1st Edition

Socio-Cultural Mobility and Mega-Events Ethics and Aesthetics in Brazil’s 2014 World Cup

By Rodanthi Tzanelli Copyright 2015
    236 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    208 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    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.

    1. Cosmographies of riches and cosmologies of desire 2. Aesthetics and practical action: Euro-Brazilian clashes and harmonisations 3. Complementary articulations: characterising ideal human types and communities 4. The ceremonial script: from tropicalism and Brasilidade to cosmographic mobilities 5. A defeated people: the loss of riches and the return of debt 6. The script of post-colonial desire: positive excess, negative reciprocities

    Biography

    Rodanthi Tzanelli is Associate Professor of Cultural Sociology at the University of Leeds, UK. She is author of over 60 papers and six monographs, including Heritage in the Digital Era: Cinematic Tourism and the Activist Cause (Routledge, 2013) and Olympic Ceremonialism and the Performance of National Character: From London 2012 to Rio 2012 (2013).

    "Tzanelli’s masterful book supports the work of students, professional researchers and social scientists interested in globalization and mobilities. It should become a seminal work in cultural studies."

    —Maximiliano E Korstanje, University of Palermo, Argentina, Tourist Studies, 2016