Doing Fandom: Lessons from Football in Gender, Emotions, Space [1st ed.] 9783030468699, 9783030468705

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Doing Fandom Lessons from Football in Gender, Emotions, Space Edited by Tamar Rapoport

Doing Fandom

Tamar Rapoport Editor

Doing Fandom Lessons from Football in Gender, Emotions, Space

Editor Tamar Rapoport The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jerusalem, Israel All chapters originally authored in Hebrew were translated into English and edited for the present anthology by Hadas Rin, [email protected].

ISBN 978-3-030-46869-9 ISBN 978-3-030-46870-5 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46870-5

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image © kolvenbach/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface: A Woman Researcher’s Journey into Fandom

I had never been to a football match until one Friday afternoon in October 2007 when I attended my first Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem FC1 game. I went at the urging of a close friend who had told me that something interesting had happened in Jerusalem during my yearlong absence for academic work outside Israel—the first fan-owned football club in Israel had formed. “With your interest in feminism, social movements and change, you need to have a look.” “I will think about it,” I responded hesitantly, yet, being curious, I went to the first football match of my life and was immediately captivated by the festive, embracing atmosphere in the stands, the red flags and the club emblem depicting “the Hammer and the Sickle”, the old socialist symbol that represents the social, democratic, non-nationalistic values of the club. The fans’ red banners and singing resonated deeply, aroused pleasant, significant memories and conjured up my adolescence in the socialist youth movement, the idealistic kibbutz of the 1960s where I had lived for a few years and my experience of the Israeliness on which I had grown 1 See

below for a description of the club.

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up. I quickly discovered a community of fans holding a world view and liberal-humanistic-democratic values akin to mine. Thus almost inadvertently I became a loyal fan of “Katamon”, as the club is known, the club that I experienced as an island of hope and sanity in bewildered Jerusalem, granting meaning to my life in Israel. Though I have not lived there since the end of the research project, Katamon has remained my refuge in Jerusalem. I follow games from afar, keep abreast of club news and share the hope of all fans, recurring for the last several seasons, for promotion to the national league. I have become a bona fide football fan. The novel idea of establishing a fan-owned football club in Israel that combined traditional football based on a participatory democratic agenda with the pursuit of social-community activities surprised and fascinated me. Soon I found myself, as my friend had predicted, plunging into the investigation of a phenomenon I found intriguing to research, a grass roots anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement in football. As a cultural sociologist and feminist scholar, the intersection of gender and fandom in the domain of football sparked my interest from the outset and became the initial motivation and focus of my research. Teaching the well-established conceptualization of “doing gender” at that same time led me to coin the term “doing fandom”, emphasizing the bodily practices used in fandom, a concept from which this anthology’s themes evolved and broadened. It became apparent that doing gender and doing fandom intersect and cannot but be performed together. Observing the many fidgety children in the stands as they imitated the bodily movements and mirrored the affect of their parents and the adult fans, I wondered about how children become fans, about the genesis of fandom and the emotional dynamics in the “fandom field”. I also coined the term fandom field to refer to the space of the stadium and spaces outside of it where fans pursue diverse social and political activities as fans.2 On encountering the club’s socio-educational community outreach, I became curious about the ways that fans traverse the stadium’s spatial boundaries into other spaces in the public sphere to perform educational, social and political activities. 2 See

the more complete definitions of concepts in Chapter 1, “An Analytical Framework for Investigating Fandom”.

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My undertaking research about fandom and my becoming a football fan developed in tandem; I learned and cultivated them together. Within a short time, my enthusiasm for the club’s agenda turned me into an avid football researcher while the researcher simultaneously became a football fan. These dual lenses informed my research throughout the journey. I started to attend all Katamon games, enlisted excellent graduate research assistants, all football fans, and football fandom came to play not only an important role in my research but also became an integral part of my week. In casual conversation, I would often introduce myself proudly as a Katamon fan and “club owner”. I did not care that some people seemed sceptical. When I was questioned by colleagues and friends, whether in earnest or with irony, about what prompted my study of football (“Couldn’t you find a more interesting subject to study?” they would ask), my spontaneous response was that research concerning football and fandom, to start with, deepens our knowledge in major political, societal, cultural, personal and economical domains and, furthermore, enlightens us, among other matters, about localism, nationalism and globalization; liberalism, neoliberalism, capitalism and consumerism; politics and voluntarism. Research of football fandom spans major issues touching on body and emotions, space and time, authenticity and fakeness, loyalty and betrayal, racism and tolerance, norms and boundaries, as well as the meanings of social participation and belonging to a community. Love of football is neither mere escapism nor entertainment, neither consumption nor abstinence, and though it is an amalgam of all of these elements—in essence it is, as Nick Hornby (1992)3 suggests, a different version of the world. It is this different version that I have grown to appreciate as both fan and researcher. As in other countries, football scholarship in Israel was long accorded low status by the academy. This situation has changed slowly over the last twenty years as scholars of sport have gained increased attention and recognition. The extensive research on football fandom may be divided into two types. On the one hand it is rooted in direct, personal narratives and observations focusing mainly on individuals’ 3 Hornby,

N. (1992). Fever Pitch. Victor Gollancz Ltd. UK.

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fandom careers, relationships and experiences in the fandom field, and fandom behaviours. On the other hand, it produces scholarly studies, some based on classification, while others abound in theories, concepts and numbers. The recent flourishing of ethnographic research by scholars and graduate students of different countries and of academic publications on football fandom has widely opened windows onto fandom practices, perceptions, experiences, relationships and activities, legitimizing the integration of descriptions and theories in new innovative ways and enabling comparisons of fans and fandom within and between clubs and countries. Through this growing academic literature—present anthology included—readers can not only visualize fans and fandom, hear their voices and sense their emotion-laden behaviour but also become acquainted with conceptualizations that shed light on the world of fandom. As to my subsequent work, my interest in football fandom persists, occupying a central place in my current research that investigates the practices and significance of holocaust victims’ commemoration by football clubs and fans across Germany through their performance of various commemorative activities.

About This Anthology Writing chapters and editing an anthology based on academic research on the topic of fandom was no simple matter for me, as academic language, replete with abstract concepts, is at odds with the colourfulness, sounds, spontaneity and passion of football fandom. Theory regarding football is often remote from conceptualizing the bodies and the intense, fluctuating emotions of fans and their many activities, while rigorous, disciplined discussion falls short when it comes to transmitting the dramas and festivities transpiring in the fandom field. With this awareness, this anthology aims to intermingle academic inquiry, passion, practice, body and emotions as well as theory and the reality of what takes place in the spaces of doing fandom. Placing the practices of the fan engaged in doing fandom at the centre, the anthology aims to offer a fresh perspective for scholarship concerning

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fans, football fandom and fandom as a socio-cultural phenomenon more generally. There is neither the pretence of resolving all facets of the fandom puzzle nor of encompassing the growing diversity and range of writing that contain fandom-related theories, queries and topics. What is offered is a body of knowledge vital, in my view, to the research of football fandom comprising insights, themes and constructs applicable to the study of practice and habitus, gender and ethnicity, body and emotions, space and sociopolitical activity. ∗ ∗ ∗ The ethnographic research project which gave rise to this anthology’s conceptual framework initially focused on fandom practices in the Katamon club within and outside of the stadium. It commenced during the Katamon club’s first season in fall 2006 and proceeded over several years through 2013 as the club went about its activities. The Katamon club was established in Jerusalem by a group of fans who had grown disenchanted with and subsequently abandoned their former club (Hapoel Jerusalem FC) over claims of mismanagement, unacceptable owner behaviour towards fans, and poor team performance. Disappointment and frustration led to the founding of an alternative club premised on the idea that “football belongs to the fans”. As of the 2017–2019 seasons, the club plays in the second Israeli league (Liga Leumit) and has approximately 4000 supporters. Fans of Katamon participate in the daily life of the club through representatives elected by the membersowners. In accordance with its liberal-democratic ethos, the club opposes any expressions of racist, violent or sexist behaviour during matches. It invites and encourages fans to participate in the club’s educational and social activities within and outside of the stadium and applauds the participation of women fans, who encounter a women-friendly atmosphere. Like the men, many of them are attracted to the club’s sociocultural platform and the sense of social familiarity that they experience in the stands. Katamon’s model has inspired the establishment of other fan-owned clubs in Israel. The research, funded by the Israel Scientific Foundation (ISF), was titled, “Gender in the Fandom Field: The Case Study of Hapoel Katamon

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Jerusalem Football Fans” (Research Grant number 11/325, 2011–2014). I conducted the project with my then graduate students and the research gave rise to two Master’s degree dissertations and one Ph.D. dissertation: Efrat Noy (2011). Gender in the Fandom Field: Being a Fan of Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem FC, MA, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Daniel Regev (2015), Hapoel Versus Israel: Nationalism and Locality among Fans of Hapoel Tel Aviv FC, MA, Tel Aviv University and Tal Friedman (2016), A Wall With No Hole: How Football Fans Learn and Maintain Team Loyalty, Ph.D., The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. As editor and their dissertation advisor, I congratulate my students on their achievements and applaud their contributions to the scholarship on fandom. I also extend my gratitude to them as my coauthors and former graduate students–for teaching me much about football and fandom, for being excellent students and wonderful, sensitive people. In addition to bearing this academic fruit, the research yielded the precursor to the present anthology, edited by Rapoport, published in Hebrew under the title, Football belongs to the fans! An Investigative Journey Following Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem (Resling 2016). The present anthology transcends the realm of fan-owned clubs, broadens the focus to additional cultures and countries and extends the insights gained in the original study. The present anthology’s explication of themes and comparative orientation across chapters aim to point to the concurrent universality and locality of the phenomenon of fandom in its multiple manifestations. Half of the chapters were authored by Rapoport and/or her graduate students, while the others were contributed by football and fandom researchers I invited specifically for the purpose of expanding the conceptualization and scope and of diversifying the fandom topics and contexts examined. For the present anthology, new content was added, and the collection as a whole was edited in light of a focused, cohesive analytical framework developed to target a broad, diverse international audience. Fandom is examined through multiple disciplines by both novice and veteran researchers, half being women fans-researchers; the authors represent a variety of academic careers in these disciplines. The anthology is expected to be of theoretical and empirical value to scholars of the social and cultural dimensions of sport and culture—particularly with regard

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to football and football fandom—through the lenses of the sociology or anthropology of sport and culture, sociology of body and emotions, gender and masculinity and sociology of public space.

Synopsis The anthology presents an analytical framework following “practice theory”, which I have found fruitful for conceptualizing and investigating football fandom. This framework offers insights, themes and constructs generally encapsulated in the conceptualization of “doing fandom” within the stadium (anthology Parts I and II) and also outside of it (Part III) and is applicable to the study of gender, space, emotions and culture more generally. The assumption is that the performance of fandom practices by women, men and children in the fandom field regenerates fandom’s social and cultural meaning, the meaning of being a fan, and the sense of fans’ belonging and loyalty to their club and to the fan community. The anthology’s distinctiveness lies in its examination of fandom through the prism of three essential theoretical constructs which shed light on current scholarship on fandom and which suggested the anthology’s three-part organization: Bourdieu’s conceptualization of “habitus” (1977) brings to light the early developmental roots of performing fandom with their emotional practices (Part I, The Genesis of Doing Fandom). It discusses how fandom is inculcated and learned early in life by children’s bodies, with the attendant emotional manifestations acquired in the course of participating in fandom. The concept “doing gender” (Part II, The Gendering of Fandom), developed by West and Zimmerman,4 is applied and expanded to the understanding of the practice of fandom in general and by women in particular, under the assumption that doing gender and doing fandom are always performed simultaneously. Lastly, the idea of claiming the “right to a space” is extended in Part III (Claiming a Foothold in Spaces beyond the Stadium) to the study

4 West,

C. and Zimmerman, D.H. (1987). “Doing Gender”. Gender and Society 1(2), 125–151.

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of the fandom field, in keeping with the theoretical discussion of space by Henri Lefebvre (1996).5 The relevance of the theoretical constructs to empirical research in situ is explicated in thematic introductions to each of the anthology’s three parts. Subsequent chapters in each part exemplify the employment of these constructs in several case studies conducted among fans in different societies. In thus surfacing the link from theory to research, the introductions and the chapters that follow provide invaluable lessons for students and scholars researching the sociology and anthropology of sport, fandom more broadly, as well as habituation, emotions, body and space. ∗ ∗ ∗ With one exception (Dorsey,6 Part III), all chapters are based on ethnographic research projects conducted in Germany, Israel, Turkey and other Middle Eastern countries, each drawing mainly from the following methods: (1) Up-close participant observations of fans’ bodily practices, movement and behaviour as well as emotions and interactions (physical and verbal) among fans before, during and after matches and fans’ participation in events and activities in and out of the fandom field7 ; (2) Open interviews conducted on an individual basis with fans of different clubs and backgrounds (age, ethnicity, fandom career, etc.); and/or (3) Analysis of relevant printed and electronic media, including photos. The use of these materials helps overcome the difficulty in verbally articulating bodily experiences. The choice of primary themes and focal points for the observations (bodily practices, interactions, facial expressions, physical activities, etc.), the open interviews (perceptions and attitudes, behaviours and feelings during games, etc.) and the photos (context(s); bodily gestures etc.) and written material (in blog, newspaper, etc.) conformed to the 5 Lefebvre,

Henri (1996). The Right to the City in Kofman, Eleonore; Lebas, Elizabeth, Writings on Cities, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell. 6 For many years, James Dorsey was a journalist in northern Middle Eastern countries, where he gathered the information on which his chapter is based. 7Tamir Sorek’s chapter expands ethnographic research presented in his book Sorek, T. (2007). Arab Soccer in a Jewish State—The Integrative Enclave. Cambridge University Press.

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primary research subject and the questions the various chapters aimed to answer. Field notes were written during observations and interviews were recorded and transcribed. The analysis of the interview data captured the individual and collective verbal expressions of fandom and of being a fan. The presentation of interview excerpts in the chapters focused mainly on a number of “dominant voices” among the interviewees. The expressions captured in interview citations amalgamate the words of multiple interviewees, whose names were changed throughout the anthology to protect privacy. Lastly, the writing in this anthology interweaves empirical insights and academic analysis of the practices, passions and emotions expressed by the bodies and hearts of fans. This genre of writing, along with the citations of personal narratives, aim to preserve the unique nature of being a fan and “doing fandom”, rendering the book accessible to sport, culture and social researchers from various disciplines, to fans curious about fandom beyond their personal experiences as well as to any football enthusiast who seeks to fathom the fascination it holds for millions of people the world over.

Acknowledgements First and foremost I wish to thank my dearest friend, Hadas Rin, who labored for an extended period over the professional translation and editing of chapters from the anthology originally published in Hebrew and of content subsequently composed. Moreover, I am grateful for her unconditioned support and efficiency and her enormous contribution in preparing the book for publication. The English publication would not have come to fruition without her efforts. I am sincerely grateful to the Israel Science Foundation for the grant and for supporting feminist research on the subject of football fandom, a matter that could not be taken for granted until lately. This book was published with the support of the Israeli Science Foundation. I am thankful to the Foundation or the generous grant it extended for the English translation and editing. I am obliged to my friend Jakob Horstmann (of JH Consulting Services in Academic Publishing, London) for his infinite advice and

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support. Jakob, a football fan himself, encouraged me to publish this book and helped me understand the complex arena of publishing houses. Thanks are extended to Sharla Plant and Poppy Hull of Palgrave Macmillan for their efforts in bringing about this publication and for making our work together easy and pleasant. Deep thanks to Nuhrat Ya˘gmur for the two articles regarding fandom in Turkey that she contributed to the anthology and for being a wonderful colleague as well as to Roy Siny, Tamir Sorek and James M. Dorsey, who enriched this anthology’s vision and offered comparative perspective; it was a pleasure to work with each of you. Jerusalem, Israel

Tamar Rapoport

Contents

Preface: A Woman Researcher’s Journey into Fandom

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An Analytical Framework for Investigating Fandom Tamar Rapoport

1

I: The Genesis of Doing Fandom Thematic Introduction - I How Children Become Fans: Learning Fandom via the Body Tali Friedman and Tamar Rapoport

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A Fan’s Emotional Pendulum Tali Friedman

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Contesting Love Through Commodification: Soccer Fans, Affect, and Social Class in Turkey Ya˘gmur Nuhrat

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Contents

II: The Gendering of Fandom Thematic Introduction - II Each Woman Fan Has Her Own Story: Three Fandom Autoethnographies Tamar Rapoport and Efrat Noy Women Do Fandom Their Way Tamar Rapoport and Daniel Regev

117 135

Fair to Swear? Gendered Formulations of Fairness in Football in Turkey Ya˘gmur Nuhrat

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Threatened Masculinities Marginalise Women in Israeli Football Tamir Sorek

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III: Claiming a Foothold in Spaces Beyond the Stadium Thematic Introduction - III “Representing Hapoel, Not Israel”: Hapoel Tel Aviv Fans Alternate Between Local and National Identification Daniel Regev

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Saving Red Flora: The Political Mobilisation of Sankt Pauli Fans Roy Siny

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Football Arenas in the Middle East and North Africa: Battlegrounds for Political Control James M. Dorsey

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Index

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Contributors

James M. Dorsey Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore; National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore Tali Friedman The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel Efrat Noy The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel Ya˘gmur Nuhrat Istanbul Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey Tamar Rapoport The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel Daniel Regev Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel Roy Siny Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany Tamir Sorek Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA

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List of Figures

How Children Become Fans: Learning Fandom via the Body Fig. 1 Fig. 2

A young fan of Feyenoord Rotterdam performing a vulgar gesture of fandom (Source ANP Photo, with permission) Guiding a Bodily Gesture (Source Tali Friedman, chapter author)

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A Fan’s Emotional Pendulum Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3

Hapoel fan, Sivan, Moment 1 Hapoel fan, Sivan, Moment 2 Hapoel fan, Sivan, Moment 3 (Source Three stills from the documentary film, “Sivan”, courtesy of the film director Zohar Elefant, Owner and Creative Director of Elefant Studios)

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List of Figures

Contesting Love Through Commodification: Soccer Fans, Affect, and Social Class in Turkey Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Two fans wearing customized jerseys at a soccer game in Istanbul. Notes The red one reads “Our love is true and deep.” The white one reads “Yo! I am in love with you.” Above the inscriptions is the logo of the team’s corporate sponsor, Ülker, a food manufacturer (September 27, 2015) Soccer fans at Istanbul Atatürk Airport gather to welcome new recruits to the Be¸sikta¸s soccer team. Notes As they cheer, some of them light flares (lower right-hand corner ). One interlocutor here told the author how “crazy” they were to wait outside the airport gates for hours. He later accounted for this “craziness” by noting how “in love” he was with the team (January 2, 2011) Fans of the Be¸sikta¸s soccer team celebrate a goal with lit flares (Turkish Cup Final, Kadir Has Stadium, in the city of Kayseri, May 11, 2011)

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Threatened Masculinities Marginalise Women in Israeli Football Fig. 1 Fig. 2

Arab Footballer Sami Daniel on Anashim Magazine Cover Illustration mocking Hapoel Tel Aviv FC

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“Representing Hapoel, Not Israel”: Hapoel Tel Aviv Fans Alternate Between Local and National Identification Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3

“Representing Hapoel, Not Israel” A counter-statement: Representing Hapoel under the flag of Israel (Source Kobiko) Dual flags: Representing Hapoel as well as Israel (Source Daniel Regev, chapter author)

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An Analytical Framework for Investigating Fandom Tamar Rapoport

Understanding Fandom as a Social Practice If we were to rob football fandom of the perspiring bodies moving in unison in exuberant song, the gazes following the ball, the jumps and shouts for joy over a goal, the tears shed over a loss, the head grabbed over a miss, the face painted the club colours, tattoos and other bodily performance—we would extract fandom’s very heart. If fans were to cease performing their bodily practices or were these practices to change drastically, the category of “fan” would lose its deep meaning and supporters’ identity and identification with their club would vanish altogether. Without studying these corporal practices on the part of fans, then, we could not know the game of football. Fans’ practices of fandom are to be studied in what this anthology calls the fandom field —a sociocultural physical space organised around a unique set of behavioural rules and knowledge, where actors (fans) T. Rapoport (B) The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 T. Rapoport (ed.), Doing Fandom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46870-5_1

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share common assumptions, activities and bodily practices (fandom) and where they are allowed to deviate temporarily from behavioural norms that apply outside this space (see the definition of permission zone below). This relatively autonomous field is connected to other fields, particularly, political, social and economic, so that actors (fans) sometimes cross its borders to perform activities in these fields. On the physical level, the fandom field includes the stadium and often its neighbourhood and spaces beyond. Most of the scholarly literature on fandom practices describes and assesses it (for instance, as to whether it is normative or deviant), ignoring the manner in which fandom is performed by the body, the routinised bodily behaviour and emotions, that is, of fans in the stadium and outside of it. While much research covers players’ bodily performance, endlessly, almost obsessively measuring and evaluating their movements (mostly through advanced quantitative technologies), insufficient attention is paid to investigating what men and women fans do bodily in supporting their team. We propose that this analytical gap be addressed by enlisting the theory of practice and the conceptualisation introduced below of doing fandom. What is the essence of this theory? In colloquial understanding, the term “practice” has several denotations, including doing and performing, tradition and history, experimentation, training and repetition, habit and routine as well as technique and skill. In the practice paradigm, the term denotes the routine ways in which the human body functions (Reckwitz 2002: 249); practice is a template, a behavioural and emotional toolkit of activities that the agent employs. In this context, I conceive of fandom as a repertoire of learned and performed bodily practices deriving from history and tradition, habit and routine that is performed regularly in context. When football fans carry out fandom practices (such as jumping or singing), they are not only responding to what is happening on the pitch and around them, but by so doing, in effect, they are reproducing and creating fandom itself anew with each act while also reproducing themselves as fans as well as their loyalty and commitment to their club. Practice theory spans a range of social science disciplines (philosophy, sociology, anthropology, education) that have developed rapidly since the 1980s. The theory is multi-faceted; it is, in fact, a family

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of theories which, together constitute a subtype of culture theories, propose a conceptual alternative to other prevalent cultural theories (see, Rouse 2007a; Schatzki et al. 2001, for example). Specifically, the shift in academic thinking and research that is reflected in the spread of practice theory is generally linked to the increasing interest in investigating everyday behaviour and to the growing place assigned to human agency in acting in and on the environment to affect (social, political, cultural and economic) reality. Indeed, in his article, “Toward a Theory of Social Practices: A Development in Culturalist Theorizing”, Reckwitz (2002) portrays the main dimension of practice theory through a comparison with other major cultural theories. The turn to practices, according to him, seems to be tied to “scholars’ interest in the ‘everyday’ … ‘world of life’. [Practice theory’s] basic vocabulary amounts to a novel picture of social and human agency … aiming to grasp both action and social order” (Reckwitz 2002: 243–246). The theory, he explains, as distinct from other cultural theories, locates the social order in action (not in mental qualities, norms, social interaction, discourse or symbolic structures), or, in my nomenclature, in doing, and hence in the case of fandom, we investigate doing fandom (see the section which follows). In his article “Practice Theory”, Rouse (2007b) suggests paying attention to performance accessible in the public sphere, as practice attends primarily to outward, publicly accessible human performances and activities that are meaningful in themselves; the meaning is not imposed on the performer from the outside (social norms, rules) nor animated from within (beliefs, desires, intentions). The various theorisations of practice theory challenge binarism’s explanation of the nature of social order by means of a problematic, dualistic distinction between the individual and the social system. Generally speaking, social and cultural theories endeavour to understand social order either by focusing on the personal or on the societal, that is, the institutions acting on the individual. The first analytical approach places individual (agency) at the centre, a person’s interests, desires and motivation, while the second centres on social institutions, their overall power over the individual and their disciplinary and supervisory mechanisms and functions. Practice theory aims to resolve this duality by reconciling

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social structure or culture with individual agency or, in other words, by mediating “the relative priority of individual agency and social or cultural structures” (Rouse 2007a: 504). These structures are reproduced by performing shared practices, yet “the degree of stability that practices can sustain” differs extensively (Rouse 2007a: 506). Invoking a similar idea, in her discussion of practice, Ortner (2001, 2006) suggests that the cornerstone for understanding social order lies at the intersection of and dialectic between the dynamic social structure and human agency. Socialisation into shared cultural practices is a matter of imitation, training and sanctions that transmit and enforce the continuity of practice. An example commonly used to illustrate the theory of practice is masculinity—a set of practices performed by men that constructs, shapes and reproduces the category, “men”, the privileged gendered category, or, in other words, the bodily practices employed by men in recreating the masculine. Similarly, the practices employed by fans are historically the face and heart of football fandom. Connell (2009), the gender scholar who is largely responsible for developing the analytical notion of masculinity, discusses it in terms suggested by practice theory. By this logic, since the model of performing fandom is fundamentally masculine, when fans do fandom, they simultaneously affirm and reconstruct the category of “men”, the privileges attached to it and themselves as fans.

Doing Fandom The origin of fandom practices lies not in the individual fan but in the culture that creates them and assigns them meaning and significance for particular contexts. Thus the practices of doing fandom are neither a natural or instinctive quality nor an inherent characteristic of an individual, but rather, a collective attribute of fans. Doing fandom creates a strong bond among fans, all of whom assume and share the same practices. It follows, then, that a fan’s behavioural pattern stems not only from the meaning that he or she grants the practices (I perform the desired practices and therefore I am a fan), but also from their repeated use with other fans. The performance of the practices is subject to social conventions and constraints that are internalised in

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fans’ bodily behaviour; nonetheless, fans enjoy leeway in interpreting the practices in different ways, maneuver them, improvise or diverge from them: Indeed, humans skilled in inventiveness, manipulation and negotiation can subvert and resist constraints, which, too, are dynamic, to the point of bringing about change and even a revolution. A case in point here is the alternative fan-owned football club, Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem, FC (known as Katamon, see http://www.katamon.co.il/ and the Preface to this anthology), which splintered off from their longstanding club, Hapoel Jerusalem, FC, and established a new agenda based on a socio-cultural, liberal-democratic orientation that embraces democratic anti-capitalist ideals. This alternative socio-political agenda is also manifested in part through fans’ barring racist or sexist behaviour, distinguishing Katamon fans from fans of other clubs. In their support of their club, however, though adopting an alternative agenda of their own, Katamon fans continue to perform their historical bodily fandom practices (Rapoport 2016), which many of them imbibed starting in early childhood (as detailed, in the section, Fandom as Habitus, below, and in Friedman and Rapoport, part “The Genesis of Doing Fandom”). Fandom’s bodily practices are for the most part expressive, public, overt and visible. They articulate and exhibit the meaning of being a fan and comprise the repetitious, routine nature of fandom. The practices are performed in spaces inside as well as outside the stadium, within which they are responsible for the atmosphere as well as the dynamics, relationships, hierarchies and boundaries among fans of different clubs. For fellow fans of the same club, the practices are recreated via doing fandom (Katz 2016) and it is these common bodily practices that give voice and visibility to fans’ ideas, beliefs, aspirations and loyalty to their club’s agenda. To proceed with the discussion of practice, the subject of the body in practice theory is now elaborated, specifically by developing the idea of fandom as habitus so as to elucidate our notion that fandom is essentially a performance of bodily practices, the body being the main player in doing fandom. Indeed, fandom is a story of the body, its lived expression; it is this story that we have endeavoured to decipher and reveal in this anthology by looking at the ways in which the fan’s body—individually and collectively—learns, organises, shapes, conducts

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and experiences fandom, improvises, reproduces and changes it in the stadium and beyond.

Fandom as Habitus The following excerpt conveys both the centrality of the body in practice theory and the relationship between the body and society as the theory’s bedrock. It reiterates how human bodies and bodily comportment play a central role in practice theory. Reckwitz (2002) emphasises the idea that At the core of practice theory lies a different way of seeing the body. Practices, as emphasised, are bodily routinised activities … movements of the body. A social practice is the product of training the body in a certain way: When we learn a practice we learn to be bodies in a certain way … [The] routinised actions are themselves bodily performances that also include routinised mental and emotional activities … (ibid., 2002: 251)

Practice theory, beyond its different disciplinary and theoretical variations, assumes that the body is essential for understanding social life; its activities and attributes are embodied in the social order. Being both subject and object of social and cultural meaning, the human body functions as a “social actor” in creating the social order. Practice theorists suggest different ways to reconcile the understanding that “human bodies are as both the locus of agency, affective response and cultural expression, and the target of power and normalization” (Rouse 2007a: 511–515; 2001: 189–199). According to Rouse, the body, is the locus of practical knowledge, “which is neither merely causal conditioning nor consciously articulable rational action” (ibid., 2007a: 512–513). Bodily patterns are used habitually; the patterns contain and execute all routine social activities of society, among which are language and emotions. The system of routinised bodily activities and qualities is inculcated and learned by the body, contained in it and performed by it; these qualities and activities are created by the routine functions of the body, while the body, for its part, imparts to the human world its visible order.

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Following these lines of thought, the routinised bodily identifiers of fandom form a social-cultural text that is open to the investigation of fandom. The bodily practices themselves prescribe how, when and where they are to be performed, what human relationships are entailed and what emotions, language and social norms are embedded in them, all of which is learned through a socialisation process. The body, as the agent of fandom, actualises, executes, shapes, reconstructs but may also change fandom. In their bodies, fans safeguard individual and collective memories of fandom engraved in them across time and space as well as the experiences, sounds, sights, smells, tastes and relationships of their stadium and the strong emotions that fandom entails—expressed, for example, in bodily pain when the club drops a league or an adrenaline rush following a decisive victory. Assuming that fandom is an acquired, internalised routinised habituation leads the discussion directly to Pierre Bourdieu’s extensive, influential conceptualisation of habitus (1977, 1992). Per Bourdieu, habitus is the manner in which the body conducts itself physically in the world, encompassing habits, skills and dispositions that are ingrained in the body and performed by it. Habitus refers to the ways in which the social order is lived in and expressed by the body of the individual(s), forming her or his perception, tastes, preferences and choices as manifested in the individual’s behaviour, emotions, position, movement, posture, gaze and relationships. The significance of the concept of habitus is its transcendence of traditional distinctions drawn between the subjective (the individual) and the objective (the social system) and between individual agency and social constraints. Fandom, then, is the story of the body, its lived expression; it is this story that research should decipher by observing how the bodies of women and men-fans perform practices, express, manifest, shape and conduct fandom in the fandom field. Yet, academic investigation of fandom has seldom used the body and the conceptualisation of habitus in explaining this fascinating phenomenon (but see Dixon 2013). Those few investigations that utilise the theory of practice do not employ observations, in and out of the stadium, of the routinised manner in which a fan’s habitus is inculcated and acquired.

