) are spread across the Americas, Europe, Africa, Oceania and Asia. In choosing research locations for this interdisciplinary and comparative study, the expertise of the researchers was matched by our desire to focus upon the most prominent communities, i.e. those of significant socio-economic importance. Three European locales were chosen (27.08% of the Portuguese migrant population): Paris, France; London (Stockwell), England and Hanover, Germany. With 25.31% of the Portuguese migrant population in the US, the sizeable Azorean community of New England is also being examined, as is Brazil’s 15.38% Portuguese migrant population (which includes 170,000 in Rio de Janeiro) and Mozambique (with 13,299 from the “continente”). Brazil and Mozambique provide a contrast to the other localities as also being countries of departure for migration to Portugal, creating a unique power relationship between the locales.

Why Football, Why Now?

While national sporting celebrities have always been important, migrants’ contemporary globalisation makes them even more prominent due to their role in linking migrants to the homeland. Furthermore, as a result of the commercialisation of sport, including the franchising of international broadcasting rights, increased media attention brings a financial windfall to multiple sectors.

Portuguese institutions such as the Permanent Secretary of Portuguese Communities and the Instituto Camões struggle with certain issues, namely the loss of interest among young luso-descendants in participating in Portuguese emigrant/local associations, the decrease in Portuguese language skills within this same group and low migrant voter turnout (only 5% of those eligible to vote do so).

Many elements which have traditionally shaped the construction of Portugueseness in Diasporic settings (electoral behaviour, folklore, Fado, Catholicism, interest in the “património”, etc) have lost importance among young luso-descendants. Football however, not only remains prominent, its role in this construction is increasing.

It is important, and intellectually productive, to examine how the prominence of “Portuguese football” (a term which in the Portuguese public sphere interestingly has emerged as an equivalent to “Portuguese economy” or “Portuguese theatre/cinema/etc”) not only serves national(ist) discourses that help to emancipate migrants from their local marginal position but also functions in the transnational sphere and among generations to link globally dispersed Portuguese migrants and their offspring as they exist in and frame “modern Portugal.”

For further information:
http://www.fct.mctes.pt ou http://www.ics.ul.pt