Daniel Burdsey

My research focuses on the sociology and cultural geography of race, ethnicity and popular culture. It is linked fundamentally by its central theme of qualitative observational research on ethnicities as lived in public cultures/spaces, and analyses of the spatial dimensions of racialised inequality and resistance. It emphasises notions of theoretical innovation, empirical originality and sociologcial intervention.

My current interests can be divided into three main areas:

• The experiences of British Asians in sport and leisure (combining both in-depth qualitative fieldwork and critical discourse analysis)
• Social and cultural aspects of the contemporary English seaside and coast, especially the connections between race, whiteness, migration and ‘new’ spaces of multiculture (utilising ethnographic methods). 
• Theorising race and racism in football, with particular focus in connecting ideas (conceptually) around Empire, de/coloniality, racialised identities and anti-racist resistance.

Much of my work over the last 15 years has focused on British Asian experiences in sport. I have also spent a decade investigating race, whiteness and the English seaside, culminating in my second monograph, Race, Place and the Seaside: Postcards from the Edge (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). I am well-known for my work on racism and anti-racism in English football, and this continues to be a prominent area within my research. I am the author/editor of six books.

During the late 1990s I was a member of the Leicester City FC Anti-Racist Task Force which initiated the Foxes Against Racism project and I have since carried out consultancy work on British Asian football fans (with the Asian Football Network) for the FA Premier League. I have been interviewed about my research on BBC Radio 4, BBC Five Live and BBC Asian Network. I have contributed essays to The Conversation, and EUROPP and Democratic Audit blogs. I am Associate Editor for Sociology of Sport Journal, and a member of the editorial boards for International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Leisure Studies, and Sociological Research Online.

I have a PhD in Sociology (Brunel University, 2004), an MA (Distinction) in Sociology of Sport (University of Leicester, 1999) and an Upper Second Class BSc (Hons) in Sport and Recreation Studies (University of Birmingham, 1998). I joined the University of Brighton as a Lecturer in 2004.

I am a Reader and Deputy Head of School (Research and Enterprise) in the School of Sport and Service Management.