Special issue editors
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- Sean R. Sadri, University of Alabama, USA
- Mahdi Latififard, Tarbiat Modares University, Iran
- Lindsey Meân, Arizona State University, USA
According to the latest report by the International Organization for Migration (2024), there were 281 million international migrants worldwide, which equates to 3.6 percent of the global population. Growing migrant populations have profoundly impacted sport and culture worldwide from both a fan perspective (e.g., fans continuing to root for teams playing in the countries they emigrated from) and a competitive perspective (e.g., prominent sports figures joining leagues in different countries for more lucrative contracts). Moreover, sport has been shown to play a variety of roles in community, identity, and well-being among immigrant populations (Horowitz & McDaniel, 2015). Media coverage of elite athletes and migrants can shape discourses surrounding global migration (Fotopoulos & Kaimaklioti, 2016; Turcott & Ariyo, 2022) and public opinion about migrants and refugees (Cooper et al., 2017; Joris & De Cock, 2019). This special issue seeks to include research on a range of sports migration topics from a variety of methodological approaches and analytical perspectives.
Migration refers to the displacement of individuals from their habitual abode, typically across a national boundary (Sironi et al., 2019). Thus, research on various forms of migration—either temporarily or permanently—will be encouraged without differentiation between (a) forced and voluntary, (b) temporary and permanent, and (c) legal and illegal migration. The scope of the issue will include immigrants, emigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and displaced people, and will focus on movement across international borders rather than domestic migration. Migration remains a cultural and competitive grey area when athletes— particularly those in underdeveloped nations—emigrate from their home country to compete for another (Grix, 2015), often with no cultural, historical, or linguistic link to their new nation. These athletes typically immigrate to developed countries at the expense of struggling sports systems in their home nations (Horowitz & McDaniel, 2015), spurred by a multitude of interconnected economic, political, cultural, competitive, and technological factors (Elliott, 2016).
With the intent to showcase international research, this issue will promote cultural diversity and provide a fresh perspective on migration narratives. It will highlight the role of sport in shaping migratory patterns and experiences, but also as a major force used by a variety of stakeholders at a range of local, regional, and global contexts. Additionally, this special issue will examine the role of sports media at shaping understandings, interpretations, and representations of migration, migrants, and refugees, alongside race, ethnicity, community, and national narratives. This special issue also looks to build off previous studies that have examined migration-related issues in a multitude of media formats, including newspapers (Michelini, 2021; Sulaiman-Hill et al., 2011), organizational media (Burdsey et al., 2022), and social media (Thorpe & Wheaton, 2021).
While it is expected that a significant portion of manuscripts will focus on elite sports due to growing migrant populations in host countries of global sporting events (e.g., 2022 Qatar World Cup; Michelini, 2023), studies examining amateur and leisure sports are also encouraged to offer unique perspectives that can differ based on governmental and cultural restrictions within nations. In this context, participation in sport may be predicated on societal boundaries that limit inclusion, such as gender, race, or socioeconomic status (Michelini, 2021).
Additionally, a wide range of stakeholders within sport (e.g., national and international organizations, athletes, coaches, audiences) are worthy of investigation. Maguire (2011) highlighted that indigenous athletes have been recruited by other countries to enhance their success at international competitions. Some countries, such as Russia (Gorokhov, 2015), South Korea (Shin et al., 2022), and China (Han & Zhao, 2023) have recruited athletes in the form of nationality switching to enhance competitiveness in the global sporting realm.
Topics within this special issue may include, but are not limited to:
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- Race, identity, and nationalism
- Gender and/or sexuality
- Sport communication within migrant communities
- Communication on social media platforms by refugee athletes, migrant athletes, and asylum-seeking athletes
- Commentary on social media platforms by citizens about sports migration
- Media comparisons of sport migration narratives across nations
- The role of media in shaping public opinion or communicative patterns about migrants in the sports world
- Media portrayals of the Refugee Olympic Team at the 2024 Paris Olympics
- Political commentaries about the countries being emigrated from and immigrated to by migrant athletes
- Sports migration in sportswashing contexts
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The manuscripts featured in this issue should be grounded in theory and look to advance theoretical frameworks in the fields of communication, psychology, sociology, media studies, cultural studies, and political science. By applying these theories to diverse cultural contexts, they are expected to illuminate previously unexplored areas of inquiry. Manuscripts that employ qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methodologies are encouraged. Studies involving human subjects, such as interviews, surveys, and experiments, must be properly vetted by the submitting author’s institutional review board. The selection of manuscripts will look to emphasize methodological diversity to highlight the nuances of the sport migration topic. Sport, media, culture, and migration studies encompass a range of disciplines, including communication, sociology, political science, law, economics, and cultural studies (Brettell & Hollifield, 2022), thus, studies with an interdisciplinary framework are encouraged for this special issue.