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According to practice theory as particularly discussed by Bourdieu, habitus is acquired through a socialisation process which directs the individual’s actions and ways of being in the world. Behavioural patterns and orientations are inculcated in the body automatically in early childhood, when the process of acquisition and assimilation is virtually unconscious; thus, the practices that constitute a habitus are often transparent to those performing them so that fans’ bodily vocabularies of doing fandom seem perfectly natural to them. The matter-of-factness of the fandom habitus was captured vividly by Friedman, while observing a game in Tel Aviv. She witnessed the very opposite—a clumsy attempt at faking fandom by a woman attending a radius game, which is a form of penalty that is imposed by football administrators on an unruly club for its fans’ offensive behaviour. Specifically, men are barred from attending the first home game that follows one in which supporters used foul language or were violent. In the row behind me there were three mothers with their children. It was impossible not to notice the clumsiness of the women’s behaviour and their disorientation in the stadium. It was clear that one of them wished to participate actively in what was happening, but observed from the outside, her participation seemed mostly embarrassing. There was something ‘wrong’ with the uncoordinated way that she raised and lowered her red scarf, her elegant but out-of-place long woolen coat, her minute rhythm-less hops in place, her straining to discern the lyrics and join in cheering the team on… her cheering was off key and never quite timed correctly. (Hapoel Tel Aviv FC, Bloomfield Stadium, Field Notes 18.3.2012)

The mother’s bodily awkwardness and her seeming not to belong can be accounted for by her never having acquired the habitus of a fan (Friedman and Rapoport, part “The Genesis of Doing Fandom”). The mother’s disorientation and unsuccessful attempts to imitate fandom barred her from passing the test of a genuine fan: When assessing fans’ true affinity for their club, it is their visible body that is put to the authenticity test (Richardson 2004; Holt 1995; Giulianotti 1999; Crawford 2004; Rapoport 2016). The question, then, is when and where is the correct performance of the practices, the habitus, acquired?

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According to Bourdieu, the process of inculcating the habitus transpires almost invisibly with young children, even toddlers, primarily through observing, imitating and identifying with parents. By experimentation and training, the young recruits, mainly boys, internalise the fandom habitus. This “invisible pedagogy”, as Bourdieu defines it (1977), first transpires in the home—in the context of the family; later the exposure to fandom takes place mainly in the stadium along with peers. In the stadium, among the community of adult fans—who smilingly, tolerantly encourage and praise the children’s trial and error fandom behaviour—the novices learn how to do fandom properly. This includes wearing the right clothing and matching accessories, calling out the players’ names, joining in the derisive shouts at the rival team as it enters the pitch, tracking the ball and the players, jumping and hugging plus an extensive list of additional bodily practices. Along with the practices of body and language, the manifestation of emotions is acquired as well, for the body serves as a carrier of emotions and is their means of expression. Love-hate and other embedded emotional practices are an integral part of the habitus of fandom (see, Friedman, part “The Genesis of Doing Fandom”). With time, children’s command of the emotional repertoire improves and the timing of their reaction to a certain move on the pitch becomes accurate. In due course, young boys also learn the covert meanings of the practices, for example, the source of hatred for the yellow colour of a rival club to the point of never wearing anything yellow, or the source of passion for the colour red. Likewise, they learn why a particular player is regarded as the very symbol of the club while another is considered a foe (because he is Muslim) or a traitor (a good player who switched sides to play with the rival club). Acquired fandom knowledge becomes “natural” and endures over time (Nash 1999; Swartz 2012). This does not refer to the acquisition of technical skills per se, but to the “practical sense” that adjusts behaviour in different social contexts. To follow Bourdieu’s line of thought, the younger one is on entry into the fandom field, the more natural and enduring the fan’s conduct will be (Bourdieu 1992). In the context of fandom, another claim of Bourdieu’s is relevant here, namely, that the habitus can serve as a reservoir of memories, thoughts and feelings that can be reactivated at any time, even over a distance of time and space;

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when the body assumes its place in a familiar environment, it overflows with these feelings and recreates them (Bourdieu 1977). Bourdieu’s observation is substantiated in the case of adults who return to their childhood pitches to find themselves behaving and feeling just as in years past. The familiar sounds and scents of the stadium and the spectators’ benches awaken the habitus engraved in their body in childhood and carried into adulthood far from the stadium, attesting to the sense of “hominess” created in fandom (Rapoport 2016). In an article defiantly titled, “So how did Bourdieu learn to play tennis?” Nobel and Watkins (2003) critique the deterministic dimension of Bourdieu’s approach, suggesting that habitus can be acquired as an adult in a self-aware manner of habituation. The topic of acquiring habitus in adulthood arose in the research on Katamon when a group of mature women (which included three researchers on the investigation team) joined the fans soon after the club’s founding (see Rapoport and Noy, part “The Gendering of Fandom”). In the absence of socialisation into football and fandom and with the lack of a model for women’s fandom, these women, like the mother described above, needed to learn the fandom practices almost from scratch in order to pass as real fans, much like children. The fandom habitus which children acquire by imitation and experimentation, however, would remain a second language for them, in most cases, laden with dissonance, off-key expressions and a prominent accent (see Rapoport and Regev, part “The Gendering of Fandom”). The auto-ethnographies of the three researchers who joined Katamon as adult women, illustrate the significance and consequences of mastering the bodily practices of fandom at a young age. Despite their social-political commitment and identification with the agenda of their beloved club, and despite their ongoing presence at club games, they were perceived as guests in the fandom field. Thus the habitus of doing fandom, the sense and experience of being a fan are gendered. Placing power relations at the centre of his theory, Bourdieu maintains that the individual’s body assimilates, curates and reflects society’s power relations. In this context, his case in point is the body position and posture of those ruled versus the rulers. Physical lowness is embodied in the body bending down by those who are ruled while the

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rulers’ posture is erect, a notion on which he expounds at length in his discussion of gender-power relations. Thus in his book Masculine Domination (2007), Bourdieu discusses how gendered bodily practices related to obedience are instilled in girls during their socialisation process— “lowering the gaze, behaving modestly, crossing legs, making one’s self small” (Bourdieu 2007: 15).

Gendered Fandom Gender is the product of a knowledge regime and of a social-cultural order based on power relations embodied in the categories of men (male) and women (female). As a signifier and a classificatory term, gender serves to define membership boundaries, inclusion or exclusion from a category. The gendered cultural regime governs almost every sphere of life, including sport, football and fandom. It creates and reproduces hierarchical power relations, shapes institutions, social processes and organising and determines modes of supervising social behaviour, placement and status as well as the social order of the fandom field and fans’ practices of doing fandom. Historical documents show that football was invented by men for men and that all along it has served as a place for nurturing and maintaining masculinity and as an instrument for creating and preserving gender distinction (Williams 2007; King 1997). Since football began, fandom has been perceived as an innate disposition of men, as a natural, desirable expression of manhood and masculinity. Men perceive themselves and are perceived to be the owners of the stadium, entitled to shape, command and control it. Since its very establishment in the nineteenth century, football, moreover, was part of the differentiation process characterising the development of modernity, which dichotomises and creates hierarchies in the domestic and public spheres and the feminine and masculine behavioural arenas. The historical processes that shaped modern maleness—imperialism, nationalism, enlightenment— are the very same processes that institutionalised football as a legitimate, popular male sport. Sport has been identified as an arena characterised by rivalry, decisiveness, competition and self-discipline, all viewed as values

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associated with intact maleness. In this context, women are perceived as hesitant, impulsive, non-competitive, sensitive and non-violent, so that sports activities and football fandom do not suit them. According to Rubin (2009: 26), the close tie between characteristics of the game and those of fandom distances women from stadiums, though women have been entering the stadium in greater numbers to practice fandom. The stadium is a privileged and mostly exclusive sphere of manhood; it preserves the gender hierarchy by erecting and defending structural, cultural, normative, linguistic and bodily barriers (see, Sorek, part “The Gendering of Fandom”). The exclusivity is manifested, for example, in the absence of suitable financial structures (Gosling 2007) for women players, common sexist aspects of the stadium, the media’s gendered representations and socialisation with respect to sport (Messner 2007). Male hegemony, a concept introduced by the feminist sociologist Connell (1987, 2005, 2009) (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005), denotes men’s superiority in a given time and social context. Male hegemony operates through its claim to authority and the right to exclude another group or marginalise it (not necessarily physically). Per Connell, the gendered practices a priori contain the cultural significance and historical logic which lie at the foundation of people’s day-to-day gendered behaviour. Thus, even men who do not adhere to the male fandom model enjoy the privileges granted to them by the social category of a man-fan. Women have to adapt to the hegemonic male model of performing fandom; they have little choice but to perform and experience their fandom in light of this model. Yet, the lack of a model for women fans and women’s status as not genuinely belonging enable them to perceive male fandom performance from the inside and outside at the same time and to regard it with irony, sometimes describing the ways in which male supporters do fandom as fanatic, poisoned or obsessed. The conceptualisation of doing gender was introduced by West and Zimmerman (1987). Their main assumption is that gender is what a person does within the framework of a reciprocal relationship and it is not intrinsic to the definition of a man or a woman. Furthermore, doing gender is subject to continuous social evaluation and self-examination for its appropriateness according to the dichotomous gendered orders;

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the subject doing gender internalises cultural values, norms and expectations directed at her or his gender, and self-presents to others accordingly, seeking to receive affirmation of this behaviour. It follows, then, that the socially expected performance of gender replicates and legitimises existing social norms and conventions that also express and preserve the gendered structure of fandom while strengthening and replicating power relations (Pfister et al. 2013). Practice theory has seeped into the body of research on fandom, though not into efforts to uncover the ways in which women fans do fandom (Lenneis 2013; Pope 2010). Both the practice approach and the concept of doing gender place doing at the centre, yet whereas the first approach assigns the body a central place as the initiator of matters social, the second assigns a central place to interaction and mechanisms of social supervision. Both approaches assume power relations between the genders, but the practice approach more explicitly assigns the individual the power to act on the social order. As doing fandom and doing gender are co-constructed and co-performed, the understanding of doing fandom is enriched by conjoining the two approaches. There is a central paradox inherent in women’s fandom: By doing fandom like men and cooperating with their expectations of women fans, women duplicate both men’s images regarding women and the power relations in the fandom field. If a woman fan1 demonstrates true expertise in the game’s secrets, however, she risks harming her definition as a normative woman and being perceived as a masculine woman, as challenging or even violating the order of things. It follows then that women’s fandom demands a great deal of their attention as well as manoeuvring skills: They must obey the binary hierarchical gender order and do fandom in a manner that harms neither their self-concept nor others’ conception of them as women. Yet, if they perform like authentic fans, they can be regarded as non-feminine (see Nuhrat, this anthology); if they perform practices which are culturally defined as feminine, they 1 We

choose to use “woman fan” rather than “female fan” because of the socio-cultural connotations of “woman”. In this usage, we include adolescents and younger girls who are fans. We will use “man fan” as it is necessitated by symmetry. We note that although “woman” is a noun and not an adjective, it can nonetheless be paired with another noun to function as a modifier (compare the terms “culture shock” or “peer pressure”, for example).

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announce their non-belonging, while behaviours identified as hypermasculine are off limits as well. The composite dualistic category, woman fan, then, is subject to fundamentally contradictory requirements and hence inner and outer tension. This paradox cannot be resolved unless the traditional model of fandom is disconnected from its historical, gendered cultural foundations and the practices it contains undergo revision. Such a change would bear significant consequences: A new fandom model would risk being viewed as feminine, so that football fandom would lose its uniqueness and appeal to men and existing fandom practices their spontaneity and intensity. It could, indeed, empty fandom practices of their traditional “fandom-ness” and empty the stadium. Moreover, a new model cannot be achieved without men’s readiness to loosen their sense of ownership and protective defence of the bastion. According to Rubin (2009), a substantial change is far out of reach, as football is the last bastion of what is considered genuine masculinity (except the army). She contends that the link between masculinity and football is so tight that any challenge to it is almost pointless, so long as men deploy different strategies to protect their hegemonic position in their male preserve. Anna, an ardent Katamon fan, challenged male hegemony in an interview: “We women don’t come to the game to be like men… We want to come as women, to be a woman at a game, and not a ‘man-woman’” [Anna, interview 2.10.2010]). This seems rather impossible as long as girls are not encouraged to become fans and fandom and the stadium are gendered; indeed, girls are usually acculturated to playing games that orient them to different types of behaviour, yet by contrast, boys carry themselves from a young age naturally and expertly in the male fandom field. In some societies, one of the justifications for the fandom field’s unsuitability for women is that their presence in the stands and their performance of bodily practices might seduce men, detract from women’s modesty or mar their character (see Nuhrat, part “The Gendering of Fandom”). Punishment for women who break the rule is often based on religious, conservative grounds that invoke the violation of a moral edict. A clear, extreme example in some Muslim countries—Iran (in certain periods), Saudi Arabia and Qatar—is the prohibition forbidding women to play or even attend football matches, barring them entrance altogether

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or allocating them a women-only place in the stadium. When women are invited to attend matches, their presence is intended as a mere token. Tokenism is clearly illustrated in the no-men-allowed policy of the radius game, which punishes a club for its fans’ unruly behaviour. Generally the aim of this policy is to eradicate cursing and other verbal and non-verbal violent behaviour on the part of men-fans. Nuhrat (see above) exposes the underlying gender bias of this “spectator-less” [sic ] match procedure in Turkey, which assumes, for example, that unlike men, women have a natural, biological inclination not to curse. Moreover, women fans are expected to take on the responsibility of civilising the stadium and the behaviours of male fans, purifying men’s language and restraining their natural tendency to violence. The radius punishment reconstructs moralistic conventions and modes of behaviour established in the family along gender lines. It lays bare and even deepens the rift between the genders, preserving it among other ways, by continuously classifying and assessing fans’ visible behaviour. The human eye focuses on visible behaviour—the actual appearance of fandom—on the body’s exterior and not on fans’ interior. Accordingly, doing fandom should be understood in terms of external, explicit, surface bodily manifestations and not as a psychological depth-structure (Ahmed and Stacey 2001). The marked body of a woman divulges her otherness and triggers awareness of her appearance in the fandom field, which, historically speaking, celebrates male physicality. The male body, however, is unmarked, is perceived as neutral, universal and seemingly genderless (Hirsh 2010: xi). Hence the research on women’s fandom examines sexism in the fandom field and the ways in which women cope with it (Lenneis 2013; Jones 2008). This research points to strategies women employ: They trivialise sexism by intentionally ignoring it; resist it by violating the norms or adopt and even externalise and internalise sexual stereotypes. The electronic eye and social media join and sometimes even strengthen the supervising human gaze. Electronic and printed media devoted to the sexist representations of women in stadiums, especially when they attend the World and European championships, traditionally took no interest in ordinary women fans, but would linger over those whose body is regarded as attractive, arousing or defiant; yet, it needs to be mentioned that this type of representation

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has decreased lately. Still, sexist photographs are displayed on electronic sites (Instagram, for instance), objectifying the female body while male football players posing as sexist models are favourably perceived. Along with the eye, the ear serves as another social supervisory mechanism within the fandom field, yet sound has attracted relatively little research (but, see, Kytö 2011; Back 2003). What interests us here are the voices or silence of the gendered inter-personal interactions taking place during and around a match—speech, conversation and comments. Common experience is corroborated by Orit, a Katamon woman fan. (“Women,” she said in the interview, “respond and shout less during a game due to the fear of saying something out of place and eliciting disparaging comments from men. When a woman does say something correct, men smile at her in a patronizing way, arrogantly, as if to say, ‘just look at this girl’” (11.5.2011). Men-fans often support the presence of women in the stadium, but expect them to keep quiet when the game is discussed; the voice of women is often silenced more or less politely during men–women conversations. “They don’t take me seriously as a fan when I comment about the game”, said Mira, another fan. Dalia spoke angrily in the interview of how she loses her voice in the stadium when she stands next to the two men who are the most important people in her life—her husband and her father. According to her, though she has been well versed in the game’s secrets since she was young and would converse about it at length with her father before she got married, since her marriage she has been excluded from their conversation: They [men] have a common football language… it is a different conversation … I swear to you. I say the same things, like ‘I think the kick was weak’, but there is something between them that connects very much better [and excludes me], because they are men, there is something at unheard frequencies that transmits differently.

Women fans are often deterred by a possible ironic, dismissive bodily response; some give up in advance as they believe they have nothing valuable to say; others point out that they allow themselves to ask questions because they are expected to do so or because they do not support patriarchy and are not willing to relinquish their feminist voice.

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Supervision is also imposed from above by institutional entities such as the sports federation—whether global, European or national. According to Brick (2000), the discourse and legislation on violations in the fandom field are moralistic. The legalisation and regulation of fandom aims to establish what is believed to be a civilised fandom culture, which, as exemplified by the radius practice (see above), is often based on a normative, moralistic image of the family and assumes that particular modes of behaviour are natural to women. The attempts to civilise fandom challenges its historical mode—the language of fandom, the practices and the patterns of inter-personal interaction. Success in civilising fandom could bring more women into the fandom field and yet harm the “fandomness” of traditional fandom, detract from it or even render it pointless. Intentions and efforts by football authorities and individual clubs to attract women to the field and bring about gender equality have increased over the last two decades, with the aim, among other things, of appearing liberal and profiting financially (tokenism). The recognition that women represent marketing potential with untapped human and economic capital was granted as a matter of course at the Football World Cup in July 2019. But despite the campaigns, women remain a minority, though at times significant: In many fandom fields, surveys and research in different countries show that changes in the number of women fans, especially avid, committed ones, are slow (Pope 2010). The illusory impression given by popular media and discourse that there are many women in the stadium might be due to their greater visibility in the stadium because they still draw attention. At the same time, today there is a gradual increase in women club owners, football players, broadcasters, reporters, commentators, managers and referees, a development that challenges, among other things, the commonplace assertion that women do not understand or are not interested in football. Research often identifies women’s increasing entry into the fandom field with the “new football”, which sees it as threatening traditional fandom. Some researchers validate the claim of the feminisation of supporters by using measures that indicate a change in the socioeconomic make-up and lifestyle of fans (Pope 2010). Such measures are also used in other areas of life as a means of assessing the entry of women into traditional masculine bastions—including the labour market (Stier

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2005), politics (Herzog 2006) and the military (Sasson-Levi 2006)— and demonstrating the feminisation of the professions. It follows that the investigation of women’s entry into and presence in the fandom field and the fandom practices they employ may serve as a measure of change not only in the fandom field but also in society.

Spaces of Doing Fandom A space to play football can be created spontaneously anywhere—in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, distressed neighbourhoods in Africa, remote villages in Mongolia and Siberia or in New York City fenced parks. Very little is required to announce that a game is in progress: Two raggedy backpacks, shirts or stones on the ground can signify the football gate, some rag, a Coca Cola can, any ball or a real football can serve as a ball, two or more players, and at times even just one boy playing alone against himself, but only in a stadium is the game considered genuine. Academic literature refers to football stadiums, particularly the large ones, as temples or other places of worship, public spaces that create and express power (Morris 1981) and sites where ritual (Bromberger 2012) or festival-like public events take place. A different view of stadiums emphasises the importance of the affinity between their physical structure and fans’ unmediated bodily sensory experiences. This approach assumes that fans seek a sense of authenticity, connection and belonging in their quest for an emotional home—a kind of ¨promised land¨ where belonging, called ¨Heimat¨2 by the football researcher Sandvoss (Sandvoss 2005), is possible. Over a long period of time, the community-based stadium fulfilled this function, as “local knowledge” (see below) and identification with a football club were shaped by the club’s geographic location and the local inhabitants; the stadium was part of the adjacent neighbourhood and located near the pub. In the past, social status and place of residence were based on family-clan relationships, so that a particular club’s fans

2 Heimat,

a German term denoting nostalgic longing for a safe, protected warm place.

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were identified and identified themselves with their family and neighbourhood (see Guy 2016) with which they shared common knowledge of their lives, locality and club as well as similar experiences. The situation is clearly quite different today. As part of the globalisation of football, contemporary fandom crosses local and national boundaries, support of one’s club can coexist with support of other clubs in different cities, countries and continents and a fan may develop affinity towards several clubs. Though football is defined as a global game, many academic studies claim that globalisation and consumerism have not diminished the centrality of fandom and football fans’ affinity for their local club. Since fans continue to regard themselves as part of their locale (see Guschwan 2011, 2013; and part “Claiming a Foothold in Spaces Beyond the Stadium”), both the club and fan culture take on local meaning, which they convey and cultivate (e.g., Spaaij 2006; Pope 2010). There is no better evidence of the strong affinity binding a locality, a club and fandom than the convergence of the club’s name with its locality, as in the examples of Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem FC, FC Barcelona, SV Werder Bremen or United of Manchester FC. Local affinity is also manifested in the stadium décor, the choreography of fandom practices in the stadium and the love songs that fans across the globe sing to their club and its locality. The affinity to locality was discussed by the famed anthropologist Geertz (1985; 57), who developed the concept of local knowledge, suggesting that it derives from the immediacy of experience and from shared geographic and identity characteristics that are embedded in the culture, language, norms and areas of common interest. Relating in his research specifically to fans of the British fan club Millwall, Robson (2000) suggests that local knowledge and fans’ knowledge (reserved exclusively for men) are tightly linked. Shared local knowledge, according to Castells (1983) and Harvey (2003), can develop into a platform for organising a group or social movement that aims to influence reality (whether it is political, cultural, social or economic) in a certain geographical space. The space of the stadium was the focus of interest for sports geographer John Bale (2000), who defines the stadium as attracting topophilia—a love of place or site, a locus of fans’ local pride that embodies memories, history and a psychological home for them. In

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his view, a stadium is not merely a functional structure but also a home. Research bears out that commitment to the club forms fans’ civic identity (Guschwan 2011: 1990), which is often rooted in their social status, cultural capital and experience of locality (see, for example, Giulianotti and Robertson 2007; Robson 2000; Van Houtum and Van Dam 2002). Like other spaces, the stadium is an emotional and relational physical space of human activity shaped by the people populating it. Its design creates a dialogue, direct and indirect, between fans and players and among the community of fans in the sense that everyone can see everyone else; together, fans direct their attention towards the centre, towards what is happening on the pitch. Their eyes follow and their bodies sway from side to side as they track the course of the game. The stadium encompasses different fan groups dispersed in different places in a regular though not rigid order. At the same time, individuals and groups of fans whose worldview and behaviour deviate exceedingly from the club’s primary socio-cultural-political agenda are driven out of the stadium, whether formally (e.g., St. Pauli and Werder Bremen trying hard to drive out neo-Nazis), or informally. Quickly and for a relatively brief interval before, during and after a match, the crowd of fans turns the space of the stadium into a noisy, colourful arena in which their alert bodies coalesce into a collective body that is symbolically and physically disconnected temporarily from the outside world. In this space-time capsule, fans co-create an emotional community that shares a common goal. Together they take part in an experiential event whereby every match separates them momentarily from their everyday life routines; they often stage a festive audiovisual performance for their own pleasure and for the benefit of the players, the public and news media. Fandom practice at a match is an experience reminiscent of a carnival arena due to its strong, personal, collectiveemotional tone and the spontaneous physical relationships arising among fans. The pleasurable, at times stormy and even ecstatic celebration (at derby games, for example) encompasses disappointments, frustrations, heartbreak and uplifted hearts, feelings that are manifested in shared bodily practices that jointly create a choreography of muscles. The structure of the stadium isolates it physically from day-to-day spaces such as the home, workplace and institutions of entertainment,

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creating its own unique, physical and autonomous socio-cultural arena. The sociologist Ben Porat (2007) coined the term permission zone (or authorisation zone) to characterise the stadium as a space that legitimises violations of behavioural norms that are not accepted outside this zone. In this space, the body is permitted to use practices that would draw criticism, negative reactions, sanctions or even harsher consequences in other arenas such as the home, workplace, school or elsewhere in the public sphere. Thus for a brief period, every week and sometimes every day, the stadium becomes a place that approves public expression by fans, particularly men, of unrestrained emotions and gestures that are not generally accepted in other masculine arenas—from weeping to panic to intimacy between total strangers. Littering freely, exhibiting vulgar gestures, removing clothing, engaging in outbursts, yelling and cursing (Nuhrat, parts “The Genesis of Doing Fandom” and “The Gendering of Fandom”) and jumping wildly for joy are all part of what is regarded as normative fandom behaviour in the stadium. Attempts to ban such behaviour often raise fans’ objections and sometimes even the club’s. The extent and intensity of such bodily practices vary not only across gender but also across clubs, leagues and countries, stages of life, types of stadiums and local culture. Yet stadiums function almost always as permission zones in which what is defined as extreme behaviour is allowed, unless it hurts another body or is meant to insult certain groups of fans (for instance, anti-Semitic songs and slogans in most German stadiums). When the fragile boundary between what is legitimate or illegitimate behaviour is blurred and breached and violent behaviour spills over from the stadium into the public space, fans might be censured even more harshly. When the fandom field becomes a brawl zone, the official supervising bodies try to restrain fans’ behaviour by imposing new rules. Research on the supervision of fans’ behaviour often invokes Foucault’s concept of the panopticon—an observational device that enables simultaneous viewing of what is occurring over sections of a huge space (Foucault 1977). Foucault uses the watchtowers metaphor to convey how the organisation of a space in closed institutions (such as prisons and schools) employs all-seeing supervisory mechanisms that exert power and discipline the body. According to him, the supervisees internalise the gaze from above so that it governs them even when not watched. Recent

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research of football deals with the ways in which the televising of games, which pours huge sums of money into the pockets of television stations and owners, dictates the times of games and curbs the spontaneity of doing fandom as it becomes more and more visible. Alongside television, surveillance cameras in the stadium document fans’ behaviour and anyone straying from the behaviour that is broadly allowed may be identified and possibly sent into custody. (This assertion is far less applicable to the lower leagues, where traditional fandom culture is preserved and television provides no coverage.) As extensively discussed in the sports literature, the restraining of fans’ behaviour was prompted by the report of the British Taylor Commission (1990) that was formed following the tragedy at the Hillsboro stadium, where 96 people were crushed to death. Following this report, football stadiums were converted into bigger, more elegant and comfortable spaces. The report’s recommendations redefined the nature of fandom, the make-up of the audience and even the fandom practices and behaviour to be performed in the stands. Thus, for example, fandom practices performed while standing—which the report viewed as raucous and dangerous—were prohibited and replaced by seated practices at assigned seats in the stands. Consumption of alcoholic beverages during games was likewise prohibited. These measures aiming to civilise fans’ behaviour, together with the fandom field’s fast-growing capitalism and consumerism, brought about a significant rise in ticket prices, which, in turn, caused a demographic change in the fan population: The number of working-class fans diminished while the number of middle-class fans increased. This change is the direct result of the dynamic dialogue between the fandom practices, the demographic and the spatial dimensions of the stadium: Unrestrained supporters brought about a change in the stadium and the growing control of space brought about a change in supporters’ demographics and behaviour. More and more often, the stadium functions as the ground or springboard from which fans initiate, promote, facilitate or join socio-political and educational activities that expand into the public sphere; fans “claim the right to space” and symbolically and practically cross and extend the stadium’s boundaries beyond its walls. It was Henri Lefebvre (1995) who theorised the notion of the right to the city that can be claimed by social

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groups that inhabit it. Inspired by Lefebvre’s understanding of space, we discuss fans’ symbolic and concrete claims to a significant and even equal political footing in spaces beyond the stadium. By crossing and widening the traditional boundaries of the stadium to pursue social and political goals, fans extend the practices of doing fandom from inside to outside the designated space of the stadium, thereby challenging the narrow, traditional definition and meanings of fandom and of being a fan. Fans’ identity and the meaning of fandom are shaped by and shape, then, not only what happens inside their club but also outside of it. Their action and ideology often reverberate far beyond the stadium, eliciting diverse positive and negative public response within their club and elsewhere. For example, fans cross the stadium’s bounds as a group to visit concentration camps as part of the commemoration agenda of many German clubs (Herta Berlin; Eintracht Frankfurt; Dortmund and others); they help children at risk do homework and learn to play football (e.g., the neighbourhood league in Jerusalem), they distribute food and organise football activities for refugees (the Olympiacos club in Athens, Greece), and Sankt Pauli (Hamburg, Germany) launched a political war against capitalism. By hanging the banner, “Refugees Welcome” in almost all German stadiums, fans also engaged in the boiling national discourse concerning the reception of the new waves of refugees in Germany and Europe (2013) (see Siny, part “Claiming a Foothold in Spaces Beyond the Stadium”). Lastly, in Turkey, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries, clubs have both joined and organised anti-government demonstrations over the last ten years and earlier (see Dorsey. part “Claiming a Foothold in Spaces Beyond the Stadium”). Fans are expected neither to form social movements nor to engage as fans outside the stadium in the public sphere in activities not related directly to the club’s professional interests and achievements. Yet, socially and politically, clubs like St. Pauli of Hamburg view involvement in local and national politics as their primary objective (see Siny, part “Claiming a Foothold in Spaces Beyond the Stadium”). Fan’s diverse activities outside the stadium indicate that their historical and cultural identity remains an enormous force in the local and global space of football and corroborates their agentive capacity to resist and, in some cases, even catalyse change.

