More than just football : An ethnographic study of the societal benefits of football: when sport is expected to act and solve social challenges in a segregated city

This master’s thesis in ethnology aim to enlighten the driving forces behind why a local football club, in a segregated residential area, outside of Stockholm in Sweden, chooses to develop its association in a more social direction. This is a cultural study of why football, as a cultural phenomenon, is expected to be able to solve social problems, and more generally how is sport considered a tool and a solution to social problems? Why is football expected to be able to solve segregation in a socio-economically vulnerable areas, of those who lead the sports activities? The empirical material of this essay has been collected through oral interviews from leaders of the association and government officials. Material from the association's development documents, state active board members from the association, government documents, and news articles have also been analyzed. By using the Political Discourse Theory by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (2008 [1985]), the situations for how the sports activities have been designed can be seen as made in relation to the general hegemonic discourse on the social benefits of sport. It is also possible to discover how government grants work as guidelines and point out what the sports movement should perform under state supervision. Logics of Critical Explanation in Social and Political Theory (2007), by Jason Glynos and David Howarth, are used in the analysis and especially their fantasmatic logic has given this study an insight into the idea or perception that football leaders have of the outside world, in this case the idea of the social benefit of sport. Which in turn can explain why they in turn invest their commitment in and attract their drive from these ideas because the conviction is about being able to change the socio-economic situation in their local area. In the end, however, it turns out that neither sport nor football alone cannot serve as the solution in the fight against child poverty, criminal activity, and segregation. Sport’s simply does not have all the characteristics required to reform, challenge, or question a social order created or even built on inequality and segregation. But this in no way takes sport into account in contexts where it can socially contribute to a community that can play a significant role for its participants in their everyday lives.