The Anthropawlogist

Disclaimer* I usually save disclaimers for the very end, but neoliberalism is too broad and contested a term not to address upfront. Different scholars define, interpret, and apply it in different ways. This post is therefore intended as a perpetual-work-in-progress that records and organizes the various ways I have encountered people approaching neoliberalism, rather than to offer a single definitive definition.

Comaroffs’ Neoliberalism

“Who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.”

Thatcher, M. (1987, September 23).

“Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

Reagan, R. (1981, January 20).

Governmentality theorists’ Neoliberalism

Niko Besnier

For Besnier, neoliberalism provides the broader political and economic context for understanding sport migration. He traces its roots to the extractive colonial economic systems that encouraged monocropping, creating dependent and vulnerable economies in the Global South. After decolonization, former colonial powers initially maintained preferential trade arrangements, but these largely disappeared in the 80s as commodity prices became subjected to global financial markets. The resulting economic instability created an opening for international organisations such as IMF and the World Bank whose structural adjustment programs imposed neoliberal reforms and ideologies on the Global South, namely shrinking the role of the state, privatisations and shifting responsibility for economic well-being onto individuals. Local employment opportunities declined, particularly for young men, and migration increasingly became a necessary strategy for survival.

Within this broader transformation, sport emerged as one of the few perceived avenues for mobility. The commercialization of sport, driven by media privatization (neoliberalism again) and corporate investment, transformed sport into a global industry with extraordinary financial rewards for elite athletes, particularly in sports like football and rugby. In response, an entire migration industry developed around athletic talent, including academies, agents and scouts who promise precarious neoliberal subjects access to careers abroad. For Besnier, therefore, the parallel rise of neoliberal capitalism and transnational sport migration is not accidental. The former created both the material deprivation in the Global South that compelled migration and as well as a lucrative global sports industry in the Global North that made athletic migration appear to be a viable route to economic mobility. This promise, however, is highly precarious.

In the process of reshaping migration, neoliberalism also dismantles traditional routes to manhood namely stable work, marriage, providing for a family, or political status. Masculinity therefore becomes insecure and hard to attain. As other avenues for proving manhood disappear, professional sport promises money, prestige, and recognition. Sport therefore shifts from being merely recreational to becoming one of the primary ways young men imagine becoming successful adults. Masculinity is therefore not a fixed nor hegemonic but is instead, a constantly negotiated response to the opportunities and insecurities produced by the neoliberal world order.

Andrew Kipnis

Tim Rosenkranz

“There is nothing neo or liberal about it.”

Rosenkranz, T. (personal communication, September 18, 2025).

Sareeta Amrute

Gordon Mathews

Gordon doesn’t like it when people use neoliberalism. He thinks it has been overused and thus lost all meanings. [Gotta recall that particular context when he shut down Mike]

References:

• Amrute, S. (2016). Encoding race, encoding class: Indian IT workers in Berlin. Duke University Press.
• Besnier, N., Guinness, D., Hann, M., & Kovac, U. (2018). Rethinking masculinity in the neoliberal order: Cameroonian footballers, Fijian rugby players, and Senegalese wrestlers. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 60(4), 839-872.
• Comaroff, J., & Comaroff, J. L. (2000). Millennial capitalism: First thoughts on a second coming. Public Culture, 12(2), 291–343.
• Farmer, P. (2006). AIDS and Accusation Haiti and the Geography of Blame. University of Chicago Press.
• Harvey, D. (2005). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Kipnis, A. (2007). Neoliberalism reified: Suzhi discourse and tropes of neoliberalism in the People’s Republic of China. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 13(2), 383–400.
• Reagan, R. (1981, January 20). Inaugural address, 1981. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum. https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/inaugural-address-1981
• Thatcher, M. (1987, September 23). Interview for Woman’s Own (“No such thing as society”). Margaret Thatcher Foundation. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689