Adaptive transnational identity and the selling of soccer: The new england revolution and lusophone migrant populations

Abstract

The essay provides an overview of adaptive transnational identity processes related to soccer among Lusophone migrant communities in New England. Particular attention is paid to how the New England Revolution soccer team (in the US first division) markets the club to Lusophone migrants and as a result participates in the transnational social field, important for migrant economic and social integration in local contexts. The essay provides insight into adaptive transnational migration processes by examining an institution that may not discursively linked to the migrant group, but that nonetheless participates in the construction and maintenance of the adaptive transnational social category.