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Currently, football clubs in Germany’s Bundesliga, for example, are initiating and promoting activities that further integration and diversity. In Germany, where political, socio-pedagogical and cultural activities with and by fans are historically pronounced, policy-makers perceive and support these clubs as schools of democracy (Braun 2015: 156). Yet, while such activities serve seemingly clear functions for society, the voices of those engaged in activities that are not necessarily intrinsic to the game of football—fans, social workers, etc.—have not been studied enough. Nowadays, modernisation, technology and globalisation shrink spatial and informational distances, enabling fandom to traverse countries and continents, whether physically or virtually, far more quickly, easily and cheaply. This change has at least two effects on fandom: On the one hand, it facilitates the performance of fandom far from the home stadium, especially by watching games remotely on electronic media. Indeed, matches, particularly on the international level, are watched by millions of viewers everywhere across the globe, and match times are adapted to the time zones of worldwide spectators. On the other hand, different fan clubs are established across the globe, and increasingly more people travel far from their places of residence to attend games at international and national stadiums, creating a new type of phenomenon, which the post-fandom literature (Redhead 1997) calls “football tourism”. Tourist fans might perform the standard fandom practices, but they do not necessarily feel allegiance or commitment to any of the teams they watch; often they are “touch and go” fans. Their journeys raise new questions about the future of fandom and its meaning. Research on football and fandom links post-fandom to liquid modernity (Davis 2015), claiming that in the post-modern era, new modes of fandom fertilise, enable and bring about the loss of authenticity (Redhead and Giulianotti 2002). The nostalgic underlying assumption is that there was a single accepted model of fandom in the past which is now dissolving. This view would argue, moreover, that socio-cultural-economic change creates new, diverse fandom patterns, making it difficult to determine who the authentic fan is. I suggest that this type of fandom can be seen as yet another pattern of doing fandom, not necessarily replacing traditional, authentic fandom. Tourists, who come and go, do not participate in the local fan culture and activities, for their bodily fandom habitus was

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acquired elsewhere; they are not considered part of the local club though they fill its pockets. ***** The source of pleasure in fandom was and is bodily; pleasure derives from participation in doing fandom with other bodies and not from acts of consumerism per se; fandom is the search for passion, per Heimat, and the appeal of belonging to a group and a community is what draws most fans to the stadium. “Without fans, football is nothing!” This canonical statement is attributed to the late Jock Stein, the Scottish former player and manager. Fan power is no less potent today—in our global, neo-liberal, commercialised world—than it has been since football’s birth as a community-based phenomenon with no global reach. Fandom practices remain the core of the football club, its face and voice. The collective public dimension, actualisation of identity, identification with a club, loyalty to the team, performance of the practices and other embodied characteristics of doing fandom continue to renew the fandom field. The idea that their club depends on them energises and empowers fans; it has always been the primary driver for owners, managers, players and particularly fans, inspiring them to assert, fight for and protect their rights in the beautiful game and claim the right to space. This continuity, together with the stubborn conservation of the gendered structure and practices, provide men-fans in particular a sense of history, tradition, stability and authenticity.

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Rouse, J. (2007a). Practice Theory. In Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 15. https://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/div1facpubs/43. Accessed 26 Sept 2019. Rouse, J. (2007b). Practice Theory. Wesleyan University. Division I Faculty Publication, Paper 43. Rubin, M. (2009). The Offside Rule—Women’s Bodies in Masculinized Spaces. In U. Pillay, R. Tomlinson, & O. Bass (Eds.), Development and Dreams: The Urban Legacy of the 2010 Football World Cup (pp. 266–280). Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council. Sandvoss, C. (2005). Fans: The Mirror of Consumption. Cambridge: Polity Press. Sasson-Levi, A. (2006). Identities in Uniform: Masculinity and Femininity in the Israeli Army (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Magnes. Schatzki, R. T., Knorr Cetina, K., & Von Savigny, E. (2001). The Practice Turn in Contemporary Society. London: Routledge. Spaaij, R. (2006). Understanding Football Hooliganism: A Comparison of Six Western European Football Clubs. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Stier, H. (2005). Interaction Between Payed Work and Work in the Family (Hebrew). Israeli Sociology, 7 (1), 143–160. Swartz, D. (2012). Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. University of Chicago Press. Taylor, L. J. (1990). The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster (15 April 1989). Final Report. London: HMSO. Van Houtum, H., & Van Dam, F. (2002). Topophilia or Topoporno? Patriotic Place Attachment in International Football Derbies. International Social Science Review., 3(2), 231–248. West, C., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1987). Doing Gender. Gender & Society, 1(2), 125–151. Williams, J. (2007). A Beautiful Game: International Perspectives on Women’s Football . Oxford: Berg.

I: The Genesis of Doing Fandom

Thematic Introduction - I Part I deals with the social genesis of performing fandom. It brings to light the early developmental roots of inculcating and acquiring fandom’s bodily practices and the emotional experiences and expressions coupled with them. In Chapter “How Children Become Fans: Learning Fandom via the Body”, Tali Friedman and Tamar Rapoport examine how fandom is acquired in childhood. They take a close look at how children become fans by focusing on the bodily process of mastering fandom practices that begins at a young age. In documenting and analysing this process, their research reveals that the habitus of fandom is learned at a young age mainly through imitation and the repetitive exercise of the constituent practices. The analysis draws on the well-known concept of habitus introduced by Pierre Bourdieu.1 The concept denotes a system of embodied dispositions and orientations that organizes and manages the ways in which individuals perceive, react to and embody the social 1 Bourdieu,

P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Richard Nice (trans.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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world—fandom and football in the case of this anthology. According to Bourdieu, habitus is the means by which the social order is expressed in and by the individual’s body, shaping the manner in which it conducts itself physically and appears in the social world. Applying the habitus concept to football fandom, the analysis shows how—through imitation and identification, experimentation and training as well as through experiencing bodily intimacy—children assume and assimilate the fandom habitus, thus becoming habituated to performing the practices properly and achieving the status of “authentic fans”. In this context, the chapter identifies the arenas (home, stadium, peer group) and the somatic events (routine and unexpected) where the inculcating and learning of fandom take place and fandom is transmitted to the next generation of fans. Chapter “A Fan’s Emotional Pendulum”, contributed by Tali Friedman, demonstrates how the body conveys, enacts and displays the diverse, intense feelings intrinsic to football fandom. For example, the body sheds tears and sweats when the team drops a league or produces an adrenaline rush after a decisive victory. The emotional turbulence and passion involve a broad range of emotions encapsulated in what the author calls the fandom “emotional toolkit”. The analysis illuminates the roller-coaster of emotions entailed in doing fandom, the varied bodily manifestations and the rapid and extreme changes in the emotional expressions visible during a game. Drawing mainly on literature from the sociology of emotion, the chapter shows how fans engender a “symphony of emotions” in the stadium and how these emotional expressions preserve and re-create the essence of fandom, the community of fans and loyalty to the club. In the Chapter “Contesting Love Through Commodification: Soccer Fans, Affect, and Social Class in Turkey”, Ya˘gmur Nuhrat discusses football in Turkey, adding a social structural perspective to the common expression “love of football”. While Friedman studies the experiences and manifestations of love during the game, Nuhrat examines the intersection of (1) the increasing commodification in Turkey, (2) the law that promises to “clean up” fandom and (3) differing expressions of love along class lines following this clean-up. The cleanedup version of football serves to secure class distinction for upper

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middle class fans, whereas it evokes resistance among less affluent and working-class fans. Her research reveals how the class conflict in Turkey created by the new law and how rising commodification are evaluated by the fans through contestations over what it means to be an “authentic fan” and especially over the quality of ones love for the team. True love is defined and experienced differently by members of the two groups, with working class fans often describing their love as maddening or self-sacrificing. In the context of increasing political repression, their resistance to commodification is discursively entangled with love and violence. By contrast, members of the upper class and the administration express their love by consuming paraphernalia related to the club.

How Children Become Fans: Learning Fandom via the Body Tali Friedman and Tamar Rapoport

Bloomfield Stadium, Tel Aviv: A home game of Hapoel Tel Aviv against Beitar Jerusalem.1 There are several father-son pairs in the stands around me. My attention was caught by a young father and child of about five sitting nearby. The father was highly active in supporting the Hapoel club while also provoking Beitar fans in the adjacent stand. All of a sudden he jumped up, raised his middle finger and waved it towards the opponents’ faces as he shouted at the top of his lungs: ‘Fuck off, Beitar!’ The young boy was watching his father and immediately started jumping along with 1The

two top Israeli premier-league clubs share a long history of both sportive and sociopolitical-ideological rivalry.

T. Friedman (B) · T. Rapoport The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected] T. Rapoport e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2020 T. Rapoport (ed.), Doing Fandom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46870-5_2

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him. Trying to imitate him, the boy waved his own small finger in the direction of Beitar fans, not the middle one like his father, but his index finger. Despite the imprecision, the father immediately rewarded his son’s attempt with a warm hug. (Field notes, Tali Friedman, September 18, 2011)

The field notes describe a moment in the process of socialization into fandom in real time: A child2 endeavoured to participate in the performance of fandom by imitating his father’s bodily movements. Shortly after this event, we found a photo taken Rotterdam (see Fig. 1) showing a counterpart of the little boy from Tel-Aviv performing a variant of the

Fig. 1 A young fan of Feyenoord Rotterdam performing a vulgar gesture of fandom (Source ANP Photo, with permission)

2Though “child” or “children” refer, to boys and girls, the number of boys in the stadium normally far exceeds the number of girls and most boys are more active in learning and doing fandom.

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same gesture. Multiple versions of the photo went viral on the Internet, with the original photo capturing the protest of Rotterdam fans over a moment of silence at the stadium.3 Although the vulgar gesture is performed by children in different stadiums, in different countries and in support of different clubs (in this case, Feyenoord, Netherlands4 ), the image is almost identical. Common to two children living in different cultural contexts, then, the gesture demonstrates the universality of learning and performing fandom. Its primary significance—in its total embodiment of outrage and contempt—is its underscoring the major role played by the body in learning fandom at a young age. The learning of fandom via the body is the topic at the center of this chapter, which targets a question almost absent from the research on fandom5 : How do children become football fans? The scant literature on children and fandom emphasises mainly the role of socialisation agents and agencies in the inculcation to sport (see, for example, McPherson 1976; Wann et al. 1996; Wann 2006).6 This research focuses primarily on boys’ initiation into sports by a man, perhaps their father, brother or a friend (Messner 1992). Yet it tends to overlook the manner and timing of children’s learning of fandom, the type of fandom practices and experiences (both routine and extraordinary) that they learn, and how they perform practices in their journey to becoming “authentic fans” (see Harris and Alexander 1998). Besides bypassing the issue of how fandom is learned in childhood, social research on fandom has not addressed the body (Maguire’s 1993); likewise, research on the body has passed over fandom. This is rather surprising, given that the experiences and practices of fandom are essentially inculcated, generated, performed and maintained by the body of the individual and the collective (see Bromberger 2016). The body learns and performs these practices publicly and visibly. 3 https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/mikey-wilson-middle-finger-kid,

last accessed 15-Jan-2020. is a long-standing Dutch premier division club. 5 But see Dixon (2013), who investigated the sources of football fandom utilising Bourdieu’s concepts but did not touch on bodily aspects of becoming a fan. 6 In this context, socialisation to gender roles in sports has been studied extensively (e.g., Birrell 2000) as well as in physical education in schools. 4 Feyenoord

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The authors of the present chapter conceptualise becoming a fan as an active, ongoing process of learning fandom through experimentation with and repetition of specific bodily practices.7 This body-based perspective draws on Bourdieu’s well-known theorising of the “habitus” (Bourdieu 1977). The habitus concept according to Csordas (1999) and Crossley (2001) provides the long needed connection between “somatic sociology”, which examines what the body does (in our case, it jumps, sings and forms a vulgar gesture) and “sociology of the body”, which focuses on what is done to the body (regulation and restraint, for example). According to Bourdieu’s conceptualisation, habitus is a system of bodily schema (movements, expressions, gestures) that are assimilated in the body at a young age, primarily through the imitation of parents and other adults. The body per Bourdieu is the key player in social interaction and a powerful, symbolic axis in the construction of meanings in context.8 Following this approach, the concept of habitus has recently been employed as the theoretical underpinning of numerous studies in the fields of formal and informal education.9 Surprisingly, this conceptualisation has not yet been utilised in the empirical research on the inculcation, learning and acquisition of fandom in childhood. The present study, then, set out to fill this gap by enlisting the habitus concept to elucidate how children learn fandom: It examines the early developmental roots of doing fandom and becoming a fan. Moreover, we propose that acquiring fandom at a young age via bodily practices, accounts for the endurance of loyalty to a particular club, sometimes over a lifetime, whether in football or in other sports (Friedman 2017). The present ethnographic study sought to trace the sociocultural genesis of fandom experiences, emotions and practices. Thus the research 7 Interestingly,

the “process of becoming a fan” is denoted in Hebrew by a single reflexive gerund, Hit’ahadut. The word shares its root meaning with other fandom-related words such as fan [‘ohed] and fandom [‘a’hada] that derive from the same three-consonant grammatical root. In addition, the phonetics of the infinitive, sounding much like to fall in love, connotes the powerful emotional bond which a fan feels for his/her team. 8The concept of habitus is elaborated in chapter “An Analytical Framework for Investigating Fandom” and in the Thematic Introduction to part “The Genesis of Doing Fandom”. 9 For a critical review of the (over)use of habitus in education, see, for example, Shusterman (1999) and Reay (2004).

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addressed the present and the past, the real-time experiences of children and the recollected experiences of their parents and other adults, who recounted football events in different arenas of their childhood as etched onto their bodies and memories. To capture these experiences, the authors employed qualitative research methods, particularly participant observations of fandom behaviour (interactions, physical gestures, emotional expressions, etc.) of children and adults at three Israeli football stadiums.10 We also analysed visual materials,11 conducted in-depth individual interviews with thirty-five adult fans and held conversations with children aged six to fourteen. In order to turn interviewees’ attention to the body during the interview, we asked both adults and young people at the start of the interview to recount their earliest memories of football. We encouraged them to speak in detail about bodily experiences both past and present, including detailed descriptions of their practices before, during and after a match. We prompted them to speak about emotions, rituals, gestures, habits and events that were salient among their recollections; we also inquired about the presence and practice of fandom in their family. Willing and even eager to relate their memories of football, interviewees of all ages offered detailed accounts of their fandom and experiences as fans.

Mimicry and Tutoring Mimicry According to Bourdieu, acquisition of the habitus in childhood occurs via mimesis—the imitation of significant others taking place without understanding or consciousness (Bourdieu 1977). A semiotic analysis of

10The

stadiums were Bloomfield (Tel Aviv), Teddy (Jerusalem) and Giv’at-Ram (Jerusalem). use of visual materials helps overcome the difficulty in verbally articulating bodily experiences. Visuals help us understand unconscious processes in the inculcation of habitus. In addition, photographs enable the freezing and perpetuation of moments which can escape the eye in ordinary viewing. For a detailed overview of the advantages of using visual materials, see, for example, Sweetman (2009).

11The

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the Feyenoord child’s photograph (see Fig. 1), particularly its morphological and rhetorical components, reveals the significance of the social and cultural context of the stadium to becoming a fan (Penn 2011). In the close-up, we see a four- or five-year-old child wearing a Feyenoord Rotterdam jersey. His face, streaked with the club’s colours, radiates tension and fury. He is gesturing with his right arm, extending it and his middle finger fully in the universally familiar “Fuck you” gesture. Taken together, the photo’s elements convey the image of an adult fan whose body has been miniaturised into child-size proportions. While this image momentarily blurs the distinction between a child and an adult fan, it simultaneously highlights the childishness of a boy mimicking an adult practice in an extreme, yet naïve manner. The viewer’s attention is drawn primarily to the young child’s almost perfect mimicry of the vulgar gesture and the loathing he expresses, both so utterly age-inappropriate. Yet, in the case of a child, we tend to forgive such a harsh gesture twice over, firstly, because it is enacted by a youngster who is culturally presumed to be acting with childish innocence, unaware of its cultural significance. Secondly, we pardon this gesture, because the fandom field is a “permission zone”12 (Ben Porat 2007), where physical and verbal behaviours viewed as illegitimate and even forbidden in other arenas are permitted. The glaring dissonance experienced by the viewer due to the juxtaposition of innocence and vulgarity together with the emotional and physical energy bursting out of the photo have made it one of the most popular images online. One site (www.geekarmy.com) published the photo with the caption, “They teach them manners young at Feyenoord”; the usage of “manners” here, which normally refers to inculcating civilised behaviour, is ironic in light of the inherently vulgar nature of the gesture (see Elias and Dunning 1986). Yet we can surmise that the author-contributor as well as the web page visitors understand that the photo depicts experimentation with fandom and a child’s socialisation into football fandom at the stadium.

12 For a fuller discussion of Ben Porat’s concept of permission zone, refer to chapter “An Analytical Framework for Investigating Fandom”. See also Rapoport and Regev, part “The Gendering of Fandom”.

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Learning and doing fandom do not take place in a vacuum, but rather, in context, whether the family, community, peer group or the media as well as the broader historical and ideological contexts. Bourdieu’s comprehensive discussions of habitus led us to analyse the body-context linkage in which the inculcation of the fandom habitus occurs. In a suggestively titled article, “How can one be a sports fan?”, Bourdieu (1993) demonstrates the concept of habitus. He uses the example of a football player who develops what he calls “a feel for the game”—the seemingly automatic bodily knowledge that the footballer employs in orienting himself in the football field and performing the correct practices (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992). In the context of fandom, feel for the game means more than knowing how to perform physical-mechanical bodily practices correctly: It also signifies the accurate assimilation of the feelings that accompany this performance (see also Wacquant book “Body and Soul ”, 2004). Another photograph taken at the same Rotterdam match shows father and son doing fandom in tandem. The child is perched on his father’s shoulders in the stands among other club fans, almost perfectly illustrating the context, and particularly the intimate bodily interaction, that is essential for fully understanding the emotion-laden, vulgar gesture of the child. Sensing the contempt and protest expressed in his father’s whistle, the Feyenoord child expresses the same emotions by raising his finger, a gesture he likely learned by imitating adults around him. In this case, the child absorbs the sensations in his father’s body and becomes his bodily extension; they become one. The father–son scene illustrates Bourdieu’s idea of “implicit pedagogy”—a pedagogical form that transpires between bodies without verbal explanation or explicit instruction. It shapes not only the manner in which children stand, move about, speak or eat, but also the manner in which they feel and think (Bourdieu 1977). The Dutch child’s erect finger is not merely a mechanical motion, but a disposition learned in an almost pre-attentive manner with the corresponding emotions bundled in. His gesture incorporates the (mostly non-verbal) guidance of the ambient social context, in the case at hand, a long-standing fandom tradition among Feyenoord fans, a club known for its uncompromising allegiance to its team. This fandom practice, like

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others, is likely to remain stable over time and continue to be executed unconsciously, almost naturally (Nash 1999; Swartz 1997).

Muscular Bonding Readily apparent to any observer, football fans jump up and down in the stands almost throughout the game in synchronised movement. In close proximity, there are children, some truly young, who join in the singing, but more often than not, they know only a few of the lyrics to the cheering songs and can jump for only a short while. The children are part of the large crowd of spectators and of the energetic physicality in the stands that transforms the fandom field into a stimulating arena. This atmosphere prompts them to experiment, often by trial and error, with different fandom practices. As a young fan jumps up and down in a crowd of sweating bodies, he absorbs the sights, hears the sounds and gets swept up in the chanting or the drumbeat; his body participates in the scripted, coordinated choreography that is taking place in the stands (See Cwir et al. 2011). The atmosphere, excitement and sense of communality are internalised by the body of each fan, children included. The “muscular bonding” (McNeill 1997) that takes place creates a collective experience of power and belonging. Beyond the pleasure of jumping, shouting or performing a rude or supporting gesture, the performance of the practices rewards child fans in a variety of ways that include close-up display of their images on the large stadium screens, on television or in video clips in which they “star”. These clips are often posted on a club’s social media sites, including forums, and on parents’ cellphones. The attendance and visibility of children on fan sites play an important role in retaining and strengthening the fan community and its sense of generational continuation (for a review, see Robson 2000). A highly significant reward is the virtual group hug that the fan community accords its children; it is as if their little bodies are swept up into a giant embrace. This rewarding hug not only reinforces the assimilation of fandom, but to the young fans, it also imparts a sense of identity and belonging. The influence of such a hug

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can be detected in the account of Ariel (a Hapoel Tel Aviv fan, aged 47), who recounted his experience as a child in the stands: I recall the first goal…I was very young…the team had scored a goal, and a fan of bear-like stature next to me just picked me up, rocked me from side to side, hugged me,… [and] lifted me into the air. I was really young then … He was grinning from ear to ear and radiated so much love … I tell you, it was a very, very deep experience … that type of contact…physical…and I don’t come from a home where we didn’t touch or hug, definitely not a cold home. In my family we do touch, and still, there is always thirst for such touch, physical contact [with strangers]. I am not talking about anything abstract; [I’m talking about] one body touching another.

It has been over forty years since Ariel experienced this event and he still treasures the memory of the warmth and affection his body absorbed from that stranger’s hug.

Bodily Tutoring and Experimentation Many adult fans go beyond hugging children: They teach them intentionally, for example, by guiding a child’s body to pay attention to the game and perform this practice properly. An analysis of a scene witnessed at a winter 2011 Katamon home game demonstrates the nature of such bodily tutoring (Fig. 2). There was a child of about three or four sitting on the lap of an adult, presumably his father. He is being instructed on how to perform a basic, commonly accepted cheering gesture. The adult is holding the child by the wrists and raising the child’s clenched hands high above his head. This act is equivalent, both associatively and symbolically, to guiding a baby in taking his first steps. While holding the child, the adult male gently positions the child’s body and guides his gaze in the right direction, the area of the pitch where an important event is taking place—be it a penalty kick, the referee whistle or a foul. The child’s smiling profile suggested that he was enjoying the interaction, the warm bodily bond which transmitted the teaching. Eventually, the child learns how to direct

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Fig. 2 Guiding a Bodily Gesture (Source Tali Friedman, chapter author)

his gaze automatically towards key game events at the right moments. This focused, concentrated gaze is a habit for veteran fans, whose heads move from side to side as their gaze follows the match. With maturity, the acquisition of bodily knowledge will differentiate veteran from novice fans, whose conspicuous lack of knowledge of what is happening on the pitch subjects them to suspicion of inauthenticity (Noy 2011; Rapoport and Regev, this anthology). The young, however, are never suspected.

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Another case of tutoring, in this instance by women fan volunteers, was observed by co-author Tali Friedman in the stadium at an exceptional Hapoel Tel Aviv “radius game”,13 which only women and children attended. This is how she described the incident: A few women fans of about age twenty make their way through the stands. Pausing here and there at different rows, they model for the children the right way to perform the coordinated hand-waves, fingering signs, shaking of the palms when danger is imminent near the goal and clapping overhead. During lulls in the game they also lead cheers in an effort to energise the crowd. (Field Notes, Bloomfield Stadium, March 18, 2012)

These mentors-fans take it upon themselves to pass the fandom legacy on to the next generation. They serve actively as bodily role models, inculcating “habit memory” into the children’s bodies (Connerton 1989). According to Connerton, shared ritual performance and bodily practices play a meaningful role in preserving the collective physical memory of a social group, which is stronger than either cognitive or discursive memory. Physical memory preserves the corporeal legacy of fandom and passes it on to the next generation. In addition to the adults, other same-aged children and often older ones at the stadium also play a major role in guiding novice fans. When a child is somewhat older, he meets other children in the stadium who, like him, are experimenting with the process of becoming a fan. Children were repeatedly observed in the stands waving flags and banners that were far bigger than them, chanting the team cheers and booing the rival team in the company of other children. Sitting and standing together, the children learn to concentrate on the game and refrain from running ceaselessly from one end of the stands to the other or repeatedly ascending and descending the stairs. Learning the practices entails gaining the ability to observe and focus on what is occurring in the game, closely and precisely. For instance, children must restrain the urge to shout “Yeah!” or jump for joy until the referee has confirmed a goal, or, 13 For

an explanation of a radius game, refer to chapter “An Analytical Framework for Investigating Fandom”.

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only at the right moment should they curse one of their club’s players who has performed poorly. Such behaviours demand precise bodily attention, timing and control, all of which are especially challenging for excited, impulsive children. Children’s knowledge of when and how to do fandom, what to feel and how to manifest it develops over time, mainly when they attend matches. As to the meaning and significance of the fandom practices, comprehension develops as children grow older in an ongoing process of knowledge accumulation. In parallel, outside the stadium, the young fans learn the history and cultural distinctiveness of their club, its symbols and ideology, from stories they hear in diverse arenas, particularly in the home, at school, from a peer or the media. This acquired knowledge is essential to being regarded an authentic fan (Rapoport 2016). Nonetheless, proper accomplishment of the practices is in itself valued highly and accorded respect in fandom, even in the absence of (full or partial) understanding of their historical and cultural contexts or significance. Bourdieu (1992) refers to this condition of doing and not knowing as “practice without theory”—correct performance of practices without grasping their meaning. The reverse—the possibility of “theory without practice”—does not gain the fan full recognition of being an authentic supporter (Rapoport 2016).

Family Heritage “From cradle to grave”—thus goes one of the most popular universal clichés expressing fans’ perpetual support and loyalty to their football clubs. Sometimes one of the first objects a baby—a potential fan— regards is the team’s red and black (for example) scarf draped by his parents over its cradle. In our research, by listening to the accounts of children and adults, observing videos and visiting bedrooms decorated in club colours and symbols—we documented daily bath rituals where young children listen to team songs and improvise as their proud, smiling parents take photos and encourage them to continue. We also observed conversations in the home about matches, both before and after attending, the soundtrack of a club’s songs playing in the background of

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family road trips, and shared watching of televised games. In these situations, we clearly witness the practice of “implicit pedagogy” at work, where, as mentioned, speech and explicit instruction are unnecessary. In the context of the family, the child’s body is a “legacy site” for the inculcation and assimilation of the fandom tradition. This tradition is deliberately transmitted to the child with family members’ full intention. From interviews with second-generation and sometimes third-generation fans, we learned that they felt they were “born into fandom”, metaphorically speaking. For instance, Erez (33, Hapoel Petach Tikva FC fan) told the interviewer: “I have to tell you an anecdote. If you ask where it all began, it began even before I can remember. Hapoel Petach Tikva14 was relegated just hours before I was born […] I think it signaled what was to come”. Erez, the eldest child of a devoted fan, chose to begin the story of his becoming a fan with reference to the day he was born. In pointing to the proximity of events—his birth and the team’s relegation—Erez was referring to what he called a “cosmic omen” that foretold his future as an enthusiastic fan who would become accustomed to disappointment. As he was growing up, Erez had the good fortune of attending games surrounded by his father’s friends and of spending quality time with his father during long Saturdays before and after games. Under these circumstances, the legacy of fandom that passed naturally from father to son has become an integral part of their close relationship. Similar accounts of becoming a fan at a young age were recounted by other interviewees, who describe this process using powerful body images and metaphors, such as: “It was infused in my blood”, “It’s in my DNA”, “They ‘poisoned’ me [with fandom] as a child” and “I was born into the club”. These fans perceive fandom as having been installed in their body without their notice or knowledge of how it happened. Yossi, 41, a fervent second-generation fan of Hapoel Tel Aviv FC, provided the interviewer a different account of how his fandom career began, suggesting that it “just happened to him”, through the power of fate:

14 Located

in the town Petach Tikva near Tel Aviv, the club that was founded in 1934 has developed a yoyo pattern of losing and winning.

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I don’t recall when I decided [to become a fan], I just feel it, the same as being born to certain parents with certain organs and limbs, that’s how I remember it. I honestly don’t recall deciding it, there was no seminal moment in my life that caused it; it just…happened. I just slid into it… There’s no moment that I recall. Q: And how did you teach yourself to be a fan? A: I didn’t. You don’t teach yourself to be a fan. Do you teach yourself to walk?!

Yossi was not yet two years old when his father first took him to a game. In telling about it, he balks at the interviewer’s question of how he learned to be a fan, suggesting that it was a fate sealed in his parents’ home. Like many other interviewees, Yossi uses physiological terms to describe being a fan of Hapoel Tel Aviv; taken to games as a toddler, he says fandom is like another of his body parts. His first memory—as he told it and as he has probably heard it told many times as a family tale— was of a loud quarrel between his parents: his mother opposed his father’s going to a match on a Saturday, but his father stole out of the house through the porch blinds. Over his mother’s protests, Yossi followed in his footsteps. Yossi’s and most of the other interviewees’ accounts substantiate Bourdieu’s idea that joining a social field is not a conscious act. The individual, suggested Bourdieu, is born into a field, a sociocultural milieu (what he terms the “social game”), in a manner that cannot be reconstructed in memory. A Bourdieuian reading of the above accounts invokes the concept “practical sense” according to which the learning of the habitus is a matter neither of consciousness nor of obedience, but, as stated, occurs within the body itself (Bourdieu 1984). Thus, like learning to walk, ride a bicycle or play a piano, fandom consists of embedding experiential bodily knowledge that is naturally learned in the developmental process. The fandom relationship between father and son takes on various facets over the years. Becoming a fan often begins, as we learn from Erez, Yossi and others, at a very young age, when children go to the stadium with their fathers and sit on their laps. When they are a little older, the children usually sit with their peers on the benches or stand near the

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fence, their eyes searching for their parent from time to time, or they might run over for a hug or for something to eat. Over the years, the two parties make sure they maintain the “fandom connection” and the private space they have created by going to the stadium together or meeting there (sometimes with the next generation of children) and analysing the game. At times there is a certain closing of the circle, according to Erez; nowadays his father joins him and his friends when they attend games. This familial father–son linkage continuously preserves and strengthens the fandom habitus and vice versa.

Seminal Somatic Events A story recurring in the interviews is of a one-time, physical-emotional experience, often quite brief, that took place as various events occurred in the fandom field, suddenly and powerfully burning fandom into the interviewee’s body outside their conscious understanding. Such a seminal experience is defined as an event that happens in the briefest of timeframes and marks a turning point in the person’s biography; due to its intense power, the influence of the event is imprinted in the person for life.15 In the sections, below, one example illustrates each type of event.

The Fall Eyal, 46, a Hapoel Tel Aviv fan, described an intense physical-emotional incident that he and his then four-year-old son, Uri, experienced at their first game together. The incident, which Eyal “will remember ‘til my dying day”, took place during the final minute of the game. Little Uri slipped and fell in the stands precisely as Hapoel dramatically scored the winning goal: “Precisely when he fell, everyone jumped to their feet, and the poor boy began to cry. I picked him up and held him in my arms, and

15 A

study of seminal experiences in informal educational activities and frameworks contends that their impact on the participants can far exceed the influence of many “small” consecutive learning experiences (Yair 2006).

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began jumping up and down; he shuddered. Ever since that moment, we have both been hooked”. In his story, Eyal reconstructed the moment in which fandom for Hapoel Tel Aviv bound father and son together in a flash. Several factors made the moment so significant for them, the strongest of them being the intense physical connection between father and son expressed in an embrace that neither of them has forgotten, the boy’s shudder in his father’s arms and dormant recollections which suddenly arose for the father and also infected the son. These brief moments became part of the family lore: As described by Uri, “I fell down, Daddy picked me up, and ever since I have been a Hapoel Tel Aviv fan”. Indeed, ten years on, Uri remains an avid Hapoel Tel Aviv fan and continues to attend every game with his father.

