ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 is an initial conceptual chapter. It points to a number of shortcomings in the political belief in sports-related integration and sets out to redefine the concept of integration. The chapter examines the ways in which integration has come to be understood as maintenance of a societal unity with the development of modern nation states. Further, it points out how this understanding is reproduced in the current political concern for newcomers' adaptation to their receiving societies based on assimilationist approaches to integration. Finally, the chapter suggests that focus is turned to the multidimensional social relations involved in integration processes.