Manuscript submissions
Manuscripts for this special issue should be submitted no later than September 1, 2025, at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/commsport for full consideration. Manuscripts should follow the Manuscript Submission Guidelines at https://journals.sagepub.com/home/com. All manuscripts will be subject to peer review under the supervision of the Special Issue Editors and Editors-in-Chief. Expressions of interest, abstracts for consideration, and questions may be directed to the Special Issue Editors: Sean R. Sadri, Mahdi Latififard, and Lindsey Meân via the email srsadri@ua.edu.
Keywords
sports migration, sports communication, sports media, social media, international media, refugees, asylum seekers, sport communities, elite sports, leisure sport
Contact Email Address
Sean R. Sadri <srsadri@ua.edu>
References
Brettell, C. B., & Hollifield, J. F. (Eds.). (2022). Migration theory: Talking across disciplines. Routledge.
Burdsey, D., Michelini, E., & Agergaard, S. (2022). Beyond crisis? Institutionalized mediatization of the refugee Olympic team at the 2020 Olympic Games. Communication & Sport, 21674795221110232.
Cooper, S., Olejniczak, E., Lenette, C., & Smedley, C. (2017). Media coverage of refugees and asylum seekers in regional Australia: A critical discourse analysis. Media International Australia, 162(1), 78-89.
Elliott, R. (2016). Football’s Irish exodus: Examining the factors influencing Irish player migration to English professional leagues. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 51(2), 147–161.
Fotopoulos, S., & Kaimaklioti, M. (2016). Media discourse on the refugee crisis: On what have the Greek, German and British press focused?. European View, 15(2), 265-279.
Gorokhov, V. A. (2015). Forward Russia! Sports mega-events as a venue for building national identity. Nationalities Papers, 43(2), 267-282.
Grix, J. (2015). Sport politics: An introduction. Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Han, E., & Zhao, L. (2023). Naturalized athletes and racialized national identity in China. Journal of Contemporary China, 1-13.
Horowitz, J., & McDaniel, S. R. (2015). Investigating the global productivity effects of highly skilled labour migration: How immigrant athletes impact Olympic medal counts. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 7(1), 19–42.
International Organization for Migration. (2024). World migration report 2024. https://worldmigrationreport.iom.int/what-we-do/foreword/foreword
Joris, W., & De Cock, R. (2019). The effects of dominant versus peripheral news frames on attitudes towards refugees and news story credibility. In L. d’Haenens, W. Joris, & F. Heinderyckx (Eds.), Images of immigrants and refugees in Western Europe (pp. 159– 174). Leuven University Press.
Maguire, J. A. (2011). ‘Real politic’ or ‘ethically based’: Sport, globalization, migration and nation-state policies. Sport in Society, 14(7-8), 1040-1055.
Michelini, E. (2021). The representation of the ‘refugee crisis’ and ‘sport’ in the German Press: An analysis of newspaper discourse. European Journal for Sport and Society, 18(3), 265-282.
Michelini, E. (2023). Sport, forced migration and the ‘refugee crisis.’ Taylor & Francis.
Sironi, A., Bauloz, C., & Milen, E. (Eds.). (2019). International migration law: Glossary on migration. International Organization for Migration.
Sulaiman-Hill, C. M., Thompson, S. C., Afsar, R., & Hodliffe, T. L. (2011). Changing images of refugees: A comparative analysis of Australian and New Zealand print media 1998− 2008. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 9(4), 345-366.
Thorpe, H., & Wheaton, B. (2021). Young Gazan refugees, sport and social media: Understanding migration as a process of becoming. International Migration Review, 55(3), 902-928.
Turcott, R., & Ariyo, E. S. (2022). Disrupting the global refugee crisis or celebrity humanitarianism?: Media frames of the refugee Olympic team at 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo Summer Games. Sport in Society, 25(3), 671-686.