Shedding Tears Yoav’s story, too, concerns a goal in the last minute of a game. Yoav, 30, a fan of Hapoel Jerusalem, remembers to this day what happened to him when the team lost in the last moment of the game that sealed his fate as a fan: “There were such strong energies there… And the experience was so powerful that I cried. Since then, there was no stopping; that was the attachment, that’s where it was created”. Attending games with his father, Yoav was a boy then. Yet he vividly remembers the event as the first time in his life that he expressed a real emotion. In the 90th minute he experienced a pivotal moment of tight, “warm intimacy”16 with the team, his father and the other fans around them. In real time, Yoav learned an emotional practice of fandom in his very flesh—heartbreak at a game. This was a preconscious, pre-reflexive learning whose source and somatic expression is uncontrollable crying. Such stories are common in the interviews and informal conversations we conducted with fans. In telling about their crying (Friedman 2017), a behaviour which is usually not considered manly outside the stadium, fans stress “unmanly behaviour” as proof of the traumatic event they experienced. 16 Warm intimacy is the negation of “cold intimacy” which, according to Eva Illouz (2008), characterises emotional capitalism.

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Becoming Red Yuval, 36, a Hapoel Tel Aviv fan and a well-known Israeli singer, related the briefest of incidents which imprinted fandom onto his “body and soul”. When he was six, he had the good fortune of being taken by a family friend to the players’ changing room, where one of the stars approached him and honoured him with the club’s red jersey. And then, Yuval told the interviewer excitedly, “I took it, put it on, and by the time I got home, I was hooked on Hapoel, red in my soul”. It is easy to grasp the intensity of the experience as viewed through the eyes of a young child standing in the middle of a huge changing room surrounded by sweaty players as they talk loudly, strip off their kits and stride stark naked or nearly so to the showers. Amidst this scene of ultimate masculinity (Connell 2009), Yuval received the players’ red jersey, put it on and the magic of passion struck. Yuval instantly became a fervent fan through a “bodily reflexive practice” (Connell 2009: 83) which established his identity as a “red fan”. Verbal expressions describing flash fandom inductions that clearly convey the somatic nature of fans’ experiences occur repeatedly in the interviews. These expressions include: “we jumped for joy”, “we shuddered when we almost lost”, “we were turned on”, “there were strong energies in this game” and “I was hooked”. Matti, a 34-year-old Maccabi Tel Aviv fan, said, “I mostly remember the smell. Every football fan will remember some smell; that’s one way of knowing who is a football fan and who isn’t”. From the shudder through the body to the memory of a smell, these descriptions illuminate the centrality of bodily experience in the onset of fandom. In the spirit of Csordas’s remarks regarding “types of somatic attention” (Csordas 1993), we can regard the absorption of the environment through the bodily senses as “a type of somatic fandom initiation” which augments the habitus as formulated by Bourdieu, adding significant bodily dimensions to the study of fandom.

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Discussion: The Intersection of Age and Gender in Fandom Focusing on the origins of fandom in childhood, this chapter examines how children become football fans. The analysis embarks from the perspective that a person is not born a fan, though many fans would claim otherwise, but becomes one through a process of learning comprised of mimicking bodily practices. The young fan’s excited body serves as the primary somatic source for acquiring the necessary physicalemotional knowhow, the particular bodily practices and emotions that are required for being regarded an authentic fan. The acquired practices become embedded in the young body, available for execution at any time (Nash 1999; Swartz 1997) and space where football is played. To elucidate the process of becoming a fan, we have enlisted Bourdieu’s concept of habitus (Bourdieu 1977). Per Bourdieu, the assimilation of the habitus into the body at a young age primarily entails implicit, unintentional pedagogy or, at times, more engaged, conscious pedagogy. Following Bourdieu’s conceptualisation, we suggest that young children develop a “feel for the game” (Bourdieu 1977) of football and fandom that is implanted in the body and becomes natural, just as with natural language acquisition. One might wonder what happens to those who shed the habitus over time or who begin fandom other than as young children. This question touches on a central criticism in the sociology literature regarding the deterministic definition of the habitus concept, namely, that habitus is acquired at a young age and subsequently directs the individual’s behaviour and choices for life (for example, see King 2000). In his later writings, Bourdieu proposed that people are not necessarily trapped in the habitus and can re-affirm, change or update it. This relatively flexible view of habitus pertains, for example, to people who become fans in childhood but desert their fandom or to those (not necessarily few) football aficionados who switch loyalties and become fans of another team in adulthood. This issue is discussed by Dixon (2013) as a “test case” for the reflexivity and agency that a habitus allows. He claims that characteristics of late modernity (such as rapid change, the challenging of conventions,

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loss of cultural legitimacy, etc.) may at times overcome the dominance of a habitus: Thus people might resist the seeming dictate to be a fan at all or a fan of a specific club. Indeed, they might leave a club to form fan-owned clubs, as in the examples of FC Manchester (England), AFC Wimbledon (England), Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem and Beitar Nordia Jerusalem (Israel). These were established by adult fans that left their mother club, disavowing, for instance its alien, capitalist ownership or the racism rampant among club fans. Adult fans who depart have long since acquired a fandom habitus, but they transfer their waning loyalty to a club that they found or own, often for ideological reasons. It follows that in certain cases, the habitus of fandom and loyalty to a particular club do not coincide. Nonetheless, though lifetime loyalty is not always guaranteed by the early acquisition of fandom, early acquisition is a necessary but not exclusive condition both for establishing authentic fandom and for its lifetime endurance; the learning and doing of fandom at a young age plant seeds of loyalty which later develop deep, enduring roots (Friedman 2017), even if at times loyalty is carried over to another club. Even if we agree with Dixon (2013) that one can become a fan in a mediated fashion, such as by watching television or playing computer games, such learning lacks the unmediated somatic experience and the personal, inter-personal, social and historic contexts of space and time, which contribute to the preservation and steadfastness of fandom. Concurring with Dixon’s critique of Bourdieu’s overly deterministic conception of habitus and his argument that it is acquired unconsciously in childhood, we agree that habitus can also be acquired in adulthood, in a self-aware manner. The issue of learning fandom beyond childhood has recently gained attention as women have been joining the fandom field in greater numbers, especially in the context of fan-owned clubs (see Rapoport and Regev, part “The Gendering of Fandom”). Rapoport and Regev claim that these clubs’ appealing liberal agenda draws new audiences into the fandom field, including women with no early fandom habitus. This issue is even more relevant when relatively older women join the fandom field (Pope 2010) and need to learn the fandom practices from scratch, to a great extent like children. In most cases, the language of fandom,

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which they attempt to acquire at this stage of life, will mostly remain a poorly spoken second language. Even if they embrace the right practices, the authenticity of their fandom will be questioned by men fans, “the owners” and masters of the fandom field and habitus. The gender differentiated routes for becoming a fan (and playing football) are inculcated starting at a very young age. From early childhood, males engage in kicking a ball at every opportunity; for girls, this is perceived as unsuitable in certain cultures. From a young age, girls are given more or less explicit messages that male fans are the “natural owners” of the fandom habitus, the game and the fandom field. They also learn that doing fandom like a man is negatively rewarded and normally considered a behaviour that contradicts their “true nature” (see, for example, Nuhrat, part “The Gendering of Fandom”). Thus most girls do not pursue a “fandom career” and many boys do. In their late childhood and adolescence, many boys who have learned fandom and play football at school or in the neighbourhood playgrounds imagine themselves becoming real football players in adulthood, while very few fulfil this dream. Watching matches from the stands, when a player kicks and misses, these male fans sense his feeling of failure in their own body; when a player grabs his head in disbelief after missing a goal, they, too, make a similar gesture, as if they themselves had missed it. By contrast, the bodily language of fandom remains stilted, in most cases, for women.

Fandom Liberates Children, being children, are automatically granted legitimacy and broad behavioural permission in the fandom field. Furthermore, in its capacity as a “permission zone”17 (Ben Porat 2007), the stadium facilitates a physicality for fans, especially for children, that is free of many cultural restraints imposed on the body and emotions outside the stadium. Indeed in the interviews, adult men nostalgically recalled the football

17 For a discussion of “permission zone”, refer to chapter “An Analytical Framework for Investigating Fandom”.

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fields where they had watched matches during childhood, how as children they would sneak out of their parents’ home on Saturday afternoons to climb a tree for a view of the stadium or sneak into the stands to watch a match. Adult fans also retain many other memories of becoming a fan as a playful, enjoyable time. They often conjured up their bodily fandom practices in the stands—hitting, shoving, cursing, jumping, singing loudly and touching one another—that are reminiscent of childhood playfulness in the fandom field. Children in the fandom field are fascinated by the behaviours of the grown-ups. Enthralled, they observe the grown-ups “going wild”—their playful jumping and cursing, singing and dancing, hitting and shoving— and they attempt to do fandom like them. A child is awed by his father’s or other grown-ups’ permissive behaviour. The father, in turn, faithfully instills this behaviour in his child, encourages him to behave in ways that are barred outside the “permission zone” (Ben Porat 2007) and communicates that, “as long as you are here, you may behave differently”. This interaction creates unique symmetry between father and son whereby age differences are blurred. The joint weaving of a shared interest and memory in an intimate permission zone will accompany their relationship for years to come, planting childhood memories in the young fan amid his family and friends into maturity.

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Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. (1992). An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bromberger, C. (2016). Football as World-view and as Ritual. French Cultural Studies, 6 (18), 293–311. Connell, R. (2009). Masculinities (Hebrew). Haifa: Pardes. Connerton, P. (1989). How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crossley, N. (2001). The Phenomenological Habitus and Its Construction. Theory and Society, 30 (1), 81–120. Csordas, T. J. (1993). Somatic Modes of Attention. Cultural Anthropology, 8(2), 135–156. Csordas, T. J. (1999). Embodiment and Cultural Phenomenology. In G. Weiss & H. F. Haber (Eds.), Perspectives on Embodiment: The Intersection of Nature and Culture. New York: Routledge. Cwir, D., Carr, P. B., Walton, G. M., & Spencer, S. J. (2011). Your Heart Makes My Heart Move: Cues of Social Connectedness Cause Shared Emotions and Physiological States Among Strangers. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47 (3), 661–664. Dixon, K. (2013). Learning the Game: Football Fandom Culture and the Origins of Practice. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 48(3), 334–348. Elias, N., & Dunning, E. (1986). Quest for Excitement: Sport and Leisure in the Civilizing Process. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Friedman, T. A. (2017). A Wall with No Hole—How Football Fans Learn and Maintain Team Loyalty. Doctoral dissertation supervised by Tamar Rapoport. The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Harris, C., & Alexander, A. (1998). Theorizing Fandom: Fans, Subculture, and Identity. Cresskill: Hampton Press. Illouz, E. (2008). Cold Intimacy—The Rise of Emotional Capitalism (Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameu’chad. King, A. (2000). Thinking with Bourdieu Against Bourdieu: A ‘Practical’ Critique of the Habitus. Sociological Theory, 18(3), 417–433. Maguire, J. (1993). Bodies, Sports Cultures and Societies: A Critical Review of Some Theories in the Sociology of the Body. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 28(1), 33–52. McNeill, W. H. (1997). Keeping Together in Time. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. McPherson, B. D. (1976). Socialization into the Role of Sport Consumer: A Theory and Causal Model. Canadian Review of Sociology, 13(2), 165–177.

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Messner, M. (1992). Power at Play: Sports and the Problem of Masculinity. Boston: Beacon Press. Nash, R. (1999). Bourdieu, ‘Habitus’, and Educational Research: Is It All Worth the Candle? British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20 (2), 175–187. Noy, E. (2011). Gender in the Fandom Field: Being a Female Fan of Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem, FC . Master’s degree dissertation supervised by Tamar Rapoport. The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Penn, G. (2011). Semiotic Analysis of Stills. In M. Bower & G. Gaskell (Eds.), Qualitative Research: Methods for Analyzing Text, Photo and Sound. Ra’anana, Israel: The Open University. Pope, S. (2010). ‘Like Pulling Down Durham Cathedral and Building a Brothel’: Women as ‘New Consumer’ Fans. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 46 (4), 471–487. Rapoport, T. (Ed.). (2016). Football Belongs to the Fans! An Investigative Journey Following Hapoel Jerusalem. Tel Aviv: Resling. Reay, D. (2004). ‘It’s’ All Becoming a Habitus: Beyond the Habitual Use of Habitus in Education Research. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25 (4), 431–444. Robson, G. (2000). No One Likes Us, We Don’t Care. Oxford: Berg. Shusterman, R. (1999). Bourdieu: A Critical Review. London: Wiley-Blackwell. Swartz, D. (1997). Culture & Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Sweetman, P. (2009). Revealing Habitus, Illuminating Practice: Bourdieu, Photography and Visual Methods. The Sociological Review, 57 (3), 491–511. Wacquant, L. (2004). Body & Soul . New York: Oxford University Press. Wann, D. L. (2006). The Causes and Consequences of Sport Team Identification. Handbook of Sports and Media, 1(46), 331–352. Wann, D. L., Tucker, K., & Schrader, M. (1996). An Exploratory Examination of the Factors Influencing the Origination, Continuation and Cessation of Identification with Sports Teams. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 82, 995–1001. Yair, G. (2006). From Pivotal Experiences to a Turning Point: On the Power of Educational Influence. Sifriyat Hapoalim: Tel Aviv.

A Fan’s Emotional Pendulum Tali Friedman

A grown man1 wipes away a tear, an adolescent stands yelling at the top of his lungs and a man in despair clasps his head in the palms of his hands. A woman fearfully covers her eyes while another woman joins her palms and directs her gaze heavenwards, as if in prayer. A group of bare-chested youngsters leaps in unison, arms waving overhead. Strangers embrace joyously after a goal. Such sights are to be seen daily at football matches around the world, transcending geographic, national, social and cultural boundaries. The particulars may vary, but the images of fans are much the same, as are the intensity of the emotions and the ways they are articulated. One would be hard pressed to name another 1This

chapter was part of a doctoral dissertation: Friedman, T. (2016). A Wall with No Hole —How Football Fans Learn and Maintain Team Loyalty. Ph.D. Dissertation, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. The author thanks her colleagues Daniel Regev and Uri Katz for their insightful comments. Special thanks are extended to her son, Guy, through whom she experienced an avid fan’s full spectrum of emotions.

T. Friedman (B) The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 T. Rapoport (ed.), Doing Fandom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46870-5_3

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cultural phenomenon which generates and sustains a repeatable, diverse and passionate range of emotions in the way that football fandom does. Indeed, popular culture’s extensive discourse on the subject attests to the vastness and diversity of fandom’s emotions, as do live television coverage and highly colourful descriptions in the press and internet media, yet researchers of football fandom have bypassed this matter. Works of fiction, on the other hand, are sensitive to the deep emotional dimension of football fandom. The Uruguayan author, Eduardo Galeano, for example, depicts a fan sitting in the stands totally absorbed in the action on the pitch: “He now has nothing in the world other than what is transpiring before his eyes. Unbridled passion consumes him” (Galeano 2006). In his popular book, Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby describes the intense emotional fluctuations that he experiences as a fan of Arsenal FC (Hornby 1992). The film based on the book as well as other films of recent years2 convey the powerful emotions, passion, dedication and loyalty of football fans for their teams. Sociological literature on football fandom has concerned itself mostly with the negative manifestations and consequence of fans’ emotional outbursts that is, with violence and hooliganism (see, for example, Russell 2004; Braun and Vliegenthart 2009). Yet despite the powerful emotional experiences that football fandom generates, they have rarely been the subject of direct investigation aimed at understanding the phenomenon of fandom, with the exception of studies that connect the emotions of fandom to rituals of social solidarity (Cottingham 2012; Alkemeyer 2002; Bromberger 1995). The work by Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning (1986), which examines sport and leisure in the context of the civilization process, is noteworthy in this regard. In these authors’ view, football fandom is a recurring activity involving excitement, spontaneity and high levels of emotion. Offering the requisite balance between pleasure and restraint, fandom fulfils the yearning for excitement in a capitalist society. Amir Ben Porat voices a similar view, connecting passion for the game with understanding of “the secret of its charm”: Passion provides the “recurrent opportunity to find authentic 2 Examples include the Oscar-winning Argentinian film, El Secreto de Sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes) (2010) and the British film, Green Street (2005).

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excitement” (Ben Porat 2013: 161). Ben Porat regards the emotional experience as the critical factor in creating a fan’s identity. To his mind, the collective sharing of that experience is the powerful mechanism bonding the community of fans. The present chapter focuses on the routine individual and collective expressions of fandom identified by ethnographic research methods as outlined in this anthology’s Preface. The interpretive analysis of all the data collected identified three primary, inter-related dimensions of emotional experience inherent to football fandom: (1) A broad emotional range: wide-ranging, extreme conflicting emotions, negative and positive; (2) Emotional fluctuation: the rapid switch from one type of emotional expression to another; and (3) Emotional intensity: intense expressions emotionally, physically and verbally.

Preservation of Passion and Loyalty Passion for one’s team coupled with enduring loyalty typify football fandom and distinguish it from other cultural arenas. The distinction is striking when we consider how emotions infiltrate consumerist culture and vice versa—whether in the commercialization of intimate emotions of romantic relationships (Illouz 2008) or in the capitalist business world. Among other factors, commercialization in the business world is based on managing emotions.3 In parallel, marketing forces, advertising and electronic media, sometimes capitalize cynically and aggressively on the enduring human passion for novel, gratifying emotional experiences. Consumer culture manipulates emotions in a sophisticated manner for its own benefit and seeps into almost every area of our lives—“from the bedroom to the conference room” (Boden and Williams 2002: 501). Given these conditions, claims Illouz, discourse regarding emotions has been changing, and in many arenas the emotions are gradually losing their spontaneous nature (Illouz 2008). This does not hold, however for football fandom. The broad, spontaneous powerful range of emotions 3 For

the interesting case of airline hosts, see Hochschild (1979).

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entailed in fandom challenges “current sociological skepticism” about the possibility of “experiencing authentic emotions in an inauthentic, commercialised era” (Boden and Williams 2002: 507). While objects of desire change rapidly in capitalist culture, football fandom is tenacious, withstanding the vicissitudes of time (Ben Porat 2013) and space. This tenacity is no matter of course, given the dominant consumerist culture in which dedication and loyalties largely give way to changeable, utilitarian orientations and the flexibility of identities and relationships in key aspects of life (Firat et al. 1995; Bauman 2000). The emotions stirred by fandom are immune to many occurrences, including team losses and disappointments and hold firmly in the face of temptation to support other, better, more successful teams. Fandom itself is a consumerist act, as it is based on a choice and preference of one club over another. The accelerated consumerization of football over recent decades (Giulianotti 2002) frequently establishes a consumerist affinity between fans and their club. Most successful football clubs across the globe no longer belong to community organizations as they once did, but rather, they are owned by commercial corporations with a business orientation shaped by capitalist principles (Conn 1998; Crawford 2004).4 Against this background, it is clear why much of the research on football fandom has focused on the domain of consumer marketing and, among other aspects, has examined the characteristics of fans using metrics and concepts derived from consumer marketing (Ben Porat 2013).5 Emotions are often examined in a mechanical-instrumental manner (for example, using questionnaires), in isolation from the context in which they arise, are expressed and transformed. This research method is divorced from the space and time of the event and, most importantly, from the lived experience transpiring in fans’ bodily practices. Focused as it is on quantitative data, such research is limited when it comes to 4The anthology’s preface introduces Katamon, a fan-owned club in Jerusalem. See also the example of Saint Pauli FC, Hamburg, part “Claiming a Foothold in Spaces Beyond the Stadium”, this anthology. 5 Quantitative analysis has, for the most part, referred primarily to fans’ benefits and satisfaction (Pimentel and Reynolds 2004), the willingness to purchase a subscription for matches (Tapp 2004), and cognitive and other motives (Madrigal 1995, 2003).

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interpreting the totality, fluctuations and multi-dimensionality of the emotional toolkit that is unique to fandom. In many clubs, fans challenge and even reject the rules of the consumerist-capitalist game, as for them, their fandom is not yet another item of merchandise offered in the all-powerful global supermarket of commodification, but is founded on emotional practices expressing their loyalty to their club. They find irrelevant the foundation principles of mass consumption—constant choice, selective search or rationalization (Illouz 2008). Attentive to the connection between body and emotions, Williams (2001) recognized the importance of this intercourse to sociological understanding and called for a holistic approach emphasizing passion. His view of the embedding of emotions in the body “as a way of being in the world” expanded and further developed Denzin’s (1984),6 idea that emotional practices, like other bodily practices, include repeated activities which need to be “learned and taught, coached and practiced, defined, felt, internalized, expressed and externalized” (Denzin 1984: 89). Studies of football fandom have hardly undertaken a sociological analysis of emotions and of the ways in which emotional practices are articulated by bodily practices.7 At the same time, research on the sociology of emotion has not addressed football fandom. Aiming to fill this gap, the present chapter reveals the modes of expression, dynamics and diversity of emotions that fandom entails as well as their significance for fans and for their fandom’s durability.

Fandom’s Emotional Dynamics Fans’ experiences in connection with a match and the ways they express themselves physically and emotionally in the fandom field8 unfold along a timeline that sometimes begins with the intense emotions of the preceding days, continues into the behaviours throughout the match and 6 See

also Frank (1990); Freund (1988, 1990); Scheer (2012). Holbrook, however, whose quantitative research analysed emotional responses during game activity (Holbrook et al. 1984). 8 See definition and discussion of fandom field in chapter “An Analytical Framework for Investigating Fandom”, this anthology. 7 See,

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culminates with the emotions during its aftermath, which depend on whether the match was won or lost. At times the pain or euphoria is longlasting. During the 90-plus minutes of the match, there are numerous dramatic, critical moments that are of great research significance due to their encapsulation of the emotional repertoire of fandom. To illustrate the broad range, fluctuations and intensity of emotions, this chapter’s analysis focuses primarily on emotionally charged games, that is, on municipal derbies and on matches whose outcome bears critical significance for a team and the club. Derby matches are particularly pertinent due to the high emotional intensity they generate. Tension preceding the match is augmented by the commonly held concept that a derby follows its own rules, seemingly disconnected from the objective capabilities of the teams and their rankings in the league. By this logic, any outcome is possible, which fuels uncertainty and torments fans. The discussion focuses on a derby in the city of Tel Aviv between Maccabi Tel Aviv FC (known as Maccabi) and Hapoel Tel Aviv FC (known as Hapoel), historically a highly charged match of sportive, historical and ideological significance.9 In his interview, 27-year-old student and Hapoel fan, Michael, related that the turbulence preceding the derby begins several days before the event, affecting many fans’ daily agendas, behaviours, spirits and bodily sensations. Asked by the interviewer to elaborate on the nature of this feeling, he reported that he always feels bad before a derby: I would rather … [the game] didn’t happen … You have no energy for it, you dread it, something about that moment you ascend the stadium steps and see predominantly yellow[…] the yellow [displayed by] Maccabi fans. Yes, that is a horrific moment. I so hate them. It’s not only about football. It’s much more than that. It’s [a] kind of existential [emotional state].

9The historical source of the rivalry between the two clubs lies in their clashing political affiliations, which began before the establishment of Israel (Kaufman 2007) and carry forward to this day. For details on distinctions between the two fan communities, see the two chapters by Regev and Sorek, part “Claiming a Foothold in Spaces Beyond the Stadium”, this anthology.

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The encounter with the urban rival, Maccabi, so drains Michael of energy that he would rather the game did not happen. His unpleasant feeling includes anticipatory fear of encountering the rival team, and even more, its fans in yellow populating the stadium. For him, the moment at which he emerges from the dark staircase into the brilliant stadium, a moment often described as thrilling, is a moment of physical dread. Michael, a gracious, calm young man, assumes a different persona when speaking passionately of his intense hatred of the rival club, its ideology and fans. As far as he is concerned, the rivalry transcends the realm of sport and has become an integral part of his identity. The sensations of hatred, his fear of losing and his dread of the encounter increase and assume somatic form as the derby approaches. Yossi, another veteran Hapoel fan, used similar language in describing the week preceding the derby, telling the interviewer how the tension pulverizes him and how, as game time approaches, he feels weakness “coursing through his entire body” “as if he were depleted”. Like Michael, Yossi, declared his abysmal, almost innate hatred of Maccabi: “I bear such a seething hatred … for a thousand and one reasons. Do I know why? Because they are my rivals, because I have hated them since I was young. I hate what they represent, their arrogance and their capitalism, everything about them”. Yossi differentiates himself (and his team) from the yellow club and its fans in almost every regard—political, ideological, cultural and personal. This distinction amalgamates painful memories from previous encounters, cultural, social and historical chasms and opposing world views. Feelings of love for one’s team and hatred of the rival are often embedded in fans’ bodies from a very young age.10 Itamar, a Hapoel fan who was only seven years old when interviewed, illustrated the early habituation of emotional practices when (during the interview) he enthusiastically shouted a slogan that is popular in the stands which 10 For

a discussion on the embodiment of fandom terms of habitus, see Friedman and Rapoport, part “The Genesis of Doing Fandom”; Rapoport and Regev, part “The Gendering of Fandom”, this anthology.

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proclaims the divide between the two camps of fans: “I love Hapoel. I don’t jump for yellow [Maccabi]”. Similarly, toddler fans in Maccabi wave their yellow scarves and, with their high-pitched voices, join the chorus chanting in the stands: “I hate Hapoel”. At times they also mimic the adults and dare to give the finger to the rival group and its players.11 Bodily practices conveying hatred performed by fans of both teams demonstrate, among other things, commitment to the values and ideology of their reference group. One’s private emotions are interwined in the collective’s in these practices, for they are not a matter of personal hatred directed at individual fans12 but of hatred of a faceless mass, drawing its power from historic-collective roots, as characterized by Sarah Ahmed: “We hate together, and it is hatred that unites us” (Ahmed 2004: 26; see also Yanay 2002). Love for one’s team and burning hatred of the rival intermix at a derby, jointly intensifying the fear of loss, frustration, shaming and humiliation. Yossi suggested a rational explanation: “One must know how to accept a loss, cope with it and derive lessons”, but he chuckles when asked if these notions apply to a derby as well: No way! No way! [At a derby] everything collapses. All prehistoric characteristics of men on losing a battle come into play here. Yes, it is pain, pain, pain. It’s an enormous pain. Enormous pain. You feel that you don’t want anything. A kind of emptiness [prevails], empty space, as if, as if you are suspended in a kind of hole.

In conveying the emotional abyss that follows a loss, Yossi equates fans’ suffering their team’s loss with how men have always experienced the loss of a battle in war. The failure to triumph in battle can be interpreted as unfulfilled masculinity and can thus be accompanied by feelings of humiliation and surrender (see Sorek, part “Claiming a Foothold in Spaces Beyond the Stadium”). When describing their intense emotional feelings, interviewees often used somatic imagery. Neta, a Hapoel woman fan, reported that she 11 See chapter “An Analytical Framework for Investigating Fandom”, this anthology, for a discussion of learning fandom (as habitus) via the body. 12 Some of the interviewees have close friends who are fans of the rival team.

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“loses her appetite and suffers diarrhea” the week preceding a game. Danny, a Maccabi fan, said that for several days before a match his stomach contracts in pain so that he cannot eat and is prone to vomit. Mati, another Maccabi fan, reported that new white hairs suddenly sprouted right before a derby which his team lost. Powerful bodily expressions such as these demonstrate the somatic nature (Csordas 1999) of the fandom experience.13

In the Course of a Match At every football match, there are several charged emotional events that trigger rapid emotional fluctuations, mostly associated with critical goals that are scored or missed, especially during the last moments of the match. Scoring a goal, write Eylon and Horowitz, involves an especially large measure of luck and chance. Often only a hairline differentiates a kick that penetrates the net from one that is blocked at the goal post (Eylon and Horowitz 2010). Chance, uncertainty and the relative rarity of scoring goals during a match underlie fans’ strong emotional reactions. The brief interval of a minute or two elapsing between the start of a critical situation on the pitch—when all fans spring to their feet— through the kick towards the goal and culminating in a goal scored or missed is seemingly eternal. This interval—in combination with the preceding and following moments—encompasses a broad range of varied emotions and distinctive bodily practices which express them. The three still photographs—taken from the 2012 documentary film featuring Sivan,14 a Hapoel fan—clearly illustrate fans’ state of emotional arousal as a perilous situation unfolds near their team’s goal. The camera 13 See

discussion of practice, chapter “An Analytical Framework for Investigating Fandom”, this anthology. 14These stills from the documentary film, “Sivan”, were graciously furnished by the film director Zohar Elefant, Owner and Creative Director of Elefant Studios. See film description at https:// www.fullframefest.org/film/sivan/ and a video clip at https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L4079065,00.html (last accessed 1 Feb 2020).

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lens captured the fear, panic, tension and despair that Sivan underwent during one such moment of a derby match (Fig. 1). Another practice observed on the part of Hapoel Tel Aviv fans for countering dangerous situations resembles a magical demon-expelling ritual: They wave their palms forward in unison while moving and shaking their fingers. The camera captured the moment that Sivan did this (Fig. 2): With full intention, she thrusts her left palm forward, her gaze alert and her face transmitting anxiety. The praying, finger-shaking and mysterious, meaningless incantation, “Amma-amma”, like any other magic ritual, reflect and somewhat release fans’ frustration, fear and helplessness. Fans try to encourage and energize the players—praying, cursing, waving their hands or closing their eyes—but it is someone else who scores (or misses) the goal. When prayers disappoint and the ball nonetheless finds its way into the goal, the emotional response is a plunge into an abyss—bitter disappointment. The physical expression of this reaction is almost universal (see Fig. 3)—an attempt to shield one’s self from the sight, and perhaps thereby obliterate the incident.

