Global game, local goals : football and the global-local nexus : a thesis in partial fulfilment of the degree of Master of Arts in Social Anthropology, Massey University, Albany

Association football is the most popular sport in the world with massive numbers of players and supporters, both male and female. The global spread of football coupled with its projection through mass media to global audiences suggests an analysis based on the discourse of globalisation. However. 'Global Games. Local Goals' shows that football is also highly-localised. with football clubs and national teams having great significance as centres of community and identity. Thus an anthropological analysis of football necessitates a dialectical approach that addresses the inter- relationship between the global and the local. 'Global Game, Local Goals' also argues that while the 'big picture' of globalisation studies offers relevant macro-analytical possibilities, the particularism of highly-localised ethnographic studies that have been part of the anthropological tradition should not be lost in the rush to larger scale studies of globalisation'. Thus the anthropological tradition of particularism is preserved but is also blended with the universalism of globalisation and theorisation