ABSTRACT

In June 2014, Brazil opened the twentieth FIFA World Cup with a spectacular ceremony. Hosting the World Cup was a strategic developmental priority for Brazil: mega-events such as these allow the country to be ranked amongst the world’s political and economic leaders, and are supposed to propel the country to its own unique modernity. But alongside the increased media attention and publicity, came accusations of governmental ‘corruption’ and overspending.

In Socio-Cultural Mobility and Mega-Events, Tzanelli uses Brazil’s 2014 World Cup to explore how mega-events articulate socio-cultural problems. Critically examining the aesthetics and ethics of mobilities in the mega-event, this book explores these socio-cultural issues and controversies:

  • the background of staging mega-events, including the bidding process and the host’s expectations for returns;
  • ceremonial staging and communications between artistic representations and national symbolism;
  • the clear reaction mega-events almost always generate in national, regional and global activist circles, including accusations of overspending and human rights violations.

This interdisciplinary study will appeal to scholars and students of the sociology of mobility, sociology of globalisation, cultural sociology, social and anthropological theory, as well as the sociology of sport, human and cultural geography, and leisure and tourism studies.

chapter 1|20 pages

Cosmographies of riches and cosmologies of desire

A cultural-as-political perspective on Brazil

chapter 2|26 pages

Aesthetics and practical action

Euro–Brazilian clashes and harmonisations

chapter 3|20 pages

Complementary articulations

Characterising ideal human types and communities

chapter 4|31 pages

The ceremonial script

From tropicalism and Brasilidade to cosmographic mobilities

chapter 5|21 pages

A defeated people

The loss of riches and the return of debt

chapter 6|9 pages

The script of post-colonial desire

Positive excess, negative reciprocities