Fig. 1 Hapoel fan, Sivan, Moment 1

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Fig. 2 Hapoel fan, Sivan, Moment 2

Fig. 3 Hapoel fan, Sivan, Moment 3 (Source Three stills from the documentary film, “Sivan”, courtesy of the film director Zohar Elefant, Owner and Creative Director of Elefant Studios)

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From Despair to Happiness and Back Particularly dramatic goals—turning points in a match—prompt extreme emotional responses. Goals scored during the final moments of a match, especially those determining the match outcome, fall into this category, as was the case in a derby held at Hapoel Tel Aviv’s stadium (May 2014). The match had taken multiple twists and turns, with Hapoel’s opponent, Maccabi, leading 1:0 at the beginning. Subsequently Hapoel gained a 2:1 advantage but a mere four minutes before the end of the game, a penalty in its favour enabled Maccabi to even the score to 2:2. Tension in the stadium crescendoed. Ten seconds before the fatal game was to end, a Maccabi player scored the team’s third goal and the referee’s whistle signalled game end. Maccabi won 3:2 leaving Hapoel fans stunned. Michael described his experience: The third goal devastated, broke me. I looked to the side, left sort of, and I saw it was Zehavi [a player formerly on his team who had switched to the rival team] and that the clock indeed showed 10 remaining seconds. When I saw him there, I looked left and saw that it was going into the goal, I immediately averted my eyes to the right so as not to see the awful sight of it. I looked to the right and actually collapsed onto one of the seats. I didn’t want to be there. I tried to detach myself, but I heard the Maccabi fans barking … I collapsed onto a friend of mine, I actually collapsed. It was awful … I crouched there, I couldn’t see them, I didn’t want to hear them; it haunted me. I didn’t look. So I simply … [covered my eyes] but I couldn’t help hearing [the derisive comments of the rival fans] and that tormented me.

Attempting to avoid the impossible to bear emotional experiences, Michael tried to disappear physically, to conceal his body and detach himself from the events. He would have opted to lose his vision and hearing for those moments if only he could. His choice of words and metaphors reveals the depth of his pain: “devastated”, “collapsed” and “haunted”. These verbalizations of his feelings are so integral to his experience that they, too, comprise an emotional practice. When asked in the

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interview about a similar occasion, Michael said he could not imagine another situation in his life in which he felt and expressed such extreme emotions. During the ninety-four minutes of the derby match I observed, Hapoel fans manifested almost the full repertoire of emotions as they echoed the vagaries of the match, the lead flipping between the teams. To explain his frustration, Michael invoked the concept of the roller coaster of emotions: “Sometimes you’re down and sometimes you’re up … That’s the worst [part…]. Michael regrets his premature joy over imminent victory and mourned the surprising but short-lived advantage of his team, which only deepened the pain that followed. That dramatic, lastminute shift gravely magnified the disappointment. Events like that on the pitch and the reactions of Hapoel fans epitomize clearly the essence of the roller coaster of fandom: At times the emotional ride is calm, but at other moments the roller coaster is suddenly thrust upward and then just as abruptly catapulted downward, plunging fans into an abyss of disappointment and despair. Paradoxically, feelings of bitter disappointment sometimes nurture love for and loyalty to a team, augment hatred of the rival team and help preserve hope for victory, revenge or closure at the next encounter. The nourishing power of disappointment is reflected in the words of interviewees who regard it as an essential part of their fandom. By contrast with the worlds of consumerism, disappointment in football fandom is often a sustaining force alongside the joy of success, nourishing fandom for the long run. Thus, according to Mati of Hapoel, “These magical moments of success make everything else worthwhile, all ten of the difficult years that elapse between [losses and victory at a derby] …. Those are moments of happiness!” Research on consumerism has considered the vital role played by disappointment in helping one cope with the false promises and illusions of consumer culture, contributors to a kind of false, undeveloped self that avoids disappointment (Boden and Williams 2002; Craib 2002). Among football fans, remobilization of passion and hope is rapid and cyclical, since they know that any outcome could unfold during the very next week, when the roller coaster might propel their emotions upward in victory.

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Such an upward thrust was palpable at a match between Hapoel and Beitar Jerusalem at the finals of the 2009–2010 season, when, during the 92nd minute, within the added interval, a Hapoel player kicked the ball towards the Beitar goal in what could determine the outcome of the championship. The few seconds that elapsed until the goal was certain lasted an eternity charged with a broad range of emotions—shock, disbelief, tension, worry about disqualification and fear of premature joy that would precede another fall. All of these emotions were manifested during the stunned silence in the stands, where you could see fans openmouthed, clasping their heads, or shutting their eyes. Sheer euphoria erupted with the whistle. Michael, who had watched the game alone at home, relived the sublime feeling: “It was the very best possible. You don’t believe this is happening to you. I fell to the floor in disbelief … I was in a catatonic state … I started trembling. And then the moment the referee whistled game-end, I shrieked out the window facing the street. ….” Other interviewees offered similar descriptions. Doron said he felt tremors through his body. “There were tears as well, freely [flowing], the feeling that I don’t know where to put myself ”. Eyal reported an “insane emotional experience. I went completely wild! Really, from within”. Yossi, who attended the game, called his mother, who was watching at home. Using his phone’s speaker, they listened together to what was happening at the match and they cried together.15 For Michael and other fans, the sweet final moment embodied much more than winning the championship: It signified the triumphant rejoinder to the rival’s racism, arrogance and incessant slander of their team. The last-minute goal also vanquished the loser curse which they believed had befallen their team and its fans. This time the roller coaster had an unexpected change of course: “And now it’s us! In the last minute! Unbelievable for us!” (Michael). The emotional uproar following the game-end whistle manifested fans’ collective intense emotions, as expressed in the enthusiastic embraces in the galleries, where norms hindering the expression of intimacy among males in the public sphere 15 Crying is culturally regarded as a traditionally feminine practice signifying weakness and the absence of control (Pantti 2005), yet in the permission zone of the football arena (see part “The Genesis of Doing Fandom”, this anthology), the shedding of tears is legitimate (Lutz and White 1996, for example).

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are temporarily suspended (see Sherrod 1987). Though the football stadium is considered a shrine of heterosexual masculinity, Danny readily explained these hugs: You ask how it is that I can find myself in the arms of someone sitting next to or behind me – someone about whom I know practically nothing. You know that when we are happy, we hug. He is part of your close community. He is even family to some extent. I know with certainty what he is experiencing at each moment of the game because I am experiencing the very same thing.

Sitting together in the stands, undergoing the same experience and feeling the same emotions turn fellow fans into intimate partners for 90 minutes at least, into quasi family members for whom a hug is not only legitimate but expected. Such moments of communal uplifting of spirits are, according to Emile Durkheim (1912 [2001]), times of collective emotional effervescence, charging each participant with emotional energy and uniting everyone. The football pitch witnesses expressions of solidarity and belonging (see Cottingham 2012) that assume a homoerotic character, with players removing their shirts, hugging and kissing upon scoring a goal or lying on top of one another in a grownup version of a pileup of children. The players’ bodily practices on the pitch are mirrored in the stadium in what Clifford Geertz termed kinesthetic empathy (in his documentation of spectator behaviour at Balinese cockfights 1973). Israel, a 47-year-old fan of Hapoel, conveyed how he experiences these embraces among fans: Everyone hugs when there’s a goal. It’s a very heart-warming moment when you hug strangers. There is hardly any such experience in our alienated world where you find yourself hugging a perfect stranger without any pretense and you feel that the hug is natural, not forced, not fake, not meant to please or ingratiate one’s self with the other.

Israel is alluding to the shedding of masks (Goffman 1959) in the fandom field, revealing one’s true face. Unlike other arenas where

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emotional expression is calculated, in the case of fandom, there is no calculated emotional conduct; nor is there deep acting, as practised by airline hosts (Hochschild 1979) or by couples on their first romantic date (Illouz 2008). The spontaneous, unmediated embrace of fans in the stands is a bodily emotional, physical and inter-personal practice free of self-interest and cynicism. It appears that fans provide an affirmative response to Boden and Williams’ question (2002), above, which rises loudly, physically and unequivocally from football stadiums worldwide.

Injury Time: Emotions in the Wake of a Match Once a match has ended, its impressions remain alive and fresh sometimes for several days longer, at times for weeks or even years. The intense diverse impressions are embodied, manifested in fans’ mood, emotional behaviour and everyday functioning. Some fans prefer solitude after a game while others prefer company to share the joy of victory or the sadness of defeat. Neta gets into bed after her team loses and “goes into her shell”, as she says, avoiding the papers and media so as not to encounter images of the difficult moments inadvertently. After victory, by contrast, adrenalin keeps her from falling asleep. She watches recordings of the game through the night while her appetite soars uncontrollably: “I can devour everything in the refrigerator”, she said smiling. Nathaniel, a devoted Katamon fan, describes how, after a dramatic game in which his team missed a league promotion, he and his friends huddled together in a house with huge amounts of food, alcohol and other mood-altering aids, none of which helped: “The alcohol had no effect, the food was tasteless. Nothing. The hurt was so strong that we couldn’t recover; it took a very long time”. The connection between a game’s outcome and a fan’s appetite reiterates the strong bodily nature of fandom. Studies of appetite link feelings of tension, sorrow or anxiety to appetite suppression, loss of pleasure in eating (Macht 2008) and, more generally, to one’s overall sense of energy. Erez, a Hapoel Petach Tikva fan, attests to decreased energy after a loss versus an adrenalin rush in a state of euphoria. “It is indeed at the level of adrenalin. There is

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something about returning from a game on a Saturday night after a loss and feeling you have no energy”. By contrast, after an important victory, the bodily reaction is the opposite: You feel adrenalin and a kind of euphoria which linger for several days. After this derby, it lasted several days. I still felt it in my blood. In other words, I felt that I’d grown a bit taller, and I arose smiling in the morning. You have no idea where such energies come from.

Some fans reflect on the emotional dynamics of fandom and, like Michael, attempt to explain them using the roller coaster metaphor: The emotional ride occurs in the amusement park of being a fan, Michael says. “There is a roller coaster in this amusement park which sometimes lands you in a cemetery and sometimes lifts you ever higher, and that’s for life”. In the course of the interview, Michael employed a rich collection of metaphors to describe the unstable emotional course of a fan’s life. Like other fans, he is unwilling to skip over any segment of the path, however, and weathers the ups and downs. Fans might worry if their team perpetually won, as such a state of affairs would freeze half the emotional range and deplete fandom of content and of its built-in unpredictability and emotional tension. A fan’s emotional toolkit includes contradictory, conflicting emotions that mutually create and nurture each other. Suffering is a condition for pleasure, tension enhances satisfaction, while the sorrow of loss heightens the joy of victory. Every fan without exception desires the opportunity and ability to experience fandom in full. Nathaniel, a Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem fan, hit the nail on the head, with his rhetorical question, What does a football fan want? A team to be involved with day in, day out, Yay, we won. Oh, no, we lost. This is the pleasure of the inevitability of winning and losing. … Sometimes you’re good and sometimes not so good. Sometimes you’re crushed and sometimes you’re in the heavens. That’s the beauty of it.

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The Stadium as an Emotional Playground What is it about football that enables it to arouse rich, stormy, fluctuating and stirring emotional dynamics recurrently, over many years, for short and long time periods? The answer lies primarily in the nature of the game’s socio-spatial context.

Extra Terra: Outside of Place, Outside of Time The emotional manifestations of doing fandom16 take place primarily within the bounds of the stadium, in a bubble, or enclave, temporarily isolated both symbolically and physically in space and time from other arenas in the outside world. The stadium’s architecture is based on the principle of severing contact with the outside (if only for a short span of time), which encourages multiple intensive systems of social relationships to exist among fans. The socio-spatial order of the stadium—flooded as it is with light, sounds, symbols, banners and rituals—creates an emotional environment in which an engulfing emotional bonding can take place (Anderson 2009). In this time and space capsule (Fischer-Lichte 2010), players and fans mutually create communication, a reciprocal emotional and bodily affinity which they maintain almost throughout the game: Fans are attuned to the motions, sounds and gestures of the players and respond with spontaneous gestures of their own, while players are frequently attuned especially to fans’ vocal expressions. It is not uncommon for the two groups to enact emotional dialogues. A player missing a goal grasps his head as if in disbelief, sparking precise duplication of his behaviour by fans in the stadium; after a goal is scored or a game is won, the players run enthusiastically towards their fans, who wave their arms with the same level of excitement. This players– fans bodily dialogue provides fans a way to participate in the game mentally, bodily and emotionally, as if they were players in the actual match (Stromberg 2013). 16 See

the definition and discussion of doing fandom in chapter “An Analytical Framework for Investigating Fandom”, this anthology.

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An Emotional Permission Zone Observations of fans’ behaviour during matches and analysis of their accounts revealed that a wide range of fluctuating emotions transpires during a game, including vulnerability and intimate manifestations of affection and closeness alongside casual aggressive behaviour. There is permission as well to cry, shout, sing, jump and embrace others in the fandom field, all with an almost childlike intensity of emotions—pleasure or frustration; sadness or happiness. Football culture is one of the last bastions of masculine hegemony (Connell 2005); yet alongside expressions of masculinity, male fans are free of the demand to suppress their emotions, refrain from being carried away by them or behave rationally—behaviours that define authentic masculinity in many cultures and that are performed by men in many situations outside the fandom field. Fans can take pleasure in an intimacy which at times borders on the homoerotic and engage in emotional manifestations of weakness free of the consequent males might incur outside the stadium. There in the stadium, however, surrounded by other fans of all ages, fans are accountable neither to nonfans nor to anyone else, unless their behaviour is legally defined to be forbidden. Essentially, there is almost no price to be paid for doing fandom, as fandom levies very little cost outside the stadium in real life—in the family, the workplace or politics—certainly not in the conventional senses of losing or gaining personal or professional status. Thus, the intriguing discrepancy between fans’ deep involvement in the game versus the game’s lack of almost any meaningful consequences outside the stadium lies at the root of the socio-cultural, emotional and physical tolerance prevailing in the stadium.

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& H. Charif (Eds.), Tarbut ha-guf veha-sport be-Yisra’el ba-me’ah ha-’esrim¨. Jerusalem: Yad Itzhak Ben Zvi (Hebrew). Lutz, C., & White, G. M. (1996). Engendered Emotion: Gender, Power, and the Rhetoric of Emotional Control. In The Emotions: Social, Cultural and Biological Dimensions (p. 151). London: Sage. Macht, M. (2008). How Emotions Affect Eating: A Five-Way Model. Appetite, 50 (1), 1–11. Madrigal, R. (1995). Cognitive and Affective Determinates of Fan Satisfaction with Sporting Events Attendance. Journal of Leisure Research, 27 (3), 205. Madrigal, R. (2003). Investigating an Evolving Leisure Experience: Antecedents and Consequences of Spectator Affect Suring a Live Sporting Event. Journal of Leisure Research, 35 (1), 23–45. Pantti, M. (2005). Masculine Tears, Feminine Tears and Crocodile Tears Mourning Olof Palme and Anna Lindh in Finnish newspapers. Journalism, 6 (3), 357–377. Pimentel, R. W., & Reynolds, K. (2004). A Model for Consumer Devotion: Affective Commitment with Proactive Sustaining Behaviours. Academy of Marketing Science Review, 5, 17–39. Russell, G. W. (2004). Sport Riots: A Social-Psychological Review. Aggression and Violent Behaviour, 9 (4), 353–378. Scheer, M. (2012). Are Emotions a Kind of Practice (and Is That What Makes Them Have a History)? A Bourdieuian Approach to Understanding Emotion. History and Theory, 51(2), 193–220. Sherrod, D. (1987). The Bonds of Men: Problems and Possibilities in Close Male Relationships (pp. 213–239). The Making of Masculinities: The New Men’s Studies. Stromberg, P. (2013). The Generation and Channeling of Emotional Arousal in Sports Spectating. Presented at the 2013 (November) Meetings of the American Anthropological Association. Tapp, A. (2004). The Loyalty of Football Fans—We’ll Support You Evermore? Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management, 11(3), 203– 216. Williams, J. S. (2001). Emotions and Social Theory. London: Sage. Yanay, N. (2002). Understanding Collective Hatred. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 2(1), 53–60.

Contesting Love Through Commodification: Soccer Fans, Affect, and Social Class in Turkey ˘ Yagmur Nuhrat

On March 19, 2011, I attended a soccer game at ˙Inö nü Stadium in Istanbul.1 That day, as on other soccer-related occasions in Turkey, I was struck by the manifestations of affect in the stadium (see Fig. 1). For example, a banner unfurled across the eastern stands declared loyalty to Be¸sikta¸s, one of the teams playing that day: “We didn’t find Be¸sikta¸s on sunny days to abandon it when darkness falls” (Be¸sikta¸s’ı gü ne¸sli gü nlerde This chapter is reproduced by permission of the American Anthropological Association from American Ethnologist, Volume 45, Issue 3, pp. 392–404, 2018. Online: https://doi. org/10.1111/amet.12673. Not for sale or further reproduction. 1 Be¸sikta¸s is one of the three most popular soccer teams in Turkey, alongside Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe—all based in Istanbul and referred to as the Big Three. While Be¸sikta¸s still plays home games at the same venue, the stadium was demolished for rebuilding in 2013, and when it reopened in 2016, it was renamed Vodafone Arena (later Vodafone Park) after the transnational phone company.

Y. Nuhrat (B) Istanbul Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 T. Rapoport (ed.), Doing Fandom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46870-5_4

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Fig. 1 Two fans wearing customized jerseys at a soccer game in Istanbul. Notes The red one reads “Our love is true and deep.” The white one reads “Yo! I am in love with you.” Above the inscriptions is the logo of the team’s corporate sponsor, Ülker, a food manufacturer (September 27, 2015)

bulmadık ki karanlık çö nce terk edelim). It stood below another banner, signed by a corporate sponsor, Türk Telekom, that hung above the entire eastern section of the stadium. In huge block letters, it read “The recipe for love has remained the same for 108 years” (A¸skın tarifi 108 yıldır aynı), alluding to the club’s “birthday” celebration taking place that day.2 Glancing over to the northern stands, I could see that some fans had handwritten the Türk Telekom slogan on their own banner. They stood next to a permanent stadium banner that read “Love for Be¸sikta¸s” (Be¸sikta¸s a¸skı), a phrase that is sometimes changed to “Be¸sikta¸sk,” a blend of the name Be¸sikta¸s and a word for “love” (a¸sk). As these banners suggest, soccer is a locus of intense love for fans; for clubs, sponsors, 2 Be¸sikta¸s has self-assigned the date March 19 as its “birthday” because the numerical notation of this date (19.03) spells out the club’s foundation year (1903).

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and the soccer federation, the sport is a prized commodity and a source of profit. In Turkey, soccer’s intensifying commodification is reflected in a new term for the sport in its hypercommercial form: endüstriyel futbol (industrial football). This trend has clashed with the affect that many fans attach to the sport, an affect that comprises both maddening and self-sacrificing love (as connoted by the Turkish words a¸sk and sevda, respectively). Because fan love is a vibrant force that travels, it is apt to study it not as an emotion but through the concept of affect. Affect engages the “social, relational, communicative, and cultural aspects” (Lutz and White 1986: 405) of emotion, but its modality is different. Affect is not the attribute of a person or group; it reaches beyond the self (Navaro-Yashin 2012). It is the field of force and the space where subjects and objects are touched (affected) by an emotional intensity. Affect is intersubjective, and it shapes subjectivities. These qualities of affect are evident in how fan love is transmitted and reinforced when fans gather in and around stadiums before games, singing, chanting, drinking, and walking together. Such love imbues fan spaces. As Eduardo Galeano (1999: 19) has written, “There is nothing less empty than an empty stadium.” Fan spaces, as an affective medium, exude fan love and continually re-create fan subjectivities, or fans as fans. Affect can be mobilized by authorities to forge specific subjectivities that facilitate political and economic transformation (Richard and Rudnyckyj 2009). In the case of soccer, sports authorities and the media produce knowledge about fans’ emotional attachment so as to construct and present fan group identities (Duquin 2000; Giulianotti 1995). Soccer in Turkey exemplifies how the sport’s affecting and affected medium can be deployed to assist commodification. Endüstriyel futbol , which is the result and the process of an economic, social, and political transformation, requires that fans be subjectified in a specific way—as consumers. The agents of endüstriyel futbol , after installing themselves in soccer’s affective medium, resignify fan love and attempt to restructure fan subjectivity. Soccer’s commodification has followed similar patterns around the world (Besnier et al. 2018; Kennedy and Kennedy 2013). These patterns include exorbitant player salaries, the proliferation of merchandising, the

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reorganization of stadiums as centers of consumption, and the transformation of soccer clubs into publicly traded corporations. Especially since the 1990s, soccer in Turkey has experienced all these transformations (McManus 2013). Private television networks competing for broadcasting rights and sponsorship deals accelerated the process into the 2000s (Emrence 2010; Irak 2010). In 2011, soccer in Turkey underwent substantial legal reorganization under the Law to Prevent Violence and Disorder in Sport, also known as the Violence Law.3 The law concerns sports in general, but its main focus is soccer. This legal reorganization goes hand in hand with soccer’s commodification by codifying consumption-based prescriptions about fandom and game attendance. These changes have substantially informed how soccer actors relate to the sport. The case of soccer’s commodification in Turkey shows that, contrary to the cliché, sport does not (only) mirror society but forms social processes and identities (Besnier and Brownell 2012; DaMatta 2009). For example, the sport’s commodification has an impact on fans’ relationships to the club they support, their understanding of loyalty to the club, and their attachment to the “club’s core spaces” (Giulianotti 2002: 33). More specifically, endüstriyel futbol dictates which experiences count as fan love, and it aligns fan love with consumption and the club’s financial interests. In Turkey, some fans (mainly from the upper-middle and middle classes) embrace endüstriyel futbol ’s maneuvers, while others (mainly from the working classes) resist it, insisting on their own understanding of what loving the team means. Soccer is thus a site through which people negotiate the meaning of love along with the concrete actions that compose love or result from it. Negotiation over the meaning of love in soccer also illuminates how endüstriyel futbol ’s proponents and opponents connect love to violence in different ways and how this difference delineates class differentiation. Those who resist endüstriyel futbol refer to their understanding of loving the team to explain and justify physical confrontations that are punishable under the Violence Law. In contrast, the proponents of endüstriyel 3 Resmî

Gazete, law no. 6222, Sporda ¸siddet ve dü zensizli˘gin önlenmesine dair kanun [Law to prevent violence and disorder in sport], April 14, 2011, http://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/ 2011/04/20110414-6.htm.

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futbol tend to support the Violence Law because they believe it can “clean up” and “civilize” soccer by prescribing “fair play” for fans. This insistence on “cleansing” and “civilizing” by way of “fair play” works to underline class distinction for the proponents, who want to distinguish themselves from resistant working-class fans.4 In Turkey, fans’ love of sports teams and their resistance to endüstriyel futbol are part of a larger process of battling an increasingly authoritarian state. In the 2010s, the country witnessed massive urban-transformation projects, the use of new demographic techniques to monitor the population, top-down impositions in education, and efforts to standardize gender relations, sexual reproduction, and family life (Erol et al. 2016). The state has also left its mark on soccer by establishing the Violence Law, sponsoring more than 30 new stadium projects around the country, and instrumentalizing these projects to promote Turkey’s candidacy for hosting international soccer tournaments (TMYS 2018). Fans’ resistance to endü stiyel futbol is thus an effort to curb the state’s everspreading influence into daily life and social dynamics. There have been concrete instances when such resistance was explicit, such as the Gezi Park uprising of summer 2013, when a peaceful sit-into protest the destruction of a public park in Istanbul quickly turned into a countrywide popular movement against government repression (Özkırımlı 2014; Yıldırım and Navaro-Yashin 2013). But there are also ongoing and less concrete manifestations of resistance that take shape through contestations over love, which highlight fans’ agency in an increasingly repressive political environment. My arguments here are based on fieldwork I conducted in 2010 and 2011, principally in Istanbul but also in other cities around Turkey, exploring dynamics of watching, playing, administrating, refereeing, and producing media about soccer. During this time, I attended 34 soccer games, traveled to away games outside Istanbul, and spent time in various locations where fans congregate. I interviewed fans, former soccer

4 Fan

subjectivity includes other components such as gender, urban/rural, or ethnic identity. I focus mainly on class since the love-based division I discuss crystallizes in the form of class conflict.

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players, coaches, referees, journalists, and federation and club administrators, and I collected online and print media discourse. Since 2011, I have conducted follow-up interviews with key interlocutors in Istanbul. During fieldwork, I spent time with multiple groups of “fanmates.”5 I joined them as they spent time pregaming, that is, singing, chanting, and drinking ahead of a game in a park, bar, or restaurant. I accompanied them to games and attended their postgame meetings, celebrating victories, or mourning losses. Although I did work with fans of other teams, my identity as a longtime Be¸sikta¸s fan allowed me to more easily tap into the scene in the neighborhood of Be¸sikta¸s, building longer-lasting relations with fellow fans. But the story I tell here is not a Be¸sikta¸s story; it is a story of how attachment to sports clubs in Turkey has developed through reciprocating emotions and loyalties rather than through market transactions. It is thus the story of endüstriyel futbol , of the particular version of love that it promotes, and of the fans who are disconcerted about the rapid marketization of fandom.

Soccer in Turkey’s Political Conjuncture The Republic of Turkey was built on a series of Eurocentric axioms, epitomizing Europe as the pinnacle of science and progress through Kemalist ideology (named after Mustafa Kemal, the republic’s founder). With this conviction, the ruling elite of the 1920s and 1930s instigated a series of changes in law, education, dress codes, and city planning, reconfiguring the country’s public sphere and aligning it with that of Europe, sometimes literally through changes in numerals, calendars, and measurements (Ahmad 1993; Bozdo˘gan and Kasaba 1997). This Europeanization was deemed necessary for “modernization,” which was construed as a national project to ultimately lead Turkey to “civilization” (Ahıska 2003). This project did not endorse competitive sports because the Kemalists thought competition would threaten national

5I

use the term fanmate to describe a group of fans who pregame and attend matches together, spending time together on matchless days, composing cheers, designing banners, discussing athletes, and so on.

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unity. Instead, the republic’s founding cadre promoted sports for the sake of physical development, positing sports clubs as institutions that would strengthen social cohesion. In the 2010s, Turkey’s state stance moved away from the ideals of Eurocentric modernization. This was exemplified by the government’s slowing its longtime efforts to join the European Union in favor of becoming a leading power in the Middle East (Akkoyunlu and Öktem 2016). Meanwhile, soccer remains an arena wherein the old discourse of modernization through Europeanization survives, especially in how the leaders of endüstriyel futbol promote the multifaceted process of soccer’s commodification and its legal reorganization. In April 2011, the parliament passed the Law to Prevent Violence and Disorder in Sports, which requires all spectators to buy a fan card (Passolig), which doubles as a credit or debit card and as a transportation pass that provides the bearer’s national ID number and photograph. The card stores data about spectators’ behavior along with demographic and address information, and these data are accessible by the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Finance. Although fans have held protests and initiated a court case against the Passolig, using it remains the only way that spectators can purchase tickets, which are available only electronically. The law also established strict measures to spatially reorganize soccer, including the requirement that clubs intensely surveil and police stadiums and that all spectators sit at their preassigned seat so that their location in the stadium can be matched with their identification on the Passolig. Stadiums around the country are increasingly being renovated to accommodate these prescriptions. Similar regulations to transform sports with the ostensible mission of eliminating violence have been established elsewhere for a long time (Guttmann 1986). Regulations pertaining to soccer have been widely criticized as infringing on rights and liberties through intense surveillance, criminalizing fandom at large (Joern 2009; Wurbs 2011), and encouraging the “embourgeoisement” of soccer, that is, effectively replacing working-class fans with more affluent people who can afford to buy access to these more “orderly” spaces (Armstrong and Young 1997: 187).

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Thanks to the Violence Law and devices like the Passolig, money relations now largely determine how soccer is regulated and navigated in Turkey. The law thus further commodified the sport and contributed to changing its class associations. This legal reorganization, as my contacts at the Turkish Football Federation put it, was also a move to “clean up” soccer. They, along with many sponsors and club officials (and some fans), support the law because, they say, without it soccer would become backward, violent, and uncivilized. This understanding reiterates Eurocentric discourse, which equates civilization with European modernity.6 Soccer’s contemporary development in Turkey—and especially the advent of the Violence Law—intertwines with larger political processes, and it is best situated in the country’s political conjuncture of the 2010s, when the government began involving itself in a vast array of social sites. This has been accompanied by increasing restrictions on the freedom of expression and of the press, leading to protests and clashes across the country, the most significant of which was the Gezi Park uprising of 2013. Soccer fans have been among the most active contingents in protests against government repression, and they constituted one of the key groups in the Gezi Park uprising, being targeted by the government on multiple occasions (Nuhrat and Akkoyunlu 2013). But even before Gezi, some fans had been engaged in a form of resistance. They resisted soccer’s commodified and legal reorganization, as well as the consumer-fan subjectivity proffered by endüstriyel futbol . They did so by emphasizing a specific form of fan love, that is, a¸sk and sevda.

Fan Subjectivity Through Love: A¸sk and Sevda During fieldwork, I spent time with a group of fans that included Ebru,7 a Be¸sikta¸s fan who was in her mid-50s when we met in 2010. She was 6There are alternative Eurocentric narratives that, for example, emphasize civil liberties, which find representation in Turkey (Bora 2017). In soccer discourse, however, and particularly in the government’s promotion of the Violence Law, Europe is equated with “order” and “civilization,” which Turkey must fall in line with. 7 All interlocutors’ names are pseudonyms.

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also affiliated with the leftist Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP) and was a contributor to the left-leaning daily Birgün. One of my meetings with the group took place in March 2011, on the day when Be¸sikta¸s was scheduled to play Trabzonspor, a team based in the city of Trabzon on the Black Sea. Ebru and I met in Be¸sikta¸s at a restaurant that proudly displayed photographs of the squad and of generations of fans who had frequented the place. I sat among the fanmates as their illegal indoor smoking sent clouds above our table, they emptied bottles of rakı (an anise-flavored hard liquor), and they used alcohol fumes for daring shows of lighting fire. There was much laughter and intermittent chanting as fans beat the rhythm on the tables. That day, Ebru told us a story to illustrate how devoted she and her husband were to the team. Back in 1980, when there was a military coup in Turkey, Ebru’s husband was arrested along with thousands of others on charges of leftist conspiracy against the state. I hadn’t seen him in days. Finally, they took me to where he was being held. I saw him behind the bars. There were bars in front of him and another set in front of me, with all this distance in between. I was pregnant. The first thing I said to him was “Metin scored” [referring to Metin Tekin, Be¸sikta¸s’s legendary striker]. I didn’t ask, “How are you? Have they beaten you? What have they done to you?” The first thing I said was “Metin scored.”

