Speakers
Description
For the last 20 years, Putnam's conceptualization of social capital has become an important concept when promoting integration in sports policy. Parallel with the impact on sports policy, the concepts of bonding and bridging have been well explored in the literature on sports and integration. However, few researchers have looked at how migrants develop relations with formal associations, institutions, and agencies inside and outside civil society, known as linking social capital.
Objective: To explore how Norwegian voluntary sports clubs enable and/or hinder the development of linking social capital through trusting relationships between young refugees and formal, institutionalized power or authority gradients in society.
Methods: 11 semi-structured interviews with male and female refugees (17-23 y/o).
Findings: There were few examples of participants developing linking social capital through voluntary sport club participation, mostly due to refugees feeling unable to fulfill the expectations of these clubs. Where isolated examples of linking social capital were evident, these were mostly related to facilitating entry into higher education and the job market.
Discussion: We draw upon Szreter and Woolcock's conceptualization of linking social capital to discuss how voluntary sports clubs influence the nuanced and varied experiences of refugees in developing trusting relationships with formal associations and institutions as part of their integration processes.
Conclusion: Refugees’ access to/use of linking social capital seems to be limited in voluntary sports clubs. Where linking social capital was unobtainable through sports clubs, other arenas were identified as potential spaces for developing linking social capital, including spontaneous sports and refugee centers.
