New Ethnographies of Football in Europe

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxix

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Michał Buchowski, Małgorzata Z. Kowalska, Alexandra Schwell, Nina Szogs

      Pages 1-17

3. Beginnings

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 19-19

      PDF

   2. Going for the Reds: Max Gluckman and the Anthropology of Football

      • Robert Gordon, Marizanne Grundlingh

      Pages 21-36

4. The Political Field

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 37-37

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   2. Normalising Political Relations through Football: the Case of Croatia and Serbia (1990–2013)

      • Ivan Ðorđević, Bojan Žikić

      Pages 39-54

   3. The Paradoxes of Politicisation: Fan Initiatives in Zagreb, Croatia

      • Andrew Hodges, Paul Stubbs

      Pages 55-74

   4. We Are One! Or Are We?

      • Hani Zubida

      Pages 75-96

5. Agency

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 97-97

      PDF

   2. Hegemony in Question? Euro 2012 and Local Politics in the City of Poznań

      • Małgorzata Z. Kowalska

      Pages 99-119

   3. Travelling European Gay Footballers: Tournaments as an Integration Ritual

      • Stefan Heissenberger

      Pages 120-137

   4. To Pass and Not To Pass

      • Daniel Regev, Tamar Rapoport

      Pages 138-158

6. Embodiment

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 159-159

      PDF

   2. Being a Football Kid. Football as a Mediatised Play Practice

      • Stine Liv Johansen

      Pages 161-175

   3. Why We Wear It: the Football Shirt as a Badge of Identity

      • Viola Hofmann

      Pages 176-191

7. Mobility and Transnationalism

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 193-193

      PDF

   2. Performing Loyalties/Rivalries: Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe Fans in Vienna

      • Nina Szogs

      Pages 195-211

   3. Building a Turkish Fan Community: Facebook, Schengen and Easyjet

      • John McManus

      Pages 212-227

   4. People, Passions — but What about Politics?

      • Alexandra Schwell, Nina Szogs, Małgorzata Z. Kowalska, Michał Buchowski

      Pages 228-234

8. Afterword

   1. Afterword

      • Simon Kuper

      Pages 235-237

Football has emerged as an important symbolic field through which various social, cultural, political, economic, and historical dimensions and antagonisms are negotiated. This volume covers a variety of themes illuminating the multiple ways that football impacts on people's everyday lives. Using anthropological research methods and data collected from ethnographic fieldwork, the contributors scrutinize not only the social fields of football fans and the specific socio-cultural contexts in which they are embedded, but also other actors beyond the pitch, and the possibilities for both agency and subversion. Taking into account processes of Europeanization, globalization, commercialization and migration, the collection offers fresh insights into fan identity formations and practices and highlights the importance of anthropology's self-reflexive and actor-centred perspective.

• Europe
• Euro 2012
• Football
• Ethnography
• anthropology
• community
• ethnography
• globalization
• identity
• Integration
• methods
• migration
• mobility
• Nation
• national identity
• nationalism
• politics
• Ritual
• Transnational

Since its invention in the nineteenth century, football has emerged as one of the most spectacular total social facts of the modern world, in which politics, economics, religion, and flesh and blood become inextricably entangle. With rich ethnography, analytic subtlety and theoretical sophistication, the contributors to this collection explore how football unites and divides, inspires great deeds and brings out the worst in people, and encapsulates all the complexities of life in the contemporary moment. This book is sure to inspire future generations of sport scholars.' - Niko Besnier, Professor of Cultural Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, and co-author of The Anthropology of Sport
 
 
'The in-depth analyses that make up this book go beyond classic themes, such as the link between football and nationalism, in dealing with innovative topics: female football fans, socialisation of children into football, gay football teams and transnational football club supporters. The diversity of both the fieldwork and the theoretical reflections enhance the richness of this volume and makes it an important contribution to the anthropology of football.'
Christian Bromberger, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Aix-Marseille University, France


Since its invention in the nineteenth century, football has emerged as one of the most spectacular total social facts of the modern world, in which politics, economics, religion, and flesh and blood become inextricably entangle. With rich ethnography, analytic subtlety and theoretical sophistication, the contributors to this collection explore how football unites and divides, inspires great deeds and brings out the worst in people, and encapsulates all the complexities of life in the contemporary moment. This book is sure to inspire future generations of sport scholars.' - Niko Besnier, Professor of Cultural Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, and co-author of The Anthropology of Sport

 

 

'The in-depth analyses that make up this book go beyond classic themes, such as the link between football and nationalism, in dealing with innovative topics: female football fans, socialisation of children into football, gay football teams and transnational football club supporters. The diversity of both the fieldwork and the theoretical reflections enhance the richness of this volume and makes it an important contribution to the anthropology of football.'

Christian Bromberger, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Aix-Marseille University, France

• University of Vienna, Austria

  Alexandra Schwell, Nina Szogs

• Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland

  Małgorzata Z. Kowalska, Michał Buchowski

Alexandra Schwell is an Assistant Professor at the Department of European Ethnology, University of Vienna, Austria. She is part of the FREE project consortium and is sub-project leader for 'Doing World Heritage', funded within the Sparkling Science Programme of the Austrian Ministry of Science, Research, and Economy.

Nina Szogs is a researcher at University of Vienna, Austria and Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany and is part of the interdisciplinary European project FREE: Football Research in an Enlarged Europe (FP7). Her research focuses on intersectionality, gender and migration. 
Ma?gorzata Kowalska is a Researcher at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland. As part o
f the Football Research in an Enlarged Europe project, she conducted ethnographic research on the legacy of Euro 2012 and her research interests include hegemonic business discourses and strategies, and the anthropology of political economies.

Michal Buchowski is a Professor and Chair of Social Anthropology at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland and at European University Viadrina in Frankfurt/O, Germany. His interests focus on the anthropology of postsocialism, migration, multiculturalism, and football and his publications include Polish Ethnology (2012) and a co-edited volume entitled Colloquia Anthropologica (2014).

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