Ebru’s story had the intended impact and got nods and sighs all around. Hearing this story as an affirmation, Ebru’s fanmate ˙Ibrahim turned to me and said, “It’s beyond love [a¸sk], you see.” As he said this, I gathered that he was referring both to how the word a¸sk is insufficient to describe love for Be¸sikta¸s and to how Ebru’s love for the team exceeded her love for her husband. Ebru’s love for Be¸sikta¸s impressed and awed her fellow fans, but it was also obvious and predictable since everyone who claimed to be a true fan was expected to share this love. Indeed, I found that fans often deployed love discourse as a testimony to the genuineness of their fandom and as a point of comparison with other social attachments. Nonfans often interpret such talk as proof that fans have misaligned priorities, invoking a common discourse about fans in general (Duffet

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2013; Jenkins 1992). But soccer fandom is not a one-time achievement. Fans continually emerge as fans through practicing fandom and through stories like this because it is in the eyes of others that one maintains one’s status as a “true” or “good” fan. Fans refer to soccer as the “love of [their] lives” (Pope 2013: 184). Some identify as “lovers” (sevdalı or a¸sık) of soccer; for them, scores, fixtures, and recruitments determine the course of their everyday lives (Bora 2006: 17). This continuous upkeep of one’s identity is an intersubjective process that makes the self amid and through affect and by relating to other fans. Fans also reaffirm their affective bonds to their teams by comparing themselves to other fans (Magazine 2007: 60), whom they at times disparage as lacking “heartfelt love.” They do not want to be mistaken for fans who think, for example, that their husband’s political persecution is not an appropriate context for discussing a goal. Nor do they wish to be seen as those who demonstrate team love within the discourse encouraged by endüstriyel futbol . The love discourse of soccer fans in Turkey is informed by the fact that love has several Turkish translations. The verb sevmek and the related noun sevgi connote “loving” or “liking.” This is the term that one uses to describe one’s love for one’s parents, friends, colors, or food. The most common translation of “I love you” (Seni seviyorum) also uses this verb. The word sevda (borrowed from the Arabic sawda) is a melancholic kind of love involving longing, passion, and a sense of pain and exhaustion. For example, falling in sevda (sevdalanmak, sevdaya dü¸smek) connotes a sense of depth, an almost poetic attachment to be savored and contemplated. Sevda is sometimes referred to as “black love” (kara sevda), meaning unrequited love and the misery it engenders. The somewhat more common and less melancholic term to describe falling in love is a¸sk. This term indexes a pathological mental state wherein the person in love is considered unstable or crazy. A¸sk is the kind of “mad” love that Majnun (“madman” in Arabic) had for Layla in the classical love tale “Layla and Majnun” (Nizami 1997). In everyday usage, people refer to a¸sk as something that makes one dazed and confused, as encouraging spontaneous outbursts of passion, or as an uncontrollable

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blinding force.8 Even though a¸sk and sevda have different connotations, they are frequently used together. I separate them analytically here to distinguish between two related but distinct forms of fan love. Ebru’s story prompted her fanmates to meticulously describe the lengths they would go for the team or what they believed were the extreme physical manifestations of their love. Some talked about being (figuratively) paralyzed when Be¸sikta¸s scored and being able only to cry. Others talked about biting their nails so hard that their hands were covered in blood at the end of a game. They raved about changing wedding dates based on game schedules and about barging into rival towns or stadiums, participating in brawls even though they knew that they would get hurt. Hearing these stories, I finally asked the group, “How far would you go for Be¸sikta¸s?” Raising his rakı glass without skipping a beat, ˙Ibrahim told me, “You would even get a divorce. I did it, and here—this one did it too.” He pointed to another fan, Yasemin, who later explained to me that she divorced her husband partly because he was insensitive to her love for Be¸sikta¸s.9 When Ebru introduced me to Yasemin, she said, “This one too is sick [hasta] and unsalvageable [iflah olmaz ] like the rest of us.” While the word hasta literally means “sick,” it may also denote the condition of being afflicted with madness. When fans describe their a¸sk for the team by recounting examples about prioritizing the team above all, they know that this contradicts conventional wisdom. As expected or legitimate as these inclinations are, they are also embraced as a part of the supposedly ordinary craziness that comes with fandom. Walking toward the stadium after lunch that day, one of Ebru’s fanmates, Ziya, told me that being a Be¸sikta¸s fan meant one had a “defect” or a “screw loose in the head,”

8 A¸sk

and a¸sık may also refer to mysticism and Sufi love or to a specific kind of folk poetry, which I do not discuss here. 9 Women fans: As in many other places, women fans in Turkey have to work especially hard to prove their fandom because, even though more women have begun to frequent stadiums in the recent decades, soccer is still predominantly a men’s pastime, and fandom is considered a men’s attribute. But Yasemin is among fanmates here, so ˙Ibrahim classifies her as a “crazy” fan and does not question her fandom.

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and I would often hear these descriptions during fieldwork from Be¸sikta¸s fans and fans of other teams. According to Tanıl Bora (2006: 28), this love discourse shows that “team love [a¸sk] is charged with … the burdens of a¸sk,” that it is thus “reasonless” and “not very rational.” But this “burden” belongs not to a¸sk per se; it is, rather, associated with how a¸sk is conceptualized, that is, the “discourse” (Abu-Lughod and Lutz 1990: 1) of a¸sk. It is the discourse of a¸sk that casts it as irrational or maddening and posits it as a defect or a sickness. When fans conceptualize their love as a¸sk, they are employing a discourse of a¸sk¸, which helps them imagine themselves as crazy (see Fig. 2). Furthermore, they identify such crazy love as a defining factor of

Fig. 2 Soccer fans at Istanbul Atatürk Airport gather to welcome new recruits to the Be¸sikta¸s soccer team. Notes As they cheer, some of them light flares (lower right-hand corner). One interlocutor here told the author how “crazy” they were to wait outside the airport gates for hours. He later accounted for this “craziness” by noting how “in love” he was with the team (January 2, 2011)

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good fandom. Thus, their emergence as fans depends on their ability to convince themselves and other fans of their (crazy) love for the team. Fan love in the form of sevda manifests as self-sacrificial and imbued with suffering—themes that one also encounters in the musical genre of arabesk, which focuses on the motifs of death, loss, damnation, and hopelessness. Arabesk is the genre of the underclasses, flourishing in the squatter settlements that have housed rural-to-urban migrants since the 1950s. Films that feature popular arabesk singers tell stories of failed urban integration and depict a protagonist bound by his or her inevitable grim fate (Özbek 2003; Stokes 1993). This mirrors soccer fans’ sevda, which is the kind of love that pains—the pain caused by defeat manifests the pleasure of loving the team. Some soccer chants borrow directly from arabesk. For example, fans of the Galatasaray team sing the refrain “May those who do not love you die” (Seni sevmeyen ölsün), which is the title of a popular arabesk song from the late 1980s. Other fan songs demonstrate how arabesk themes figure in expressing fan love: You, the melancholy of my every night, the tears in my eyes, the smoke from my cigarette. Sen benim her gece efkârım, gözümdeki ya¸sım, sigara dumanım. You, the blood in my veins, my destiny, my glorious Be¸sikta¸s Sen benim damardaki kanım, alnımdaki yazım, ¸sanlı Be¸sikta¸s’ım. Right in the middle of my heart is a big fire, all in flames. Kalbimin en orta yerinde, büyük bir yangın var, alevler içinde Be¸sikta¸s, I swear to you, your love will never die, not even in my grave. Be¸sikta¸s, sana yemin olsun, bitmeyecek sevdan, mezarımda bile.

During a foggy night in a deserted street. Sisli bir gece yarısında, ıssız bir sokak ortasında. Under a broken street lamp, we wander into loving you. Kırık bir lambanın altında, dalmı¸sız sevdalara. If only you knew how my heart felt. Tears well up in my eyes. Neler geçti kalbimden bilsen. Ya¸slar damladı gözlerimden. I know that until I die, I will never stop singing about Fenerbahçe Anladım ki dilimden. ölene kadar, Fenerbahçe dü¸smeyecek dilimden

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Some fans refer to feeling sevda, including its component of willingly suffering for the sake of the team, to distinguish between “true fans” and “frauds.” In this differentiation, the “sufferers” (cefakâr ) are juxtaposed with “fair-weather fans” (iyi gün taraftarı) (Bora 2006: 169–170). The aim here is to distinguish oneself as a “true fan” as opposed to a “casual fan” whose claims to fandom can be questioned (Farred 2008: 7). Fans thus use “sufferer’s sevda” as they do “crazy love”—as a way to emerge and reemerge as fans, both for themselves and in the eyes of others. Fans have told me that being a fan is like “being in a relationship that you know is not good for you but that you nonetheless maintain.” It is something “you continue” despite knowing how much “it hurts”; this is similar to how Australian football fans describe their experience as “exquisite torture” (Klugman 2009: 66). Within arabesk sevda lies a notion of selflessness and self-sacrifice that fans refer to when accounting for things they do “for the sake of the team.”

Endüstriyel futbol’s Fan Subjectivity In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, fans have responded to the commodification of soccer by asserting that “supporting your team [is] an emotional thing,” not “cold-hearted business” (Giulianotti 2005: 397). But, as shown by the banners I described above, agents of endüstriyel futbol in Turkey also deploy the discourse of love, although their conception of love diverges from fans’ a¸sk and sevda. They are primarily interested in profit making through affect (cf. RodriguezPomeda et al. 2017; Storm 2009). In promoting soccer as a commodity, the financially powerful agents of endüstriyel futbol reframe fan love as a matter of consumption and shift it away from maddening or self-sacrificial love. I interviewed representatives from two major corporate sponsors of soccer clubs, Türk Telekom and Ülker (a food manufacturer), to try to

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understand how love figures in their business plan.10 Sponsors know that fans relate to Be¸sikta¸s their teams in terms of love, and they work to create a comparable bond between customers and brands. By inserting their brand into an already present love relationship, they seek to “turn fans into customers,” as a Türk Telekom representative put it. Sponsor representatives explain this goal by using one central metaphor, “touching the fans.” I was struck by this tactile metaphor because during fieldwork, many fans over the age of 30 told me that as teenagers they could “touch” their team, meaning that training grounds were near the city center and that players lived lives that were comparable to those of fans, since their salaries did not run in the millions. Fans would encounter players at local grocery stores, casually chat with them, and feel that their idols were accessible fellow human beings. Since the 2000s, however, the team had been out of reach. Indeed, by the 2010s the training grounds of major Istanbul clubs had been moved to the city’s outer suburbs, closed off to public viewing and protected by heightened security. It became customary for clubs to spend extravagant amounts to recruit world-famous players who live in gated communities and enjoy social lives that only a privileged minority can afford. In other words, the tactile metaphor of losing physical intimacy or “touch” describes the commodification of soccer in Turkey as a process that estranges people from their teams. Fans engage in a nostalgic discourse, yearning for a “golden era” when their beloved teams were more reachable. Meanwhile, one of the major agents of this change, sponsors, offer to grant some (not all) fans a way to “touch” their teams: a sweepstakes prize that would allow fans to meet players in person. The sponsors would thus appear to bridge the socioeconomic gap between players and fans—the gap that the sponsors themselves were instrumental in creating. At Ülker the head of the sponsorship department explained to me that its campaign to “directly touch the fan emotionally” was intended

10 Ülker,

a large food manufacturer, was sponsoring five major soccer teams and the national team in 2011. Türk Telekom, the leading brand of communication technologies, was sponsoring four of these teams and is the first brand in Turkey to be the name sponsor of a soccer stadium, Galatasaray’s Türk Telekom Stadium.

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to insert “the corporation into the a¸sk¸ that the fan feels.” The club’s prizes, he said, were something that “money can’t buy”: We try to insert our brand inside the passion and joy of the game day. We want to enter their homes with the shirts they purchase. They lose sleep because they will meet [a famous player], and when you can touch them, their lives change. When we see that our online campaigns receive thousands of participants, we know we’ve touched them in the right places.

For a fan, meeting a famous player can indeed be emotional, as I know from personal experience. When I was 10, I ran into Be¸sikta¸s player Fani Madida at a supermarket. My chance encounter led to years of egoboosting storytelling: I had seen and recognized Madida. He had spoken to me. We had shaken hands. Clearly, I was a huge fan. But this scenario differs from the Ülker representative’s “prize” of meeting a famous player. In that case, the sponsor needs the fans to situate their experience of meeting the player as part of the affective constellation of their fandom, but the meeting can be secured only in the context of consumption, that is, when the brand “inserts” itself into the “passion and joy of the game day.” “Touching” fans or “allowing fans to touch their teams” permits sponsors to rethink fans’ intimacy with their team, their attachments, and thus their subjectivity. The concepts of intimacy, privacy (Sehliko˘glu 2015), and cultural intimacy (Herzfeld 1997; Özyürek 2006; Stokes 2010) help us understand not just fan love but love more generally in Turkey. Intimacy “creates boundaries as well as bodies, selves and groups” (Sehliko˘glu and Zengin 2015: 20), encompassing a deep affective repertoire. Fan love illuminates negotiations about those very boundaries and selves that are at times observable through diverging discourses or experiences of fan-team intimacy. With the sponsors’ prize, power is at play to “touch” in a way that ensures the continuation of power’s reign, recalling Aslı Zengin’s (2016) conceptualization of “violent intimacy” and the entanglement of intimacy and power. Sponsors “touch” or “allow touch” as a way to penetrate soccer’s affective medium and rethink fan love and fan intimacy as profit generators.

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The Türk Telekom representative offered a similar narrative: the company’s goal was “to establish long-term bridges between the brand and the fan.” Türk Telekom, she said, took pride in being the “biggest fan” of soccer in Turkey with the slogan “Soccer, you are everything to us” (Futbol sen bizim her ¸seyimizsin), which was derived from a slogan fans have long been chanting in the stadium. She explained that their aim was to create campaigns to “renew [the sponsor’s] contract with the club and to touch fans [by] making their wildest dreams come true.” For example, in 2011, Türk Telekom organized a competition among Be¸sikta¸s fans for the “most creative banner.” At lunch with Ebru’s fanmates in March 2011, I found out that the winning banner was designed by one of Ebru’s fanmates, who proudly took credit and presented this story as another testimony of his love. He did not mention that his banner was the result of a sponsorship competition; he instead treated it like any other banner he might have designed. In a sense, his failure to mention the sponsor allowed him to reappropriate his fan love and to salvage his fan subjectivity from a kind that was, for Türk Telekom, forged through his engagement with the brand. One of the banner slogans I mentioned above, “The recipe for love has remained the same for 108 years,” was in fact the product of a similar competition. In that case, Türk Telekom appropriated this slogan by signing the company’s name under the banner, but fans in a different section of the stadium handwrote the slogan on their own banner. Whereas Türk Telekom mobilized fan love and took credit for a fan slogan, fans sought to reclaim their words in their handwriting, removing the sponsor from their affective constellation—a concrete manifestation of the kind of contestation and negotiation through love that takes place between some fans and endüstriyel futbol . My conversation with a high-ranking corporate administrator at the Be¸sikta¸s club further demonstrates how agents of endüstriyel futbol conceptualize fan love and the “good fan.” He told me the club prefers “full” fans, using the word “full” (tam) as an acronym for fan (taraftar ), member (abone), and customer (mü ¸steri ). He explained, This has an emotional component and a monetary component. For me, a good fan does not only go to the stadium for the sake of the club,

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screaming and swearing and accruing fines for the club. They must consume products. If you claim to be a fan of the team, then shouting in the stands alone won’t cut it. The good fan consumes the club’s products and rejects counterfeit goods. It is crucial that they participate financially. They can devise a budget plan. They can decide only to buy one season ticket, go to 10 home games, and buy a jersey. We have a mobile communications platform, an online shop. They can take their pick. I think that buying counterfeit products is a sign of laziness on the part of those who are blindly in love [a¸sk], but we don’t want them to lose their passion. I mean, if everyone went [to the stadium] and stood silently pretending to applaud, then the love [a¸sk] for soccer would die.

This administrator cast “blinding love” as something that inhibits a person from achieving “good fandom”—something that can happen only through consuming the club’s merchandise and by prioritizing its financial interests. He warned against the total “death” of fans’ a¸sk, but because fan love is critical for marketing soccer, he wanted love to be contained in and channeled through consumption. On the one hand, he said, swearing, lighting flares, and sitting or standing in non-designated sections of the stadium financially harm clubs, sponsors, and broadcasting companies. These fan practices also violate the Violence Law (see Fig. 3). On the other hand, I have also been told by a referee that fans with “real heart and soul,” who are the “fire of the show,” are invaluable to the soccer experience and thus must remain in stadiums, albeit confined in less favorable sections behind goalposts. For soccer to be fully commodified, fans must form part of this spectacle. But their love must be repackaged so that it is profitable and its manifestations sell the entirety of the soccer experience.

Fans Respond Fans respond to endüstriyel futbol ’s reimagining of their subjectivity in a variety of ways, which depend on how much they think their interests align with this reimagining. Some fan groups, especially in Istanbul, where commodification is felt more intensely, embrace the forms of attachment that capitalism encourages and express their fandom through

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Fig. 3 Fans of the Be¸sikta¸s soccer team celebrate a goal with lit flares (Turkish Cup Final, Kadir Has Stadium, in the city of Kayseri, May 11, 2011)

consumption. For example, the Fenerbahçe team is recognized as playing a pioneering role in the development of endüstriyel futbol , and Fenerbahçe fans have the reputation of deliberately shopping at the club’s official merchandising store, Fenerium, to support the club. Some of my interlocutors have even characterized the Fenerbahçe “lifestyle” as endüstriyel futbol itself. As I was told by Batu, a blogger and Be¸sikta¸s fan, “Fenerbahçe fans are rich. They buy jerseys. They make sure that the Fenerium store profits. They buy season tickets for 5,000 lira. Because they think they can manifest their loyalty by spending money. We don’t do that.” This image has been created by Fenerbahçe’s pioneering role in renovating its stadium from 1999 to 2006 along with the club’s extensive campaigns to disseminate the message that fan loyalty is secured through consuming official club merchandise. Batu’s depiction of Fenerbahçe parallels class stereotypes about Istanbul clubs, in which Fenerbahçe

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is commonly referred to as the “bourgeois club.” His narrative also cements Be¸sikta¸s identity (stereotypically known as the “people’s club”) as distinct from the Fenerbahçe identity. Batu was an unemployed university graduate when we met in 2010, and he self-identified as an “anarcho-communist.” His biggest concern was the “gradual Fenerbahçezation of Be¸sikta¸s,” by which he meant that many Be¸sikta¸s fans were now concerned with having the club recruit star players to be more successful and renovate the stadium to sell more expensive tickets, and with purchasing official merchandise because they bought into the “imposition of fan customerization.” Batu’s ideas are represented by the significant contingent of fans who resist endüstriyel futbol ’s “good fandom” and its prescription of love. In 2012, a group of fan leaders in the city of Izmir formed the Fan Rights Association, whose major objective is to abolish the Passolig system. Its slogan is “We are fans, not customers” (Mü ¸steri de˘gil, taraftarız ). Such resistance resonates with fan protests around Europe that have been developing since the 1990s against the forces of commodification. Indeed, the Fan Rights Association in Turkey has close relations with the grassroots organization Football Supporters Europe, which has similar aims. For the proponents of these movements, fandom is a “way of life” (Giulianotti 2005: 389) that does not depend on consumption (King 1997). Fans who oppose commodification argue that fans, although they may not be actual, financial club owners, have “emotional ownership”— a sense of owning and claiming the club by virtue of loving it—which is overlooked under the framework of commodification (Giulianotti 2005: 396; Millward 2011). They also emphasize that many fans are excluded, both socially and spatially, in the “juridico-political” maneuvers that reorganize soccer (Giulianotti 2011: 3299; Merkel 2012), thereby drawing attention to the power relations embedded in such maneuvers (Marjoribanks and Farquharson 2012). Alongside organizations like the Fan Rights Association in Turkey and Football Supporters Europe, fans resist commodification in other ways that are more dispersed and less organized. This resistance entails a desire to consolidate one’s relevance

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for and intimacy with the team as a “protagonist” rather than as a “passive being” pushed aside by forces of commodification (Archetti 1992: 226). An example of such resistance appears in a story told by one of my interlocutors, Akif, who juxtaposed fans’ a¸sk and sevda to the notion of fan love promoted by endüstriyel futbol . A low-level bank employee, Akif was in his mid-30s when we met in 2011. He once told me that he had attended every Be¸sikta¸s game, both home and away, since the age of five, an assertion that I took more ethnographically than literally, since I knew, for example, that he was going to miss the very next game because he could not leave work on a weekday to travel to an away location. But sacrifice figures as a prominent theme in game-day stories. Fans sing about how bad weather or familial obligations have not stopped them from attending games. They refer to arduous bus rides across the country, traveling to away games, and to hostile encounters with the fans of rival teams. Students describe saving up their allowances to buy tickets. Thus, when Akif told me that he had been to every Be¸sikta¸s game for over 25 years, I interpreted this as a narrative move to prove his fandom to me. The first time I met him, as he was pregaming with his fanmates behind the large eagle statue in Be¸sikta¸s, he explained what it felt like to be a Be¸sikta¸s fan: It is a¸sk. You know how you havea beloved [sevgili], you fall in love [sevda], you fall in love [a¸sk], there is electricity, you look into her eyes? It is the same. You know how you would go anywhere following that beloved, for her sake [onun u˘gruna]? It’s just like that. I would do any thing for Be¸sikta¸s.

To demonstrate the quality of his Be¸sikta¸s fandom, Akif recounted his experience during the December 2010 game between Be¸sikta¸s and Bursaspor (the club in the city of Bursa), in which rival fans clashed with each other and with the police. Akif told me that his friends had been arrested for attacking Bursa fans who had assaulted them. He said he wished that “Bursa fans would die” and that he was sorry not to have been sent to prison himself for this just cause.

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As we see in this case, discourse about an emotion illuminates its on-the-ground “effects” (Abu-Lughod and Lutz 1990: 11). It also illuminates “what emotions do,” how they “align individuals with communities” and how, for example, “love” for one thing can result in “hate” for another (Ahmed 2004: 118–119). Akif ’s hatred derives from his love, his a¸sk and sevda. He is moved from love to hate and to violence by the discursive baggage that a¸sk and sevda carry and by his alignment with one community against another. When Akif told me that he wished he too had been imprisoned, I challenged him and asked whether he thought it was worth it. He was keen on assuring me that it was. “Yes, bro, it’s worth it,” he said, and continued, “But, you see, a Fenerbahçe fan would not do this [for their team].”11 In saying this, Akif affirmed that his imprisonment would be “for the sake of ” Be¸sikta¸s—a self-sacrificial move aimed at righting a wrong (attacks by Bursaspor fans) that had been committed against his team(mates). He claimed that Fenerbahçe fans did not experience this kind of love, tapping into the well-established discourse that Fenerbahçe love is adulterated with commodification and that Fenerbahçe fans are therefore less prone to act selflessly for the “sake of their beloved.” Thus, Akif ’s narrative simultaneously expresses his fandom and his rejection of endüstriyel futbol ’s prescribed love—something he furthermore associates with his arch-rivals. Even though there are class stereotypes about Fenerbahçe and Be¸sikta¸s, the clubs’ fan bases are not easily distinguishable. Just as there are Fenerbahçe fan groups that have been explicitly critical of both the general commodification of soccer in Turkey and Fenerbahçe’s pioneering role in it, there are Be¸sikta¸s fans who do not see any problems with endüstriyel futbol . For example, two of my Be¸sikta¸s fan interlocutors, Cem, an industrial CEO and shareholder, and Gö khan, the sales director for an international software company, did not question or fight endüstriyel futbol , which they described as a “reality that needs to be accepted.” They thought that if Be¸sikta¸s fans want the team to run for the national title and to be successful internationally, the club needs money to recruit

11 It

is common in Turkish to call someone “bro” (abi ) regardless of their gender.

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star players, and they feel a responsibility to contribute to its financial viability. While Cem and Gökhan spoke about “sacrificing” for the team, they referred only to the financial sacrifice of purchasing licensed goods, which is decidedly different from the kind of self -sacrifice associated with arabesk sevda. They claimed that one couldn’t have it both ways, in that success would be “costly.” They explained that “screaming out in the stadium” is simply not enough and that “soccer is a huge industry now,” one in which fans want their team to be “competitive.” For them, it is naive and “too romantic” to yearn for a past when the stadium was less luxurious, tickets were cheaper, and people wore “scarves their grandmothers had knitted.” Accordingly, they thought stadiums should be renovated despite fans’ attachments to the older stadiums (Bairner 2014; Bale 1994) and that the club needs to sell every product for as high a price as possible. If fans have a problem with this, they should support a less ambitious team. Fans’ stances on commodification have less to do with the team they support and more to do with their individual class affiliation. Cem and Gö khan would not pledge to go to prison for the team because they did not associate their love with the same sense of madness or self-sacrifice, even though they saw their love as no less intense. They arrived at the stadium shortly before a game started to swiftly find their assigned seats. They warned fellow fans against swearing in chants because they wanted to avoid club fines and stadium bans. They made sure to purchase jerseys every season and give them as presents to their loved ones. Surely there are well-to-do fans who cherish less commodified soccer and hang on to the “scarves their grandmothers knit.” But of my interlocutors, uppermiddle-class business owners and high-level employees had an easier time accommodating to endüstriyel futbol , whereas working-class fans were more inclined to oppose it. Their stance entailed not only a cursory rejection of commodification but also an extensive effort to resist endüstriyel futbol ’s imposed fan subjectivity. In an environment where authorities define the appropriate way of loving one’s team as achievable through consumption, it becomes an act of resistance to emphasize fan love in terms of a¸sk and sevda. Surely there is soccer-related violence that is motivated or narrated differently;

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it is also nearly impossible to establish that violence in soccer did not exist before the rise of endüstriyel futbol —although many people who remembered soccer before the 1980s said games took place in much more peaceful settings—but it is telling that Akif framed his and his mates’ motivation for violence as a testimony to his a¸sk and sevda and that he juxtaposed it to rival fans’ love, which he associated with endüstriyel futbol . In a sense, he had to emphasize the intensity of his a¸sk and sevda and their associated behavior because there is an opposing subjectivity of fan love that threatens to overtake soccer. Love is thus a site of struggle in which subjectivity vis-à-vis commodified soccer is formed. It is this struggle that leads me to read Akif ’s stance as one of resistance. Fan resistance in Turkey during my fieldwork was distinct because it took place amid a great strengthening of state power. In this sociopolitical context, “almost every distinct field of knowledge” had been “described, planned, studied, and intruded upon in the greatest detail by a unified party-state machine” (Erol et al. 2016: 7). While one may identify parallel processes around the world, the intensity and character of the situation in Turkey pinpointed a “trajectory of an increasingly authoritarian government,” including the personalization of executive power, weakening of democratic checks and balances, less free and fair electoral competition, the imposition of stricter constraints on freedom of expression and civil liberties, and the growing use of the state’s coercive capacity to suppress various forms of … dissent (Akkoyunlu and Öktem 2016: 506).

The Violence Law, state-sponsored stadium renovation projects across the country, and heavy policing of soccer games show that soccer has been unable to escape the intense control and surveillance of this partystate machine against which erupted one of the largest popular resistance movements in the history of Turkey, that is, the Gezi Park uprising. Therefore, while fans the world over oppose the commodification and legal reorganization of soccer, in Turkey, fan mobilization against endüstriyel futbol is entangled with a larger moment of resistance, one that is relevant not only to soccer but also to the state’s wider and multifaceted intrusion into daily lives, living spaces, and bodies. Resisting fans

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do not necessarily have a fully formed ideological position against the government, nor would it be accurate to characterize all pro–endüstriyel futbol fans as ideologically on the government’s side. But the financial interests of pro–endüstriyel futbol fans align with the government’s capitalism, while the resistors’ interests do not, and that is what motivates their resistance and what positions them against the government.

Social Class, Resistance, and the Violence of Love The Be¸sikta¸s versus Bursaspor game was the last straw for the government, which passed the 2011 Violence Law shortly after it took place. The law’s advocates, which include its drafters and then state minister for youth and sports Faruk Nafiz Özak, stressed that the law followed others in Europe and was thus intended to Europeanize soccer in Turkey. They also emphasized that the law was aimed at changing fan culture by curbing fan violence through the doctrine of fair play (Egemeno˘glu 2010; SporX 2010), which is codified in FIFA’s Fair Play Code. While the code mostly concerns the field, it does refer to fans, stating that “spectators give the game atmosphere” but “must behave fairly … themselves” since “football does not want violence” (FIFA 2011: 1–2). The “cult of fair play” has been a “logical development” in sport’s “distinctive function,” whereby upper classes stress their cool “disinterestedness,” “self-control,” and aloofness, as opposed to the lower classes’ passionate and “vulgar” involvement (Bourdieu 1984: 215). So the upper-middle class either “avoids” a specific sport altogether or finds a distinctive way to engage with it (Besnier et al. 2018: 101). A director of the Turkish Football Federation explained the law’s goal to me as ensuring “that people can watch soccer in a civilized manner, that they can see it as a game, a joyous pastime, a hobby—not a matter of life and death.” The juxtaposition of “civilization,” “disinterestedness,” and soccer as “hobby” to being “passionate” and seeing soccer as a “matter of life and death” aligns the upper classes with a “civilized” Europe and distances them from the fandom of a¸sk and sevda, thereby guaranteeing their “distinction.”

