L’accueil des migrants par le sport : l'Europe à la croisée de philoso-phies politiques différenciées

Abstract

There has been an unprecedented increase in the number of displaced people arriving in Europe in mid-2010. The reception of these populations has resulted in controversial responses and varying degrees of support, reflecting contrasting ideas of citizenship analyzed as 'political philosophies' (Favell, 1998). Many sports programmes for the inclusion of migrants have been developed in this context. However, the political objectives of these initia-tives remain unclear beyond claims of the vague social and educational benefits of sport (Gasparini, 2008). Based on a cross-sectional survey of the objectives of 258 sports pro-grammes, this paper identifies three “Ideal Types” (Weber, 1971) of political philosophies of the use of sport for migrant populations: emancipation - emphasizing the free develop-ment and well-being of individuals - integration - aiming to foster social affiliation through language and work - and protection - based on a logic of physical and/or psychological care. Although in reality none of the programmes sticks exclusively to these ideal types, and the boundaries between the categories are blurred, highlighting them enables us to en-visage a political analysis of these sports programmes and of the impacts they hope to achieve.