Common Goals: Grassroots football as a catalyst of inclusion and participation for people seeking asylum

足球俱乐部往往是他们社区的中心。这使他们处于有利地位，可以充当社会包容的催化剂，并为难民和寻求庇护者提供一种归属感(Dukic等人，2017年)。此外，当地俱乐部与其居住的邻里空间之间的关系为重新利用城市空间开展包容性体育活动创造了机会。根据我在意大利两个城市进行的博士研究，该奖学金将专注于改善与体育、空间和包容性有关的政策和实践。在意大利和整个欧洲，数百家当地足球俱乐部旨在通过足球欢迎(由大赦国际领导)和FIRE(足球包括难民，由Erasmus+资助)等项目吸引和接纳被迫移民背景的人。通过实践者指南、多媒体网站和参与方案，我将提供以证据为基础的建议，以改进实践，使基层团队更有效地支持难民与他们的新社区建立联系。在政策层面，努力将重点放在绘制进入公共空间的地图的机会上，以鼓励通过体育融入社会。这是FARE网络(由欧盟委员会、欧足联和国际足联支持)的一个核心优先事项，通过网络建设和一个政策诊所传播我的研究成果，将有可能在地方当局和国际非政府组织层面上为这一主题的政策提供信息。该奖学金寻求解决的一个核心挑战是，来自被迫移民背景的人在足球项目中担任领导角色的人数不足。如果没有这种程度的参与，这些项目有可能重现难民是有需要的人和活动家照顾的接受方的想法(Spaaij等人，2019年)。一场公民黑客马拉松将把实践者、政策制定者、有经验的人和学者聚集在一起，共同创造解决这一挑战的方案。除了我现有的研究之外，一个新的PhotoVoice项目将提供关于草根足球在创造当地空间归属感方面的作用的见解。具体地说，该项目将吸引来自少数族裔背景的年轻人参与当地草根团队，并要求他们在他们感到宾至如归的社区拍摄空间。参与者将全面参与该项目的制定和实施。这些照片将在当地和项目网站上展出，放大参与者的声音，突出城市空间为属于被排除在国家想象之外的类别的人提供具体形式的地方空间的潜力(Allon，2013)。该项目将建立在我关于足球和“城市权利”的研究成果的基础上--这是Lefebvre(1996)提出的一个概念，旨在表明对城市空间的权利主张不是来自对正式公民身份的承认，而是来自空间的居住和日常使用。在专业层面上，该奖学金将通过向学术界传播，帮助我牢固地建立我的研究专长领域。两篇可供参考的期刊文章将使我能够开始一项出版物记录，而两篇会议论文将使我能够建立网络并有机会确定未来的潜在合作。我还将通过提供PhotoVoice项目和进行地理信息系统培训来加强我在参与性和创造性方法方面的技能。这将支持我从事行动研究的职业轨迹，并使我能够制定一项研究提案，纳入参与性社区地图；这一方法将进一步巩固我在体育、空间和包容方面的专业知识。

Football clubs are often at the heart of their communities. This makes them well-placed to act as catalysts for social inclusion and to provide a sense of belonging to refugees and people seeking asylum (Dukic et al., 2017). Furthermore, the relationship between local clubs and the neighbourhood spaces that they inhabit creates opportunities for the reclamation of urban space for inclusive sports activities. Drawing on my PhD research in two Italian cities, this Fellowship will focus on improving policy and practice in relation to sport, space and inclusion. In Italy and across Europe, hundreds of local football clubs aim to engage and include people from a forced migration background through projects such as Football Welcomes (led by Amnesty International) and FIRE (Football Including Refugees, funded by Erasmus+). Through a practitioner guide, multimedia website and programme of engagement, I will offer evidence-based recommendations for improving practice and making grassroots teams more effective at supporting refugees to feel connected to their new communities.At a policy level, efforts will be focused on opportunities for mapping access to public spaces to encourage social inclusion through sport. This is a central priority of the Fare network (supported by the European Commission, UEFA and FIFA), and dissemination of my research findings through network building and a policy clinic will have potential to inform policy on this theme at both local authority and international NGO level.A core challenge that the Fellowship seeks to address is the underrepresentation of people from forced migration backgrounds in leadership roles in football projects. Without this level of participation, there is the risk that these projects reproduce the idea of refugees as people in need and at the receiving end of the activists' care (Spaaij et al., 2019). A civic hackathon will bring together practitioners, policymakers, people with lived expertise and academics to generate co-created solutions to this challenge.In addition to my existing research, a new photovoice project will provide insights on the role of grassroots football in creating senses of belonging to local spaces. Specifically, the project will engage young people from ethnic minority backgrounds who are involved in the local grassroots team, and ask them to photograph spaces in their neighbourhood where they feel at home. Participants will be fully involved in the development and implementation of the project. The photographs will be exhibited locally and on the project website, amplifying the voices of the participants and highlighting the potential for urban spaces to provide concrete forms of local belonging to categories of people excluded from the national imagination (Allon, 2013). The project will build on my research findings regarding football and "right to the city" - a concept advanced by Lefebvre (1996) to suggest that claims over urban spaces do not come from the recognition of formal citizenship, but from the inhabitance and everyday use of the space. On a professional level, the Fellowship will help me to firmly establish my area of research expertise through dissemination to the academic community. Two REF-returnable journal articles will allow me to initiate a publications track record, while two conference papers will allow for network building and the opportunity to identify potential future collaborations.I will also strengthen my skills in participatory and creative methodologies through delivering the photovoice project and undertaking training in GIS. This will support my career trajectory in engaged action research and allow me to develop a research proposal incorporating participatory community mapping; a method that will further cement my expertise in sport, space and inclusion.