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On the road to away games, fans get into brawls, injure each other, light flares, accrue fines for clubs, and raid gas stations. The fans who do this frame these actions as stemming from a¸sk and sevda and as displaying a more genuine and desirable form of fandom than that of endüstriyel futbol . The more such fans (from diverse cities and supporting various teams) insist on the blinding, maddening, self-sacrificial aspects of their love, the more at odds they become with soccer’s (re)design. Their actions allow legal reformers to introduce stricter regulations and policing, and they are further relegated to the category of dangerous fanatics who must be controlled and civilized. How do those who resist conceptualize and make sense of their position, especially when acts of resistance are entangled in forms of violence in reaction to violence (Coleman 2013; Wright 2016)? In this case, fans who resist endüstriyel futbol make sense of their position through a¸sk and sevda. Furthermore, given the atmosphere of political repression in Turkey, when fans oppose endüstriyel futbol , they are simultaneously opposing what it represents: the intense undermining of their fandom practices and soccer experience. Soccer fandom in Turkey is thus a key agentive position through which to raise one’s voice because fans are experienced in formulating their dissatisfaction with political repression by virtue of having encountered it through soccer (Erhart 2014; Nuhrat 2018). The contestation over love that unfolds in the context of soccer’s commodification in Turkey raises the question of what constitutes love, not whether money or love defines fandom. Some think spending all they can on licensed merchandise demonstrates love. Others believe that pledging to hurt rival fans and go to prison for it is love, that love is not “straightforwardly nonviolent” (Wright 2016: 140). The “emotional” fan and the “consumer” fan have been described as existing on the two extreme ends of sports fan attachment (Marjoribanks and Farquharson 2012; Morrow 2003). At stake in this juxtaposition are how the affective medium of soccer is mobilized, how subjectivity is negotiated, how violence is posited as deriving from love, and how resistance is formed on this derivation. At stake is achieving class distinction with recourse to a discourse of antiviolence and fair play. Tracing the violence of love and the violence that brews through affect in negotiating subjectivities

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makes it possible both to delve deeper into the theoretical connections between these concepts and to grasp the specificities of struggles like this. It ultimately offers a fuller picture of the on-the-ground workings and experiences of power and resistance. Acknowledgements I am grateful to the fans who shared with me their stories and the most immediate expressions of their joy and grief. I thank the bloggers, players, referees, administrators, journalists, and sponsors whose contributions allowed me to grasp love as a contestation. I thank Matthew Gutmann, Paja Faudree, Marcy Brink-Danan, Ay¸se Parla, Richard Giulianotti, Inna Leykin, Magnus Pharao Hansen, John McManus, Can Evren, Sohini Kar, and Andrew Hodges for their insightful comments at various stages of research and writing. I also thank American Ethnologist ’s reviewers, Niko Besnier and Pablo Morales for their very thoughtful feedback. Funds for this research were partly provided by the Middle East Research Competition.

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SporX . (2010, December 8). Özak’tan ¸siddet yasası açıklaması [Violence Law Declaration from Özak]. http://live.sporx.com/futbol/genel/ozaktan-siddetyasasi-aciklamasiSXHBQ215763SXQ. Stokes, M. (1993). The Arabesk Debate: Music and Musicians in Modern Turkey. New York: Oxford University Press. Stokes, M. (2010). The Republic of Love: Cultural Intimacy in Turkish Popular Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Storm, R. K. (2009, May). The Rational Emotions of FC København: A Lesson on Generating Profit in Professional Soccer. Soccer and Society, 10 (3), 459– 476. TMYS (Turkish Ministry of Youth and Sports). (2018, January 19). Gü zel ü lkemize bö yle bir organizasyon çok yakı¸sır [An Organization Like This Would Become Our Beautiful Country]. http://www.gsb.gov.tr/HaberDeta ylari/3/119314/guzel-ulkemize-boyle-bir-organizasyon-cok-yakisir.aspx. Wright, F. (2016, February). Palestine, My Love: The Ethico-politics of Love and Mourning in Jewish Israeli Solidarity Activism. American Ethnologist, 43(1), 130–143. Wurbs, D. (2011, August 11). Roma Fans (Almost) Successful in Fight Against Tessera Del Tifosi. Football Supporters Europe. http://www.fanseurope.org/ en/news/79-roma-fans-almost-successful-in-fight-against-tessera-del-tifosi. html. Yıldırım, U., & Navaro-Yashin, Y. (2013, October 31). An Impromptu Uprising: Ethnographic Reflections on the Gezi Park Protests in Turkey. Cultural Anthropology. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/391-an-impromptuuprisingethnographic-reflections-on-the-gezi-park-protests-in-turkey. Zengin, A. (2016, July). Violent Intimacies: Tactile State Power, Sex/Gender Transgression, and the Politics of Touch in Contemporary Turkey. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 12(2), 225–245.

II: The Gendering of Fandom

Thematic Introduction - II The leading question of Part II is how the absence of a model for women’s fandom manifests in women’s perceptions, experiences and performance of fandom. The core assumption is that both the meanings and practices of performing fandom are gendered and that doing fandom and doing gender are always performed concurrently. The protagonists in each of the three chapters in this part are women fans who perform and experience their fandom in relation to the sole, male, hegemonic model of doing fandom, a model that is masculine-invented, “owned” and preserved by men. Based on a critical, feminist-gender approach, the chapters discuss the gendered regime of the football field, the different ways in which women are disposed to performing fandom, as well as their gender-based experiences and perceptions. More generally, questions are raised regarding women’s position, behaviour and experiences of fandom and football when they enter and participate in a “foreign land” where women cannot speak the dominant language properly. In Chapter “Each Woman Fan Has Her Own Fandom Story: Three Fandom Autoethnographies”, Tamar Rapoport and Efrat Noy advocate the use of auto-ethnography as a critical feminist methodological

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approach based on personal testimony for investigating women’s (and men’s) experience and performance of fandom. The crux of the article is the analysis of the personal testimonies written by three women, researcher-fans of different ages, who narrated their fandom experiences and perceptions. In addition to revealing women’s gender-based experiences and perceptions, their personal stories prove highly valuable for exposing the gendered regime of the football field as well as the different ways in which women acquire and do fandom. Moreover they reveal the manner in which women who cannot speak the dominant fandom language properly make their way in the fandom field within which they seek their own voice and position. The analysis suggests that women’s fandom might breach the hegemonic masculine manner of doing fandom and challenge its set boundaries, thereby problematizing the definitions of both authentic fan and fandom. In Chapter “Women Do Fandom Their Way”, Tamar Rapoport and Daniel Regev employ the concept of “passing” to examine women´s fandom, drawing on the classical sociological and feminist rendering of this notion (Butler 1990; Goffman 1968)1 that refers to crossing the boundary of social categories (race, class and gender). The analysis reveals several fandom practices which women employ, including, on the one hand, a genuine attempt to pass and perform bodily practices according to the hegemonic masculine model, and on the other hand, a conscious choice to be present in the fandom field yet not to pass. The discussion of the practices suggests that because of their marginal and noninstitutionalized position in the stadium, women do fandom in their own way: As their fandom is not constrained by habitus, their scope in doing fandom within this model is relatively wide-ranging. They perform diverse fandom practices that depart, to a lesser or greater extent, from the standards of authenticity dictated by the masculine model of doing fandom. Women’s deviation from men’s hegemony (Connell and Messerschmidt2 ) in doing fandom challenges conventions in the fandom field and in research regarding gender and fandom, which tend 1 Butler,

J. 1990. Gender Trouble—Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routlege; Goffman, E. (1968). Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Penguin. 2 Connell, R.W. and J.W. Messerschmidt (2005). Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept. Gender and Society 19: 829.

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to dwell on women’s marginality and objectification without attending to their different voices. The chapter’s conclusion is that as long as men symbolically and in practice “own” the fandom field, the disassociation of fandom from gender remains a utopian ideal realizable only if society’s gender regime were to transform. Written by Ya˘gmur Nuhrat, Chapter “Fair to Swear? Gendered Formulations of Fairness in Football in Turkey” focuses on the swearing voiced in football chants. Based on a sociological linguistic approach, it demonstrates that fans construct a specifically masculine notion of fairness that diverges from what the Turkish football authorities define as the ideal of “fair play”. Nuhrat argues that the anti-swearing campaigns and policies of multiple organizations (including the Turkish Football Federation (TFF), the clubs and mainstream media) ostensibly intend to uphold fair play, yet they miss and are at odds with how fans construe fairness: Fans genderize the meaning of the concept fair play by celebrating the masculine ideal of the crazy, hot-blooded young man (delikanlı). In keeping with theoretic formulations regarding “ordinary ethics” in cultural anthropology, the chapter elucidates how fairness and gender are co-negotiated in football in Turkey. In addition, it critiques the stereotypical feminine role that the TFF ascribes to women fans, defining them as naturally polite guardians of the imposed sense of fair play. The chapter shows that women fans have an intricate relationship with hegemonic masculinity whereby they simultaneously take part in the specific masculine construction of fairness and oppose normative gender expectations. In Chapter “Threatened Masculinities Marginalise Women in Israeli Football”, Tamir Sorek’s research deals with the intersection of masculinity (gender), ethnicity (Ashkenazi-Mizrachi) and nationalism (Jews-Arabs) in Israeli football. He argues that the game of football and football fandom are intrinsically a major battlefield among men of three Israeli collectives—Jews of European background (Ashkenazi), Jews who came to Israel from Muslim countries (Mizrachi) and Arab/Palestinians—each having its own history and form of injured masculinity. The central thesis is that the triangular struggle among men’s threatened masculinities is tightly connected to the exclusion of women in Israeli football and other sports. Dwelling on the case of football as

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a hegemonic sports culture3 in Israel, the research reveals how members of the three collectives have struggled over their masculine identity and attempted to use football to rehabilitate their threatened masculinity. The chapter gives us a rare glimpse into manhood, masculinity and football among Arab Israeli men, and exposes the ethnically nationalized and stratified structure of Israeli society and sports while explaining in this context how it impedes the inclusion of women.

3This notion is defined by Markovits and Hellerman (2001: 10) as “the sports cultures that dominate a country’s emotional attachments”. Markovits, A.S., and Hellerman, S.L. 2001. Offside—Football and American Exceptionalism in Sport. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Each Woman Fan Has Her Own Story: Three Fandom Autoethnographies Tamar Rapoport and Efrat Noy

Every woman and man fan has an individual fandom story to tell, yet women’s stories are generally not voiced, heard or written. This makes it noteworthy and eye-opening to listen to the individual and collective personal stories of women fans, as the stories shed light on the vague and unsettled category of woman fan. While each fan has an individual story, typical fans share common elements in their fandom biographies. For the typical fan, fandom begins with an older man (father, brother or uncle) taking him to his first football match. In the fandom field he learns how to do fandom through imitation and repetition of the practices performed by adult men (Dixon 2013). With time the boy learns the meaning of doing fandom, what the identity of a fan in his club entails, and the club’s history. The majority of fans remain loyal to the same club over most of their lives (Friedman 2016). This concise history omits a crucial detail: The story of the typical fan is the story of a man, as few women’s stories conform to the fandom T. Rapoport (B) · E. Noy The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 T. Rapoport (ed.), Doing Fandom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46870-5_5

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descriptions above. What, then, is the fandom story of a woman fan? The point of departure in answering this question is that though each story is personal, women’s stories share numerous gender-based qualities. The chapter advocates the use of autoethnography as a critical feminist methodological approach based on personal testimony (Mendez 2013) for investigating women’s (and men’s) experience and performance of fandom. The crux of the article lies in reading the autoethnographies that were written by three women fan-researchers (the present two authors and Tali Friedman, our research colleague) in the context of the broader field research conducted at the Katamon football club. The three of us had joined the club at about the same time but at different ages. During the extended research period, we regularly discussed our observations and experiences. As part of the research we decided that each of us would reflect and write an autoethnography in her own way about how she acquired fandom, her fandom career, her ongoing experiences and the practices she employed. Taken together, the stories offer the body of research on the intersection of gender and fandom unique value that departs from anecdotes, theoretical constraints, personal testimonials and stereotypical gender representations as fostered by the media and public discourse in general. An autoethnography is the writing by a researcher of her personal, reflexive narrative, free of strict academic rules, which is used both as a means and as a product of research. This form of qualitative research method focuses on the thoughts, feelings and experiences of the researcher, who consciously makes herself the subject of investigation. The approach grew out of the post-modern discourse that problematizes the tacitly assumed existence of absolute, scientific truth and the objectivity of research and researcher; instead, it seeks to describe and systematically analyse personal self-knowledge in an attempt to elucidate a broad cultural, political or social experience.1 Feminist research welcomes this research practice because it reifies the claim that the personal is political (Allen and Piercy 2005).

1 As

a qualitative investigative research method, the autoethnography is accepted and legitimate, while also controversial. For elaboration on the topic, see, for example, Bochner and Ellis (2006), Ellingson and Ellis (2008), Holt (2003), Mendez (2013) and Sparkes (2000).

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The assembly of three autoethnographies to be read here in succession depicts a broad, riveting picture of major topics in the research on gender and fandom. A new research perspective is added thereby to the recently growing research on women’s fandom. Advocating this perspective, the aim in using this method of inquiry is to shed light on key pathways and possibilities for women as well as to uncover the overt and covert obstacles and constraints hindering their becoming authentic fans (see Rapoport 2016).

The Value of Revealing Personal Stories We regard the value of revealing our personal stories as threefold. 1. The methodological value of disclosure: In writing autoethnography, self-reflection is what grants the research validity (Schlasky and Alpert 2007) and enables the reader to become acquainted with the writers’ differing and similar personal experiences, assumptions and orientations, none of which are concealed in the guise of truth or objectivity. It also invites and produces a conversation within and between narratives in which the personal and the theoretical are intertwined. Thus the writing allows the generation of insights, criticism and analytical generalizations while neither dismissing personal experiences nor sinking into them (Chang et al. 2013). 2. The opportunity to study bodily experiences, practices and emotions: Women’s differing physical appearance within the hegemonic male fandom field makes it impossible for them to blend in among the fans-supporters and thus amplifies their visibility and magnifies their feelings of foreignness (Rubin 2009). Through academic writing, autoethnographic accounts enable and encourage the expression of the bodily sensations experienced, the meanings felt and the practices performed (Pace 2012). The three autoethnographies convey knowledge derived directly through the body, thereby illustrating the significance of the gendered body and appearance in experiencing and doing fandom.

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3. A narrative based on dual perspectives: ‘What’s with you and football?!’ ‘Com’on, don’t you have anything better to do on a Friday afternoon?!’ These were frequent reactions to our presence and selfpresentation as researcher-fans, which marked us from the outset as foreigners and inauthentic fans inside and outside the fandom field. Like other women, most of our fandom experiences stemmed from the excluded/included dialectic: A woman fan is scrutinized simultaneously from the outside (by men fans, the media, etc.) and from within herself and thus has to prove to herself and to others that she is genuinely interested in football: “In every conversation about football and at every match I attend, I need to prove all over again that I am a woman truly interested in football”, writes the Turkish fandom researcher Nuhrat, (part “The Genesis of Doing Fandom”). As the three autoethnographies presented below indicate, the continuous attention paid by women fans to being concurrently excluded from but also welcomed (by some clubs but not by others) into the fandom field leads to the revelation of subversive, hidden dimensions of fandom and allows alternative interpretations to arise.

Three Autoethnographies—What’s with You and Football? Tamar Rapoport I was born in the mid-1940s and grew up in a small Israeli-Jewish town, yet neither of my male family members nor my male peers in school and the youth movement were interested in football. The only memory of football I have from my childhood is the persistent rumble of fans that came from afar preceding and following a goal on Saturday afternoons. After high school I was on kibbutz for about two years. I remember clearly how my boyfriend at the time would play football on Friday afternoons with other young men right next to my window, the ball often hitting the wall of my room. Then I moved to Jerusalem in the 60s where for many years I studied, taught and researched, among other things, subjects related to gender, feminist theory and qualitative

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research at the Hebrew University. Prior to researching gender and football fandom, I investigated various groups in Israeli society from a feminist perspective (primarily teenage religious Zionist girls, underprivileged girls and the political protest movement, Women in Black). I had never been a fan of any team or drawn to any spectator sport. I was drawn, though, to any social or cultural phenomenon which held the promise of a different politics and social change, to anything with the scent of leftism, socialism or humanism. That’s what led me to one of Katamon’s very first matches a short time after the club’s foundation. I came to the game as a total stranger with doubts about what I was doing there. I became a fan of the club then and there, attracted by the friendly atmosphere, the collective spirit, the liberal agenda and the relatively large number of families, women and children. A person is not born a fan but becomes one—this is what I tell myself at every game I attend when I realize I do not do fandom properly. Gender, as I have explained to my students, is a matter of social construction; it is learned through doing, through the performance of practices via the body. My doing fandom began late in my academic career: I was in my sixties. “This annoying old lady” is how a young fan sarcastically referred to me once in the online Katamon forum, annoyed perhaps that, to his mind, I was not an authentic fan and that I had too large a presence in a documentary film called “Katamon-Barcelona” about our team.2 Perhaps what angered him was that the film’s creators did not present Katamon as he believed they should, but included the view of an older lady who self-identified as a researcher and a new fan. It was at the stadium that I learned, as if still a young girl, the practices of fandom, how to do and experience fandom. I realized what it takes to be an authentic fan and how difficult, if not impossible, it would be for me to become one. I often watched the row of veteran fans seated together at the top of the western end of the stadium carefully taking in every minute move of the game. Although we know each other, I never sit with them. I envied them their knowing what fandom means, their having done fandom ever since they can remember themselves and their 2The documentary was made by Ido Gruner and Roi Ben-Ami in the 2008 season, https://fil mdiy.co.il/sport-category.

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performing the practices that they had learned in childhood at every game. Among other things, I learned that an authentic fan is supposed to identify an offside and a foul quickly and correctly and to watch the match focused, never bored, whereas for me it is a struggle to be seated for the entire match and concentrated on it. It is also a struggle to learn the lyrics of the songs, to remember the frequently changing new players’ numbers and names and to decipher and recall the coach’s defence and offence tactics. Perhaps it’s because this knowledge is not so important to me. I also realize that a fan needs to jump up during matches, sing at the right moments and make no out-of-place jumps and remarks. A real fan had also best possess a memory for game lore and recall, for example, the mythological match which determined the club’s league promotion or relegation. There are other practices that a fan must master and additional information to absorb. For instance, I learned that I need to hate the colour yellow (the arch-rival’s colour) and never attend a game wearing so much as a pair of yellow socks. I must know the team’s placement in the league at any given moment of the season and its chances of promotion or demotion. My total ignorance was exposed at one of the games when I mistakenly said that I feared we may not be promoted to the national league (instead of saying the first league). I was accorded a pseudo-polite, ironic correction by a man fan, as if to say, what can one expect from a woman fan? I am suspected of having joined the club for the supposedly wrong reasons, for its socio-political agenda and not for the club’s sportive achievements (see Regev and Rapoport, part “The Gendering of Fandom”. At every match, I observe the many children running around the stadium. They come every week, generally with parents, often their fathers. Like them, I try to learn the fandom practices and absorb the special atmosphere of the games into my body. They mimic the bodily practices of their parents and of the young men in the Ultras section. Engaged in trial and error behaviour, they experiment with being real fans. Once in a while the children glance vacantly at the field, jump when there is a goal or a bit after, even if it was only a near-goal, and occasionally, they take a quick bite of the sandwich held out by dad. At the home

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games I see that K. has brought his young daughter and is socializing her to becoming a fan. On the fan internet forum there is a video clip of this sweet little girl singing Katamon songs and sporting a red hat. K. sits with her next to the Ultras. Every once in a while he lifts her high and points to the fans, habituating her to the powerful sounds and sights. Her remembering body already knows that on Fridays she goes with her parents to the large field, along with hundreds, sometimes thousands of other people, where she will be showered with attention. After the game, she is returned to her stroller and awarded the warm smiles of the fans nearby. I never experienced such a socialization process, I tell myself, but when she grows up she might be an authentic fan. On the way to the stadium the booming drum and male voices cheering, “Y’alla Katamon”3 run adrenalin through my veins; my heart beats excitedly. Before one of the matches, I listened to a chorus singing Russian songs on my car radio—the same songs I had heard during childhood at my parents’ home and had sung with my peers in my youth movement days and during my wonderful time at the kibbutz. I turned up the volume and sang at the top of my lungs. There is no better preparation for a Katamon game, I thought. When I pass through the entrance gate and the large stadium stretches out before me, I feel that I am coming home, to an enclave of safety and sanity. The initiation event that made me believe I am a real fan and sense my affinity to other fans was at a match against a club from a coastal city, Holon, south of Tel Aviv. I witnessed fans from my club rebelling over a broken agreement regarding the price of admission. The original ticket price had been erased from the booth window several times, with an everincreasing new price written above it, the latest being 40 NIS. The fans, mostly men, decided not to enter the stadium, but they cheered from outside; feeling that my comrades were being manipulated, I remained outside with them. We stood next to the ice cream vendor, who was yelling, “Katamon-Barcelona!”, the tall walls surrounding the stadium preventing our seeing anything. All of us were very excited by the feeling that we were performing an important act of protest. This incident is inscribed in my memory as my fandom-building moment, a pivotal one 3A

common expression in Arabic denoting “come on”, “let’s get going”.

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in more than one way. For me, the fans’ protest was a kind of proof that Katamon can be understood as a social movement.

Efrat Noy I was born in the 1970s and raised in Jerusalem in a neighbourhood called Musrara. Because I was raised there, conspicuous in my being Ashkenazi,4 football became associated for me with the Mizrachi character of the neighbourhood. When I wrote the field-notes, I was living with my partner at a village outside Jerusalem. I was studying towards a master’s degree in the sociology of education at the Hebrew University. My oldest girl was born as I was writing my thesis on women football fans of Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem FC. As a girl, football was not part of my everyday life. Up to the age of nine, I was raised as an only daughter with only a mother and no television, and I didn’t pay attention to football in the neighbourhood and in school. I don’t remember associating my father with football until about age 10 when, as I recall, I helped him fill out a football lottery ticket. He won a small prize and said that I had brought him luck. I had the opportunity to play football only on my grandmother’s lawn during a short period around age 10–11. On the Saturdays we spent at her home, I would join my two cousins’ and father’s game. I was the only girl in a family of boys, and I especially remember one goal that I kicked between my father’s legs. But overall I was not an athletic girl and did not have impressive abilities; nor was I drawn to the game at all. I was the opposite of my male cousin, who has always been a walking encyclopedia of football and its history. Though I would have liked to belong and I was accustomed to knowing something about everything, it was clear that this was a domain that had nothing to do with me; not only did I not know it, but it didn’t really interest me. Due to my grandmother’s and her sister’s elitist education, they insisted

4 Ashkenazi

Jews (Jews of European origin) and Mizrachi Jews (Jews of North African and Middle Eastern origin) have been the two major ethnic groups in Israel since its establishment.

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on inculcating an educated, elevated habitus5 in me, which certainly did not include football; as to my mother, she simply had no interest. When I met my spouse Asaf, sports wasn’t at all an interest that we shared. I remember the first time I realized the significance of sports in his life was when I listened to his trans-Atlantic conversation with a childhood friend, a fairly long dialog consisting of detailed score reports and code names for football events and well-known figures. Over time I learned that this was Asaf ’s and his friends’ male communication mode, that they were using a symbolic language stemming from their world of shared interest based on shared history and experience. I see how this language enables them to create instant brotherhood and express a kind of male affection and relationship. I recall, in particular, a visit at Asaf´s family at which Asaf, his father and brothers were all watching an important football match together. I remember there were discussions and comments during the game on topics that I did not understand. But I remained silent and asked no questions, whereas Asaf´s mother constantly commented. I am sure that to her ears her remarks sounded no different than the men’s, but I could hear the difference and I knew that they did, too. This was also clear from their physical reaction—they didn’t really respond to what she said, while, in contrast, they took one another’s comments very seriously. Something about the tone of her speech, the non-affirmative way she said things and also the content and words she used was simply not right, though it is difficult to pinpoint exactly how. Now, after I’ve begun to take interest in the subject, to notice details and to inquire, I know that their impatience towards her was more than mere annoyance about her ‘not understanding’. There is a sort of secret fandom world which believes that anyone who speaks nonsense or says too much or rejoices prematurely brings bad luck to the team and possibly brings about failure. This solid belief is one of the accepted fandom practices in which Asaf ’s mother and, to a great extent, I myself have no part. In my late adolescence I discovered my father anew. For the first time I noticed that he spoke extensively about football. I listened so as to 5 For

a discussion of using the conceptualization of habitus in football research, see, chapter “An Analytical Framework for Exploring Fandom”, this anthology.

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get close to him, but outside the social and political context, that even then held greater interest for me, I didn’t get what the big fuss was all about. After Asaf and I returned to Jerusalem from a long stay in Africa, my father would rave incessantly about Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem, speaking of romance, community and social change. It sounded nice and fit my socialist world view, but I was too lazy to attend games. He persisted like a steamroller down a path and one Friday afternoon I found myself at the Teddy Stadium.6 I remember the entryway well— the passage from dimness to light and the colour, sounds, and mass of people. I found my family’s women in their regular places and looked around in astonishment. I recognized many people, a few familiar by face—people from the Jerusalem left, from the city, from school. I followed the game more or less. But mostly, I was very excited, far more than I had imagined. The songs, especially the political ones, got to me. I felt that the fans were doing good. So I returned, again and again. Did I come because of the idea and stay because of football? No, not only. Clearly Katamon’s agenda is primary for me, but football is increasingly taking a central place, I even wrote an M.A. thesis about it (2011). Also, I won’t hide the fact that I am enticed by the opportunity to enter a new world of men. Men look at me with respect when I speak spot on about football. Of course, I’m always afraid of babbling, of making a mistake. Unlike the men, though, some women may look disapprovingly and wonder what’s wrong with me. This reminds me of the joy I once derived from penetrating territories “not meant for me”, like hardware stores or speeding while driving. At the same time, I object to this place in me: I no longer need to prove that women can make repairs, and I am certainly not interested in proving that women, too, can be irresponsible drivers. I fear that at times it is I who imagines the male gaze, internalizes and reproduces it. I realize that by imagining that my womanness is noticed, it indeed becomes so, operating both on me and on others. So here I am now becoming a woman football fan. On the one hand I enjoy talking the talk and on the other hand, I fear making a “foolish woman” of myself. Additionally, I am aware that by turning my experience of consciously entering men’s secret arenas into 6The

Teddy stadium is named after Teddy Kollek, mayor of Jerusalem (1965, 1993).

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an attempt at proving equality, I keep myself from experiencing another, perhaps more authentic fandom experience.

Tali Friedman I was born in the late 1950s and grew up in a town near Tel Aviv. I am now at an early stage of writing my doctoral work, which deals with the loyalty of football fans to their team. My son and spouse support rival clubs. Prior to being engaged in the present research, I dealt with consumer behaviour and the psychology of advertising. I think it all began with my attraction to D. in the early 70s, sixth grade of elementary school. D. was the undisputed king of the class— handsome, smart, charismatic and, most notably, a football player in the children’s team of a hometown FC and an avid fan of the club. He was also the cousin of a known player for another club at the time. The rules were clear and simple. In order to be liked by D., you had to understand football, be a fan of the club he supported, and, of course, be knowledgeable about everything concerning the league in general and the team in particular. So in an attempt to draw his attention, I began “to work” on this. On Saturdays I would listen to live game coverage on the legendary Israeli radio program, “Songs and Goals”, I read the sports section on Sunday mornings and watched the televised “Match of the Week” every Saturday night. Though I did everything necessary, the relationship with D. did not go anywhere, but I did find a new love: I fell in love, an innocent childhood love, with football. Perhaps I felt some dim sense that it was more prestigious, fun and interesting to be among the boys, and later the men. In a short time I commanded the names of the players and coaches, match outcomes and even various types of kicks. I must have been the only girl in the Tel Aviv area who knew the special nickname, Banana, of a star player known for his virtuosity in spinning the ball into the goal. Avraham, my older sister’s husband, a sworn fan of another club, was the next person involved in introducing me to fandom. They didn’t yet have children and my sister took no interest in sports. He decided that I, his baby sister-in-law, would be the perfect partner with whom to watch

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matches. One beautiful wintry Saturday the big moment arrived. We packed sandwiches, peeled oranges and a bag of sunflower seeds and went to a game his team was playing. Just as the well-known cliché says, the moment we emerged from the dim entrance into the stadium, my breath stopped. Truly. In a single moment the splendid sight of the huge green lawn stretched out before my eyes, the players in orange and yellow and the colourful audience that filled every corner of the stadium singing extremely loudly. I was totally captivated. Many more games followed, which we attended in various family configurations. To this day our family speaks of the three well-educated sisters who were caught at the end of a derby at the stadium tightly clenching sunflower seed shells in their hands to avoid littering. When S., a devoted fan of his Tel Aviv football club, entered my life, we spent most of our Saturdays around football—radio broadcasts, television, and on especially festive occasions, the stadium. When our son grew up, he became an avid fan of a rival of his father’s team. My involvement around football became even more intensive then. I found myself driving him for hours to attend games at many distant places. I enjoyed it first of all, because of the connection with him on the drive to and from the games. I loved our conversations about football, our private trivia contests, with questions such as, how many players have the letter M in their name. These contests always ended with a ritual question delivered in a typical ironic tone of voice, “What other mother knows all this?” And he would provide the expected response, “Only you!” Beyond the mother–child relationship, I loved the excitement around the game, watching the fans and the game itself. Nowadays I go to the field far less often and if I do—it is mostly for research purposes, but my love for football remains intact. I still begin my newspaper reading with the sports section. On Saturdays we still gather in front of the television to watch league games and championship broadcasts together, the team games and of course, the world cup. As in my childhood, to this day I comment knowledgeably on what is happening on the field and command the terminology and nuances. I disdainfully ignore attempts at ridicule by family members who call me the commentator when it comes to football. Still, as in my childhood,

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my brain is loaded with weird, useless football trivia. There was no end to my pride when, while watching a game with family members once, I shared a thought and a moment later, the sports commentator said exactly the same thing. My response was to ask, “What other woman would know such a thing?” I repeatedly ask my family this question to assert how rare this is and surely not a matter of course. I am not loyal to any club, but, paradoxically, fans’ loyalty through thick and thin is the central theme of my doctoral work (2016). I am interested in fan’s uncompromising loyalty to a single football team and in the circumstances under which this popular axiom is violated. In any case, my love for the game itself and all that surrounds it remains alive and it is that love that led me to research fandom.

