tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593189288898730807.post5384081137189008670..comments2023-09-02T19:33:30.329+08:00Comments on The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer: Fan Culture – a social and political indicatorThe Turbulent World of Middle East Soccerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08780576145703699280noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593189288898730807.post-20267725172748952642013-02-07T07:22:53.460+08:002013-02-07T07:22:53.460+08:00I think that is true with one caveat: it is contex...I think that is true with one caveat: it is context driven. Two things that distinguish circumstances in Europe from those for example in the Middle East and North Africa are that:<br />-- Europe has by and large open and pluralistic sources where supporters have multiple avenues of expression while those are closed off in pre-revolt societies in the Middle East and North Africa where violence is the regime's instinctive response<br />-- politics and social issues are ingrained in the DNA of Middle Eastern and North African soccer by virtue of the fact that a majority of clubs were founded with a political or ideological associationThe Turbulent World of Middle East Soccerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08780576145703699280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593189288898730807.post-67371108577445559602013-02-07T06:31:28.434+08:002013-02-07T06:31:28.434+08:00I think the metaphor of Bahktin's carnivalesqu...I think the metaphor of Bahktin's carnivalesque, with its many flaws, has been a great contribution by the UK scholarship on football supporters. The tensions, subversion, and confrontation that Bahktin highlights in early French renaissance literature and its relationship to the medieval carnival is more of a 'method' for understanding/reflecting than anything else how practices within and around the stadium explode into other realms of politics. I see the latent capacity of supporters as part of the continuous production of their symbolic interactions; within supporters of the same team, against other teams, and as supporters reach into other parts of their social lives. In the carnivalesque there has always been the ambiguity about the why and potential for rupture. What football supporters are really great about doing is reminding the researcher about the "social" and not only getting caught up in the "movement". Too often in social movement theories the movement draws attention away from the 'social', the context and conditions. Football supporters through their carnival of the stadium make the social unavoidable. When they get caught up into some sort of political movement, inevitably attention is drawn back to the performances of devotion and team-solidarity and what those things were all about before they were ever recognized to be 'political' or in 'movement'. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18168547388793057909noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593189288898730807.post-53588747935646406012013-02-06T01:52:36.158+08:002013-02-06T01:52:36.158+08:00I couldn't agree with you more. Social movemen...I couldn't agree with you more. Social movement theory has largely overlooked fandom and fan culture. Having said that, I think one would also have to determine when and under what circumstance fans constitute a social movement and indeed often one with greater sustainability.The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08780576145703699280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593189288898730807.post-90633724255105473592013-02-05T23:10:52.290+08:002013-02-05T23:10:52.290+08:00It is interesting to see what happens when social ...It is interesting to see what happens when social movement theory is applied to supporters; I think, however, that relationship is equally rich going in the other direction however. There are dynamics of 'being a supporter of x' that are, I believe, missed by the various incarnations of social movement theory. The latent 'political' power of supporters appears to be dormant within the eyes of such theories, waiting for moments of ruptures, such as has happened in Egypt. But what happens in the interim when there is not so clearly a 'movement'? One of the things that I often feel such theories lack is in their capacity to interact with the 'permanence' that supporters seek to establish in relation to their clubs (and in relative temporal comparisons, achieve to a much greater degree than many of the 'social movements' that have been the sources of these theories). The symbolic and social reproduction of supporters, in their militant, hooligan, and fan variations importantly challenges the limitations of many of the popular social movement theories; which I think have the danger of falling into the trope of 'identity politics' if such theories are only applied. There is probably a lot for 'social movements'-and their theorists- to learn from football supporters.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18168547388793057909noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593189288898730807.post-15741158258804680442013-02-04T17:09:50.063+08:002013-02-04T17:09:50.063+08:00Thanks, I think you've hit the nail on the hea...Thanks, I think you've hit the nail on the head. Which is why I distinguish between for example the ultras in Egypt and violent soccer fans in EuropeThe Turbulent World of Middle East Soccerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08780576145703699280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593189288898730807.post-48097628118352790052013-02-04T17:02:52.814+08:002013-02-04T17:02:52.814+08:00This is a very interesting analysis (just tweeted ...This is a very interesting analysis (just tweeted it and posted on FB) and it goes to the root of the question: are fans/demonstrators in the street hooligans or political agents? The usual answer is of course: it depends...But here it is brought one degree deeper.<br /><br />It would seem that violent fan demonstrations turn political when a certain level of intolerance to a particular event/living condition has been reached, and it can be just about anything: unemployment among the young, unjustified police brutality seen as an expression of authoritarianism etc If that is so, then close of analysis of fan events is warranted as they signal possible sea changes across society...Claude Forthommehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03871790739257823515noreply@blogger.com