The Polynesian Pipeline to the NFL: Book Talk with Lisa Upersea

Schedule

Sun Dec 11 2022 at 03:00 pm to 04:00 pm

Location

Eastwind Books of Berkeley | Berkeley, CA

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Lisa Uperesa will discuss her book "Gridiron Capital: How American Football Became a Samoan Game"
About this Event

About the Book:
“Grounded in the burgeoning traditions of critical Indigenous studies, Lisa Uperesa’s Gridiron Capital animates and navigates through what was, up until the publication of this compelling and cogent book, the largely abstract subfield of Pacific sport and masculinities. Uperesa draws from a deeply personal research methodology to enliven and interrogate current sociohistorical understandings of Samoan migration and mobility in the United States in relation to sport and specifically American football as a political and contested space.” — Brendan Hokowhitu, Professor of Indigenous Research, The University of Queensland

Since the 1970s, a “Polynesian Pipeline” has brought football players from American Sāmoa to Hawaii and the mainland United States to play at the collegiate and professional levels. In Gridiron Capital Lisa Uperesa charts the cultural and social dynamics that have made football so central to Samoan communities. For Samoan athletes, football is not just an opportunity for upward mobility; it is a way to contribute to, support, and represent their family, village, and nation. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, and media analysis, Uperesa shows how the Samoan ascendancy in football is underpinned by the legacies of US empire and a set of imperial formations that mark Indigenous Pacific peoples as racialized subjects of US economic aid and development. Samoan players succeed by becoming entrepreneurs: building and commodifying their bodies and brands to enhance their football stock and market value. Uperesa offers insights into the social and physical costs of pursuing a football career, the structures that compel Pacific Islander youth toward athletic labor, and the possibilities for safeguarding their health and wellbeing in the future.

Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award recipient


About the Author:

Lisa Uperesa is a Senior Lecturer in Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland. She holds a BA in Ethnic Studies and Sociology from the University of California Berkeley and a PhD in Anthropology from Columbia University. Her research and teaching interests include transnational mobilities in the Pacific and beyond; sport, gender, and community; and race, culture, and indigeneity.

More speakers TBD.

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Where is it happening?

Eastwind Books of Berkeley, 2066 University Ave, Berkeley, United States

Event Location & Nearby Stays:

Tickets

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Eastwind Books of Berkeley

Host or Publisher Eastwind Books of Berkeley

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