Daniel Burdsey

My research involves sociological, cultural and geographical analyses 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 comprises explorations of the spatial dimensions of racialised inequality and resistance. I am also interested in research based on critical discourse analyses of policy and media texts. My work emphasises theoretical innovation, empirical originality and sociological intervention.

My current projects seek to connect sporting, musical, stylistic and fashion cultures and spaces across various global Black diasporas. Outside of this, my research has looked at: theorising race and racism in football, with particular focus on connecting ideas around Empire, de/coloniality, racialised identities and anti-racist resistance; social, cultural and geographical aspects of the contemporary English seaside and coast, especially the connections between race, whiteness, im/migration and ‘new’ spaces of multiculture; and the experiences of British Asians in sport and physical activity.

I have written / (co-)edited eight books: British Asians and Football: Culture, Identity, Exclusion (Routledge, 2007); Race, Ethnicity and Football: Persisting Debates and Emergent Issues (Routledge, 2011); Coastal Cultures: Liminality and Leisure (Leisure Studies Association, 2014); Sport and South Asian Diasporas: Playing Through Time and Space (Routledge, 2014); Race, Place and the Seaside: Postcards from the Edge (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); Transforming Sport: Knowledges, Practices and Structures (Routledge, 2018); Racism and English Football: For Club and Country (Routledge, 2021); and Leisure, Racism, and National Populist Politics (Routledge, 2021).

I joined the University of Brighton in 2003, and I am a Reader in the School of Education, Sport and Health Sciences. I am also an Associate Professor (status only) in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto. 

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 am interested in supervising doctoral students in all areas related to my research interests in sociological, cultural and geographical analyses of race, ethnicity and popular culture.

PhD students currently working with me are undertaking research on: conflict, protest and resistance around the Hamburg Olympic Games referendum; identities and experiences of mixed-race university students; tourism in post-Communist Romania; Black British contemporary intellectual thought; and women’s cricket and sport policy in India.

I am an enthusiastic and passionate educator, and I try to bring to the classroom the same elements that underpin my research: the pursuit of social justice; the inclusion of marginalised voices and perspectives; a critical sociological standpoint; and the means to challenge dominant institutions, structures and orthodoxies. My teaching is underpinned by values of diversity and inclusion, and a practice of theoretically-informed critical thinking. I currently teach modules across a range of sport and health sciences courses on the politics, sociology and management of sport; sports events and tourism; and qualitative research methods.