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.
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
