This thesis embraces the themes of globalisation, labour migration, sport in general, and, football in particular. The main focus of this work is the migration of male professional football players in and out of Hungary's professional football teams. The aim of the study is to map existing migration patterns of Hungarian and foreign footballers playing in Hungarian professional teams, to sociologically make sense of the lived experiences of Hungarian migrant players and to investigate whether the 'triple-function' of Hungary as a host, transit and donor country exists in football migration. In doing so, an historical overview of Hungarian football is developed, a quantitative data set is presented and analysed representing the number of migrant footballers in Hungary and Hungarian players in the first division football teams of UEFA countries. Moreover, foreign and Hungarian players, and key officials of three first division football teams are interviewed, together with officials of the Hungarian Football Association to gain further insight into the given matter and to shed light upon the lived experiences and personal struggles of migrant footballers. Finally, the changing footballing conditions of Hungary are outlined, based on interview-generated data and in relation to the findings of the preceding chapters. Data analysis, through a process-sociologically driven account, provides both an empirically and a theoretically efficient explanation regarding the selected theme. The findings are analysed with reference to local, regional and global footballing processes and within the wider theoretical debate surrounding globalisation of sport and football migrations.

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This research project is a sociological examination of global athletic labour migration. Based on a figurational/process sociological analysis, and using a critical case study tracing the movements of North American athletic labourers into Britain's professional leagues in basketball and ice hockey, the research project examines four interdependent elements of the migration figuration. The study examines those processes which motivate North American migrant workers to select the British Basketball League (BBL) or Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) as their inigation destination, the processes which motivate BBL and EIHL coaches to recruit North American workers, the mechanisms by which the recruitment of North American workers is facilitated, and the effects of North American worker involvement in the leagues. Beyond the area of athletic labour migration this research project also provides a conceptual synthesis by combining research located within the sociology of sport and research from the sociology of highly skilled migration. The research project develops such a synthesis establishing that athletic migrants, who can justifiably be described as highly skilled using contemporary definItions, share many of the migratory characteristics identified for highly skilled workers in the broader employment environment. This research project both builds on existing research in the fields of athletic and highly skilled migration, and develops new knowledge and understanding. It shows that the migration of highly skilled athletic workers must be considered beyond the simple macro-level determinants of the supply and demand of human capital, or the separate, and independent, push and pull factors that have been described as facilitating migrant movement. In this respect, this research project points to multilayered, multi-dimensional, and multi-processual dynamics to better encapsulate how migratory movements are actually occurring.

In this thesis, I draw on the particular experiences of Indian hi-tech immigrants arriving in a growing Canadian technological cluster, the Waterloo Region, located in south-western Ontario. This bilateral pattern of international labour migration between India and Canada reflects both nationsʼ efforts to enhance their economic competitiveness in a global knowledge economy: India as a global exporter and Canada as an importer of knowledge professionals. The stereotypical association of Indian nationals with technology work brings both restrictions and opportunities for Indian hi-tech immigrants navigating a racialised as well as gendered technology labour market in the Waterloo Region. My main aim is to reveal a microcosm of gendered negotiations involving individual economic migrants, their skilled spouses, their employers and the welfare state, particularly in the guise of officials regulating migration and access to childcare. The complex set of individual behaviours, ideologies, attitudes and practices all contribute to the emergence and maintenance of, as well as challenges to, particular gendered divisions of productive and reproductive work among these new entrants to Canada, as they lose the significant employment, social and familial networks and supports that typically are available in India. These Indian newcomer families view their responsibilities to their family to be as significant as their engagement in the Canadian labour market, as well as the advancement of their individual careers. In practice, however, familial responsibilities remain a more significant aspect of womenʼs lives, reproducing gendered divisions of both paid and unpaid work that mirror traditional gender roles and ideologies. The labour market participation of this particular group of Indian hi-tech immigrants, and especially professional immigrant mothers, is limited by the non-recognition of foreign credentials and cultural and/or racial discrimination but perhaps to an even greater extent by the lack of sufficient provisions for reproductive work under Canadaʼs liberal welfare state.