About

Dr. Kirk Bowman is a Regents' Entrepreneur and Full Professor at the Georgia Tech Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. He joined the faculty in 1998 as an Assistant Professor, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2004, and became a full Professor in 2014. His academic expertise centers on Latin American politics and development, with a particular focus on democracy, development, inequality, and regional issues in Latin America and the Caribbean. Bowman directs study abroad programs in Argentina, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, and Uruguay, and teaches courses on development, soccer and global politics, comparative politics, and Latin American politics. His research interests revolve around the intersection of soccer and global politics and society, and he has authored or edited six books and numerous journal articles, book chapters, and reference chapters. Bowman is also the co-founder and director of the international NGO Rise Up & Care, which employs innovative models of community development combining research, performance organizations, documentary films, and children's books. He has been recognized with awards such as the University System of Georgia Excellence in Teaching in 2007 and the 2008 Carnegie-Case Professor of the Year for Georgia. His scholarly work includes books like 'Soccer, Globalization, and Innovation' and 'Reimagining Global Philanthropy,' and he has contributed to peer-reviewed journal articles on topics including democratization, political economy, and social justice in Latin America.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Computer Security
• Political Science
• Ancient history
• History
• Business

Selected publications

• Environmental Sustainability, Greenwashing, and Innovative Solutions to Reduce Carbon Emissions from Team and Fan Travel

  2025-08-28

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  Teams, leagues, confederations, and FIFA all increasingly emphasize sustainability and environmentalism in documents, on webpages, and in policies. Is this real or merely greenwashing? Our research shows that sustainability remains a malleable concept. This allows for considerable greenwashing. FIFA’s selection of a six-country World Cup in 2030 (with one opening game each in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay and the remaining games in Morocco, Portugal, and Spain) and the 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia are a mockery of the claims of an emphasis on sustainability. Very few teams, such as Vermont Green and Forest Green Rovers, have a genuine commitment to consistent sustainability objectives. The chapter includes suggestions for greening the game.

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• Soccer, Globalization, and Innovation

  2025-08-28

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• Chapter 5 Battle for the Heart of the Heavyweight: Anti-Americanism in Brazil

  Berghahn Books · 2022

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Computer Security
  • Computer Science
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• Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America by Brenda Elsey and Joshua Nadel

  The Latin Americanist · 2022-09-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Reviewed by: Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America by Brenda Elsey and Joshua Nadel Kirk Bowman Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America. By Brenda Elsey and Joshua Nadel. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2019, p. 368, $24.99. Futbolera is a sweeping account of women, sports, and power covering much of a hemisphere for over a century. The book's aim is straightforward: the participation, emergence, banning, resurgence, and power dynamics of women and sports in Latin America is misunderstood and largely invisible, and there is much to learn from the varied efforts by a wide range of actors to support or undermine women's participation in soccer and other sports. While women's participation in other sports, particularly basketball, is covered in the book, the authors' primary focus is women and soccer. Elsey, author of the outstanding monograph Citizen and Sportsmen: Fútbol and Politics in Twentieth-Century Chile (University of Texas Press, 2011), and Nadel, author of Futbol: Why Soccer Matters in Latin America (University Press of Florida, 2014), are uniquely qualified for this challenging project. One principal strength of the book is the wide geographical coverage while focusing in depth with chapters on specific countries or paired cases. The trade-off is the exclusion of a number of Latin American countries, including the entire Andean region. The book covers Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Mexico in depth, with significant additional coverage of Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Uruguay. The superb chapters on Brazil demonstrate the payoff for this asymmetrical case strategy. Elsey and Nadel allocate 85 pages to women and fútebol in Brazil, which could stand alone as a monograph on gender, sports, and power. Just as officials used eugenics, religion, and the stated need to protect women as feminine mothers to ban football in England from 1921 to 1971, officials in Brazil used similar arguments to ban the game from 1941 to 1981. The authors compellingly demonstrate that the beautiful game was played enthusiastically long before 1940. Spaces emerged at the school, the circus, the factory, at charity events, and through physical education teachers. The forty-year ban itself is a potent example of Steven Lukes' three faces of power, as the game flourished for times in different regions such as Curitiba and Rio de Janeiro. Local officials and many women resisted and skillfully exploited loopholes and opportunities. The authors convincingly overturn the widespread belief that women in Latin America were not playing organized soccer until recent decades. Even today, superstar Brazilian players such as Marta and Formiga had to battle through stereotypes and resistance to play the game at the highest level, and the family of rising star Catarina Macario left the country of football of Brazil to live in the United States so that Catarina could flourish as a futbolera. [End Page 369] The interconnection of race, class, gender, and the socialization of sports features throughout the book. Sports for middle- and upper-class white women, such as tennis, volleyball, fencing, or field hockey are supported by men and women and appropriate, while football is portrayed as less feminine, practiced by non-whites, and a threat to traditional roles. While the book is mainly about power dynamics and systemic relationships, the authors bring to life a number of fascinating and heroic women. Some are well known, like Marta or Sissi. Many more have been largely invisible and voiceless. Elsey and Nadel portray Rose do Rio, Alicia Vargas, Elisa Alves do Nascimento, and others as protagonists with agency who are often courageous and innovative promoting the sport they love. The chapters on Mexico are a cautionary tale. While Brazil represents a bottom-up process, in Mexico women's sports was largely a top-down affair. Due to several unique factors, women's football boomed in the 1960s and early 1970s, with Mexico hosting the second women's world championships in 1971. The bust of Mexican women's football followed soon thereafter. Women's soccer throughout the region is presented as a constant struggle marked by periods of acceptance and rejection, growth and decline. Women's soccer globally and in Latin America is currently experiencing a boom. Players...

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• CONTENTS

  Columbia University Press eBooks · 2021-09-10

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• 8 A CALL TO ACTION

  Columbia University Press eBooks · 2021-09-10

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• 1 REASSESSING THE PHILANTHROPIST’S BURDEN

  Columbia University Press eBooks · 2021-09-10

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• Reimagining Global Philanthropy

  Columbia University Press eBooks · 2021-09-02

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  Applying lessons from the success of community banks, Kirk S. Bowman and Jon R. Wilcox develop and implement a new model that significantly raises philanthropic efficacy. Their straightforward and rigorously tested approach calls for community members to take the lead while outside partners play a supporting role.

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• 3 LESSONS FROM THE CONTEMPORARY GLOBAL PHILANTHROPY PRACTICE

  Columbia University Press eBooks · 2021-09-10

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• 7 ACTORS OF RESISTANCE

  Columbia University Press eBooks · 2021-09-10

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Frequent coauthors

• Jon Wilcox

  13 shared

• Ronald C. Johnson

  Film Independent

  3 shared

• Craig T. Nagoshi

  The University of Texas at Arlington

  3 shared

• Sylvia Y. Schwitters

  University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

  2 shared

• Scott Baker

  Wheelock College

  2 shared

• Michael L. Best

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  2 shared

• J Y Park

  University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

  1 shared

• Yu‐Fen Huang

  1 shared

Labs

• Sam Nunn School of International AffairsPI

Awards & honors

• University System of Georgia Excellence in Teaching 2007
• Carnegie-Case Professor of the Year for the state of Georgia…