Football as means of building social capital of refugees in Croatia

The article is based on the results of cultural-anthropological research conducted from 2017 to 2020 with the aim of shedding light into the meaning of football for the refugees that have arrived in Croatia in the last few years. The meaning of football for refugees and social connections they acquire through it are considered within the Bourdieu's theory of cultural and social capital. The research has indicated that football represents an embodied state of cultural capital as well as important means of building social capital of refugees that allows them not only to be active and enjoy moments of oblivion in the situation of refugeeness, but it also connects them with the society they arrived in as refugees. By playing football refugees make social connections that bring them closer to the receiving society, thus enabling them to understand it better. Such social connections also show refugees how they can move through the new society and make progress within it