What Do the Three Autoethnographies Tell Us? Our stories reveal three different paths to fandom, each with its distinct context, course and beginnings. These stories comprise merely three examples, of course, and there are many more paths to fandom which autoethnographic research can reveal. As it is mostly male children who are socialized to fandom and to playing football, each of us, being woman, became a fan later in her life, though at a different age and in her own way. Tamar was drawn to conducting a feminist investigation of gender and fandom at Katamon, which explicitly invited and welcomed women fans. She identified with Katamon’s social agenda; what captured her interest most was its liberal-humanist orientation, as reflected in its anti-racist policy and its participatory, democratic management organization. Her sense of social familiarity was also pivotal in her decision to conduct this research. Efrat was driven by her feminist worldview and the motivation to challenge gender stereotyping in football and beyond. Like Tamar, she was captivated by the concept of a fan-owned club and by the club’s social agenda. Born and raised in Jerusalem, she felt comfortable among the many Jerusalemites whom she already knew and recognized at the stadium. Tali was propelled by her wish since childhood to be one

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of the boys where football was concerned—to be accepted and recognized as an authentic fan in a male realm. Driven by competitiveness, she wished to prove that she, a woman fan, was not only their equal but even surpassed male fans in her understanding of the game. She, too, albeit less so, felt affinity with Katamon’s core liberal agenda. Tamar made peace with her constant sense of being an outsider in the fandom field, Efrat’s sense that her attempt to do fandom like a man reproduces the gender dichotomy and Tali’s effort to master fandom better than men intrigued us, leading us to discuss and examine the authenticity of our fandom and to question the idea of authentic fandom in general (Rapoport 2016: 31–38). Tamar’s experience of foreignness stemmed mostly from having joined fandom and the club late in her life, her ignorance in football and her position as a fan-researcher. Due to this position, her fandom motivation was often suspected and her doing fandom was often overlooked. Efrat experienced exclusion from the male world of football through the coded language in which her husband and his friends held their intimate football discussions, a language of the football brotherhood inaccessible to women. In the stadium, however, she was sometimes recognized as a real fan because of her father—a veteran, fervent fan—and the many male fan friends of hers whom she encountered in the stands. She made fandom into a family project whereby she gained esteem through her uniqueness as a woman football connoisseur who is fluent in the language, of which she playfully, but nonetheless consistently, reminded her family members and other male fans. For Tali, her connoisseurship gains her personal and familial capital. As already stated, women’s fandom in general is disparaged and women fans bear the burden of proving that they are authentic fans. Tamar articulates the need to explain herself to herself and to other fans in the face of gazes marking her as an imposter. Tali, who has always been erudite in the football world, is often met with surprise and amazement followed by acceptance into the club. Efrat, in doing fandom like men wished to challenge general assumptions regarding gender and football, for she believed that as her command of fandom increased she would be able to shatter the gender stereotypes that exclude women from the fandom field. Alongside the process of doing fandom, however, she gained the understanding that in reality, her defiance only strengthens stereotypical

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gender distinctions and she relinquished it. Each of us has experienced dismay by the disparity between our genuine, sometimes intense feelings for the world of football, fandom and the fans, and for our club in particular, on the one hand, and the marginalization of women, including us, in the fandom field, on the other. Where most women fans are silent because they feel suspected, dismissed or are met with surprise in the space of the stadium, the club’s online forums or the intimate spaces of conversations among male fans, we decided that in our writing we would unveil the intricate gendered position in the fandom field, which we share with other women. In writing the autoethnographies, we were aware of our positioning as women fans in the gendered Israeli society and fandom field and of the academic literature about gender and fandom. Tamar’s self-definition as a feminist developed in young adulthood when she was a graduate student in the United States, with her feminist awareness then leading her to try to decode the vague unsettled category, woman fan. In studying Katamon, she combined her socio-political and feminist orientation and knowledge. Efrat developed a feminist worldview as an adolescent; since then she understood social and political situations through this lens. Her decision to participate in the research and write a Master’s thesis (2011) on gender and fandom simultaneously fulfilled both her academic and sociopolitical interests. Unlike Tamar and Efrat, Tali had become a football fan in childhood yet had never developed loyalty to any club. She joined the study because of her interest in the issue of life-long loyalty to a chosen club—how and why fans develop and maintain this loyalty (2016). Being a free-floating fan not committed to any specific club, she did not feel like a foreigner in the fandom field. She awakened to gender and feminist issues in football fandom (and beyond (in the course of this research and subsequently questioned her gender blindness. Tali, with her mastery of football knowledge, believed that her knowledge would gain her a seat at the stands among the other fans. She fluently reproduces the very discourse that bars Tamar and Efrat from being accepted as equals; they felt it was too late for them to acquire the requisite coded fandom language as a mother tongue. Efrat initially utilizes defiance as a strategy for contending with the male world of football, but she resolves to stop waging a private campaign regarding gender

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and football. She leans instead into her social and family connections within the club, enjoying the family atmosphere, the many women and children in the stands and the ideological discourse interspersed in the football discourse. Tamar, aware of her feelings of fandom and bodily sensations, is a real fan in her own view, even if not in others’. She felt that her position as a researcher protected her and helped her handle and challenge doubts cast on her subjective perception of belonging. During all research stages of writing, discussing and analysing our autoethnographies, our gaze moved consciously both outward and inward, between a sense of belonging and a sense of foreignness, between we and I—the researcher-woman-fan. Yet, from any of these vantage points, we have no doubt of our right to claim belonging to the fandom field, slippery, vague and changing though our belonging might be. Here, where fandom is experienced, we claim the fandom field for ourselves as well. In view of this, the questioning of the authenticity and legitimacy of our fandom loses its validity.

References Allen, K. R., & Piercy, F. P. (2005). Feminist Autoethnography. In D. H. Sprenkle & F. P. Piercy (Eds.), Research Methods in Family Therapy (pp. 155–169). New York: Guilford Press. Bochner, A. P., & Ellis, C. (2006). Communication as Autoethnography. In G. J. Shepherd, J. S. John, & T. Striphas (Eds.), Communication as …: Perspectives on Theory (pp. 13–21). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Chang, H., Ngunjiri, F. W., & Hernandez, K. A. C. (2013). Collaborative Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Dixon, K. (2013). Learning the Game: Football Fandom Culture and the Origins of Practice. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 48(3), 334–348. Ellingson, L., & Ellis, C. (2008). Autoethnography as a Constructionist Project. In J. A. Holstein & J. F. Gubrium (Eds.), Handbook of Constructionist Research (pp. 445–465). New York: Guilford. Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. (2011). Autoethnography: An Overview [40 Paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative

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Social Research‚ 12(1), Art. 10. http://www.qualitative-research.net/index. php/fqs/article/view/1589/3095. Accessed 6 Nov 2019. Friedman, T. (2016). There Is a Hole in the Wall—How Football Fans Preserve Loyalty to Their Club (Hebrew). Ph.D. Dissertation, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Holt, N. L. (2003). Representation, Legitimation, and Autoethnography: An Autoethnographic Writing Story. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 2, 18–28. Mendez, M. (2013). Autoethnography as a Research Method: Advantages, Limitations and Criticisms. Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal , 15 (2). Noy, E. (2011). Gender in the Fandom Field—Being a Fan of Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem FC (Hebrew). M.A. Thesis, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Pace, S. (2012). Writing the Self into Research: Using Grounded Theory Analytic Strategies in Autoethnography. TEXT Journal Special Issue: Creativity: Cognitive, Social and Cultural Perspectives, 1, 1–15. Rapoport‚ T. (2016). Football Belongs to the Fans. An Investigative Journey Following Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem. Tel Aviv: Resling. Rubin, M. (2009). The Offside Rule—Women’s Bodies in Masculinized Spaces. In U. Pillay, R. Tomilson, & O. Bass (Eds.), Development and Dreams: The Urban Legacy of the 2010 Football World Cup (pp. 266–280). Cape Town: HSRC. Shalsky, S., & Alpert, B. (2007). Ways of Writing Qualitative Research: From Deconstructing Reality to Constructing It as Text (Hebrew). Tel- Aviv: Mofet Institute. Sparkes, A. C. (2000). Autoethnography and Narratives of Self: Reflections on Criteria in Action. Sociology of Sport Journal, 17, 21–43.

Women Do Fandom Their Way Tamar Rapoport and Daniel Regev

Over recent decades women have joined the football fandom field1 in growing numbers, paralleling their movement into other traditionally masculine strongholds such as the military and the corporate worlds. Lagging behind, social research and public discourse have not paid adequate attention to the attributes and meaning of the category, woman fan (see Pope 2010; Lenneis 2013; FREE 2012–2015; Rubin 2009; Jones 2008; Pfister et al. 2013; Mintert and Pfister 2015), resulting in

1 See

chapter “An Analytical Framework for Exploring Fandom”, this anthology, for a discussion of fandom field.

T. Rapoport The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected] D. Regev (B) Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel © The Author(s) 2020 T. Rapoport (ed.), Doing Fandom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46870-5_6

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limited knowledge of how women football fans experience and perform the practice of fandom.2 Fandom is conceived of as an almost innate disposition and natural expression of manhood and masculinity, so that reference to women’s fandom is commonly based on comparing their doing fandom with the hegemonic male model of the “authentic fan”—one who is committed and loyal to his club and performs the practices of fandom properly. Thus women fans essentially have little choice but to perform and experience their fandom in relation to this sole, male model of doing fandom (Rapoport 2016). With this in mind, our research investigated the pathways women follow in doing fandom with a focus on two primary questions: How do women perform fandom in the hyper-masculine3 football arena? When doing fandom, do they conform to, deviate or challenge the gendered structure inherent in the hegemonic male fandom model and if so, in what ways? These questions were at the centre of our (2006–2013) ethnographic study of Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem FC (see Preface)—the fan-owned, community-based club founded on an anti-capitalist, democratic, nonviolent and non-sexist4 agenda. The club explicitly invites and welcomes women’s participation and attendance at matches.5 The welcoming agenda creates a genial atmosphere in the stands that is free of aggressive and (explicit) sexist behaviour. Indeed this environment encourages women, families with children of all ages to attend matches.6 Many of Katamon’s women fans are first-timers, with the vast majority lacking the habitus of doing fandom. Exploring how veterans, especially novice women fans of all ages, perform and experience fandom in a club that

2 Arguing

repeatedly that there is a dearth of research on women fans, increasingly more women researchers have recently been interested in this issue—see, for example, Lenneis (2013), Mintert and Pfister (2015). 3 See Note 2, chapter “An Analytical Framework for Exploring Fandom”. 4The club does not have an explicit anti-sexist agenda although its anti-sexism is implicit. In our observations and personal experiences in the stands, we have encountered no sexist offenses, neither physical nor verbal. 5 Women and children do not pay for tickets. 6The Israeli media, fans of other football clubs and visitors from abroad attending Katamon games often express admiration of the prevailing familial-communal atmosphere in the stands.

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aims for gender equality allows insights to be gained regarding women’s fandom more generally.

Doing Fandom in a Foreign Land Inspired by West and Zimmerman’s (1987) conceptualization of doing gender, by now a classic in the discussion of performing gender, gender regime and behavioural practices, we have coined the term, doing fandom.7 According to West and Zimmerman, gender is in what one does: It is enacted through routine social interactions and performed in accordance with social-historical norms and structures that create the hierarchy between male and female categories. Doing gender thus re-establishes and re-legitimizes the hierarchical gendered social order. Furthermore, the norms and values that reconstitute and reproduce womanhood, the label “women” and gender relations are shaped by social expectations and rewards through which a woman is accountable for her performance of gender and for her visibility in the public sphere (see also Pfister et al. 2013). Women are supposed to adopt and fulfil gendered expectations (see Lenneis 2013) while their performance is constantly evaluated and compared especially with men’s but also with other women’s performance of gender. Yet doing gender and doing fandom do not always reproduce existing gendered structures; they may also challenge the binary, hierarchical gender regime by deviating from its directives. Our intention in coining the term “doing fandom” is to highlight that fandom is first and foremost a performance and, specifically, one whose manifestations are embedded in the very visibility of bodily doings within the fandom field. Fandom, then, is the story of a bodily movement in space to perform practices—eyes following a ball, sweaty bodies moving together while singing out loud, stomachs churning after a loss or physical euphoria on scoring a goal.

7 See

chapter “An Analytical Framework for Exploring Fandom”, this anthology, for a discussion of this term and of the practice approach.

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Given the inseparability of doing fandom and doing gender, our conceptualization of doing fandom emphasizes both the sociocultural meanings and practices embodied in the gendered bodily practices of fandom. In studying how women fans do football fandom, then, one needs to examine not only the practices they perform but also their experiences and perceptions of doing fandom. This entails looking at how women perceive and manage their behaviour in the gendered fandom field, given that the fandom field is not their natural territory and fandom is not their native tongue. The following dialogue is taken from one of many extensive conversations between Tamar and Efrat, two of the women fans-researchers who conducted the study. Tamar: Even though I feel Katamon is like a home for me, I will never be seen here as an ‘authentic fan’. Efrat: Your fandom will never be like your native tongue. You might learn the language but you will always have an accent.

Tamar expressed her frustration that as a new fan and researcher in her sixties, she would always be seen and treated as a stranger in the stadium, never as a true fan. Nodding her head in agreement, Efrat (in her thirties) confirmed that her experiences were similar. They agreed that their experience tells them that because they are women, they will never be accepted as authentic fans: The social eye and ear of the men fans, they concurred, are not (yet) trained to see and hear a woman fan, certainly not a woman researcher, in the crowded, sweaty, adrenalinedrenched hyper-masculine stadium (Poulton 2012), a stronghold that cultivates, fuels and preserves the gendered regime. Indeed, sports play an essential role in creating and preserving the gendered regime and excluding women from the fandom field. Studies of football history have shown consistently that since its inception, the game has reconstituted and preserved gender dichotomy and hierarchy (Williams 2007; King 1997) by erecting normative, cultural, as well as physical barriers to the inclusion of women (Gosling 2007). These barriers to the recognition of women as proper fans (Birrell 2000) are reinforced by public discourse and sexist messages communicated by

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printed and electronic media, which contribute to the objectification of women fans and to re-establishing women’s marginality as fans in the stands. This is particularly apparent in the photo and video representations of women fans who participated in World Cups by the world media that tend to focus on the few women who choose to bare their bodies, ignoring the majority of women fans who dress similarly to the men fans. By highlighting women’s sexual visibility, the press and electronic media recreate the connection among football fandom, gender and sexuality, reinforcing the binary hierarchical definition of the gendered categories in the football world (and in sports more generally). However, the sexualization of women’s bodies appears to have become more moderate recently following the resistance of women football fans and players to being objectified and the change in the discourse about how they should be represented. Furthermore, the growing and louder feminist discourse, the increase in women’s economic value to football and the surge of their protest destabilizes the normative gendered power structure in football. The strong voice of women fans and players resists and challenges the way they are represented. Thus, for example, on an internet page titled, “100 Hot Female Fans” published by FIFA showing images of women fans at the last World Cup, the cameras focus on their faces and beauty and less on their sexy bodies.8 Yet, women fans are still regarded as foreigners in the fandom field and, as such, as failing to speak the native fandom language correctly. They are highly aware of the suspicious male gaze directed at them in the fandom field and they are self-conscious about their performance of the fandom practices (Gaffney and Mascarenhas 2005; Sandvoss 2005). For instance, Sigal, who depicted herself in the interview as “very feminist”, talked about men’s exclusionary behaviour towards her and other women fans when they try to participate in a discussion about football. She explained why she has decided to remain silent when men fans converse about football: Several failed attempts at participation have taught her that she risks being perceived as an oddity. Yet in a certain respect Sigal’s silence frees her from the scrutinizing gaze of men, allowing her, in her 8 See

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndch86bFDlE and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= 7Y0a5gZXE3w.

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words, “to forget they’re even there”. Sigal keeps her knowledge of the game to herself and performs fandom in her own way. For men, however, the language of fandom is embodied and habitual; it is their native language inculcated and learned through the body from an early age. Men fans develop a sense of ownership over the fandom field and experience it as naturally belonging to them; they never question their presence or their right to it. By contrast, most women do not acquire fandom at a young age, are often discouraged from associating themselves with football and do not regard their fandom in this entitled manner. Because fandom is women’s second language, they constantly have to prove both to themselves and to others that they are fluent in the language and therefore belong in the fandom field. Thus, even women who successfully imitate men’s practices can never pass as authentic fans. They are often suspected of impersonation and boundary-crossing and never regarded as the proprietors, natives or authentic fans. It follows that women’s very presence at the stadium is questioned: They are often thought to be “hitchhiking”9 —escorting men fans, coming to hunt for a male partner or merely seeking fun on a Friday afternoon. Women’s performance, as said above, is evaluated on the one hand in comparison with the manner that men fans (the indigenous practitioners) do fandom and, on the other hand, by considering how well this performance fulfils conventional gendered social expectations and dictates. Thus their contribution to fandom and the club is perceived as secondary or even insignificant and their presence in the stands is far from normalized. Indeed, a woman is entrapped in the stands (Rubin 2009): If she engages in “proper feminine behaviour”, she puts herself at risk of being marked a fake fan. If she fervently adopts the masculine bodily practices and dares to cross the gendered boundaries by demonstrating fluency and understanding of fandom, she is perceived as unladylike, not a real woman, and labelled “a masculine woman”

9 In

the language of Katamon FC, a hitchhiker is someone who takes advantage of the efforts of others.

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or “butch”.10 This labelling, based on bodily visibility, reveals the risks entailed in boundary-crossing.

The Visibility of Fandom A football game is a visual event and an audio-visual experience for fans. Seeing and being seen, observing and being observed are inseparable from the event transpiring in the fandom field. A discussion of visibility is thus intrinsic to the discussion of the body executing fandom. Visibility plays a critical role in determining belonging, affiliation and recognition based on established signifiers. It contributes to defining mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion and social boundaries. Hence, visibility touches on the moral fundaments of evaluating belonging. Visibility occurs in the encounter between the gaze of the observer and that of the subject observed. Foucault (1980) interpreted the gaze conceptually as a metaphor for ways the observer can exercise influence over the subject—penetrate its body, define, punish or label it. Per Foucault, the disciplinary, regulatory gaze is manifested within structures of social power, and is thus always political. The gaze calls attention to fandom by delineating its symbolic and social boundaries; it traces the gendered outline marking types and levels of social affiliation and allegiance at both the individual and group level. As subjects (and fans), we internalize the gaze that controls and directs our behaviour. The supervising look, however, can also be evaded and resisted by linguistic and physical means: Women fans may return a gaze and reject its disciplinary power in the fandom field by performing diversionary bodily practices. As a social-cultural text, fans’ bodies in the stands are subject to evaluation and interpretation. This kind of marking is based on identifying bodily signs that are directly visible (Goffman 1963). However, research into fandom in sports has largely passed over the body, and research into the body has passed over fandom. This is rather surprising, given that

10 Women athletes are also subject to the masculine gaze, which forces them to move between the athletic practices and externalised practices of femininity and sexuality (see, e.g., Cox and Thompson 2000).

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as an embodied experience, fandom is learnt, created, performed, made visible and evaluated through the body. Yet as Hirsch contends that while a man’s body is unmarked, that is, perceived as neutral, universal and thus allegedly genderless, in contrast, a woman’s body is marked, and thus women’s consciousness of the bodily existence of human experience is stronger (Hirsch 2010: xi). The marking often excludes women from participating in the brotherhood of fandom, which is often realized among men through bodily practices such as jumping and hugging to celebrate a goal or physically rubbing up against one another. Dana, a third-generation hardcore fan is an enthusiastic supporter of the Katamon club. During her interview, she stressed that football is at the centre of her life, and tried to convince the interviewer of the minor role played by her visible body in the fandom field, in fact, demonstrating by her very ambivalence how important it is. Dana, generally perceived as an attractive woman, said that her male buddies at the club protect her from the sexist reactions of men from other clubs. She categorically ruled out the possibility that a Katamon male fan could stare at her in the stadium, emphasizing how exceptional that is and how different from her experience of being stared at in the street. Dana performs her fandom in the stands in the very midst of the Ultras. She is acutely aware of being a pretty woman whose presence attracts attention: “I know that [my body] … stands out and somehow makes me very different within the club […] but I don’t think that my appearance differentiates me as a fan […] It’s just more photogenic, it’s nicer on the eye”. Dana is struggling to articulate an impossible differentiation between her visibility as a woman and her (in)visibility as a fan. In an attempt to legitimize her fandom practices by claiming they were no different from those of men fans, she tried to draw yet another untenable distinction, namely, between her fandom practices and her being a photogenic, visible woman fan. While Dana and the other women are proudly presented by Katamon as symbols of true participation, partnership and gender equality, women fans do not attain the status of authentic fans. We elucidate this contradiction in terms of tokenism.

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Tokens in the Fandom Field According to Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s (1977) book regarding women in the workplace, Men and Women of the Corporation, the presence of women in a non-traditional, male-dominated arena can be understood as being a mere token. The symbolic effort intended seemingly to equalize opportunity by allocating positions to women, is nothing but a token, an effort or gesture, as it does not obliterate the gendered power structure. Although women are an important addition to the community of fans, their presence in the stands only gives the appearance of gender equality. Our claim is that women’s noticeable visibility at matches, in Katamon, for instance, mainly serves the agenda and interests of the male-dominated club. Their relatively high, but often exaggerated estimated attendance level is publicized as proof of the club’s success in actualizing its liberal agenda. Nonetheless, women are not considered authentic fans and their presence does not necessarily remove the multiple barriers (structural, symbolic, relational, etc.) they face. In his interview, Nathan, a fervent male fan of Katamon and one of the club’s founders, explained why and how he looks upon women fans with suspicion: The truth is that I don’t believe many women fans when they present themselves as hardcore fans. When I see a woman in the midst of the [hardcore, Ultras] block of cheering and cursing fans [ … ] it looks fake to me. If she is sitting on the side and wearing the right colors, it’s OK, but standing and cursing? I don’t buy it. It’s not right, not right [ … ] I have a feeling that I have sensors for recognizing who is a real [fan] and who isn’t. I need to see it with my own eyes [our emphasis]. [It is ok ] to remain a woman, be a fan, but keep quiet about it.

Nathan came up with a conventional recipe for how a woman is supposed to do fandom and be seen in the fandom field: Women are welcome in the stadium but must know their place; they can exhibit their fandom but behave as expected of them as women, and, in particular, not try to imitate male fandom behaviour. As long as a woman fan does not attempt to pass as a man fan, Nathan says he “is fine with it”,

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but if she performs fandom practices that are normative for men (such as cursing), he finds that wrong. In such an attempt to pass, she would be crossing the gender line and breaching what is expected of her as a female. A prime example of tokenism, albeit uncommon, is furnished by a penalty imposed on a football club whereby only women and children are permitted to attend.11 This no-men-allowed policy was imposed between 2011 and 2014 by the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) and other policy makers (local and international) to penalize men fans and their club for unruly behaviour (see Nuhrat, part “The Gendering of Fandom”). The penalty procedure, which seemingly supports women’s fandom, can be seen as a cynical utilization of women who love football and can be viewed as tokenism. Nuhrat’s analysis clearly shows that while the women are subjected to the gaze of the Turkish men fans at mixed-audience games, when men are not there to relegate them to “their proper place”, they allow themselves to behave like men (or women); when left alone, women engage in passing behaviour, imitating males’ practices with no one reacting to their attempts to pass. This telling case demonstrates that within the cultural discourse and the fandom field, the meaning of women’s fandom is gauged in terms of passing. Using the conceptualization of passing allows us to clarify if, why and how women fans adopt or discard customary male practices of fandom.

Passing: A Conceptual Lens for Exploring Doing Fandom The term to pass has two related denotations—to cross categories of identity (woman–man, black-white, lesbian-heterosexual woman, and the like) and to be accepted. The crosser aims to perform the desired practices and identity in a manner credible to others, a manner viewed as legitimate and authentic. The term “passing” was introduced by sociologist scholars of the Symbolic Interaction School and underwent further 11 www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwJNV3vgJNM;

13 Dec 2019.

www.imdb.com/title/tt0499537. Last accessed

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extensive development. Focusing mainly on day-to-day practices of interaction ant rituals, the concept connotes a human attempt to conceal a social stigma in an effort to appear and be perceived as being part of the dominant (not stigmatized) group, and thus to pass from a category which is normatively lower to a higher, more desirable one. The term indicates a behavioural attempt to change and be successful in crossing a boundary, for example, from one ethnicity (Sasson-Levy and Shoshana 2013), race (Fanon 1952) class or from one age group to another. Those who seemingly pass successfully are ever-occupied in hiding the social signifiers that trigger their labelling. They are perpetually sensitive, but not necessarily consciously so, to the permanent risk of being exposed as impersonators. The ethnomethodologist Harold Garfinkel (1967) treated passing as a strenuous, continuous effort demanding secrecy and complex behavioural maneuvering. The effort the passers invest in passing is justified as worthwhile, as exposure would sully the attempt to pass social borders (Garfinkel: 136); the discovery of passing might undermine the passer morally. The renowned sociologist Erving Goffman (1963) dealt extensively with the phenomenon of passing, especially in his book Stigma.12 In discussing everyday coping techniques and strategies with social stigma by groups having socially discredited reputations, Goffman identifies a number of possible techniques employed in the attempt to pass, specifically, concealing one’s “true identity”, hiding stigmatic signifiers and replacing them through impersonation (Renfrow 2004). Those who are perceived as passing successfully and recognized as belonging to the new desired group or category seem to enjoy privileges that people automatically in that group enjoy with no effort and, indeed, take for granted. Even so, it is impossible to pass perfectly, just as a woman fan (metaphorically) or adult immigrant (literally) cannot obliterate an accent even with great effort. According to Franz Fanon (1952), impersonation or imitation does not truly enable one to cross racial boundaries. Some residue is everpresent even if the subject completely adopts the normative patterns of 12 Discussing

issues related to gender display in advertising, Goffman (1979) defines it as a way to conceptualise the manner in which individuals act in a gender-appropriate manner.

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conduct. Passing thus means existing in a state of perpetual “almost”. Embarking from the post-colonial perspective, Fanon uses the term “mimicry“ to understand passing in the context of interracial relations. His primary focus is on the black man who, by using imitation, aspires to remove the boundaries between black and non-black (white). He claims that because society and racial relations in particular are based on power relations, domination, labelling and exclusion, there is rather limited maneuvering space for the labelled person. Much like those attempting to pass between races or ethnicities, women in the fandom field are placed under the constant test of authenticity and belonging due to their visible otherness. The feminist philosopher Judith Butler (1990) dealt extensively with the issue of gender passing from a post-structural perspective. Butler has contributed directly to the academic and political discourse on gendercrossing. Elaborating on the concepts of performance and performativity in gender analysis, she embraces a dramaturgical approach, paying particular attention, like Fanon and unlike Goffman, to the gender power regime. Developing the meaning of transgressing gender boundaries, Butler maintains that in her attempt to pass, a woman escapes neither the conditions for her subjugation nor the power relations which doom her attempt to renounce her assigned categorization to failure. At the same time, Butler discusses how passing exposes the failure of the heterosexual hegemonic regime to maintain its own ideals of gender. Thus, according to Butler, in passing, the body reproduces gender categories, but at the same time passing challenges the binary gendered social order. Studying drag performance, Butler demonstrates how politicized gender boundaries are traversed by subjecting the gendered body and its arbitrary social signifiers to parody. The gap created between the gender of the person attempting to pass and that of the category being passed into, may alter the discursive meaning of the subjugation, but the binary nature of the gender categories itself remains firmly in place. In other words, though drag performance is an act of gender transgression and represents a struggle against the meaning of the “means of production” of gender categories, it does not undermine the conditions that facilitate the binary gender regime, or its social reproduction.

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In keeping with the constructivist approach, Butler (1990: 174) contends that gender is a cultural construct with no a priori existence; it is created and accomplished through social interaction. Thus bodily practices are interpreted as a product of the person who employs them. Gender identity, Butler explicitly states, is what one does in presenting oneself to others and not what one really is (see also West and Zimmerman 1987). The visible otherness of the gendered body both internalizes and externally expresses social and personal significations, offering the occasional opportunity to subvert and challenge them while simultaneously preserving the individual and group identity and visibility.13 The notion of passing as conceived from different scholarly perspectives interfaces with the concepts of the gaze, the body and (bodily) visibility. We embarked from these concepts to analyze the bodily practices that the women fans employ. Specifically, we revealed and classified the different practices they use in doing fandom, and whether and how they reproduce, alter or depart altogether from what is regarded as authentic fandom.

Passing Practices of Women Fans The reading of our interview transcripts and field notes reveals three primary practices that women fans deploy in their fandom, each reflecting a distinct mode of practice as well as a certain disassociation from the gender regime of fandom. As we will demonstrate, many women fans try to adopt the masculine model of fandom, while others embrace it partially or diverge entirely from it. The three practices are distinct but not mutually exclusive: (1) Mimesis—Attempt to adopt 13 Examining

the issue of passing empirically, Lovell (2000) has studied historical cases of women posing as male soldiers in the military, the second major bastion of masculinity. Exploring the possibility of passing in this hyper-masculine arena in the context of Bourdieu’s theory of habitus, Lovell asks if indeed habitus functions to instill class, gender, ethnicity and other categories, how is it possible to imitate successfully and pose as belonging to another category? Enlisting Butler’s (1993) theory of performativity to address this question, she suggests that impersonation and emulation are performative acts which challenge the allegedly solid foundations and presuppositions on which the habitus rests.

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masculine performative practices (copying the “original”) (2) Selection— Perform certain selected practices from the available “fandom toolkit” (choice), and (3) Presence—Merely attend games without feeling bound to perform additional practices. These modes of doing fandom (and others) are dynamic and flexible. Practices might differ not only according to gender, but also according to a fan’s sense of belonging, during the course of a game and between games, according to the person’s fandom career and age. (1) Mimesis Mimesis is the practice typifying women fans who truly endeavour to pass, who do their best to perform practices associated with the standard male model and to be recognized as real fans. Closely imitating men fans, they strive to eliminate attention to themselves as women by trying to blend into the community, neutralizing their gender and visibility in the fandom field. Since they impersonate men fans, these women cannot be perceived as real fans under any circumstances because by performing masculinity as women they create a different version of “doing masculinity”. They thus practice a variant of doing fandom that challenges the purportedly natural link between masculinity and fandom; at the same time, their doing fandom exposes the arbitrary construction of gender. Not being men but being quasi men fans, being like men but not really, these women fans embody the gender gap and are reminders of it. An interesting case of a failed attempt by women fans to take on male practices was at a match between the national football teams of Iran and Bahrain (June 2005). The Iranian women were barred from attending: The official reason given was that attendance would harm their modesty. Using practices such as donning male clothing, penciling in moustaches, remaining silent and hiding in the bus to the stadium these young Iranian women tried to hide their gendered bodies and attempted to pass as men fans. Their “real” gender, however, was identified right at the gates of the stadium by the security men, who expelled them from the fandom field to a temporary paddock outside the stadium wall. While performing fandom as they stood outside the stadium, they protested their exclusion

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by coordinating their shouts with the men’s screams coming from the stadium.14 Turning to women fans in the Katamon club, Jerusalem, we meet Shiran, a veteran woman fan of Katamon. We observed how she was totally engaged in the game, immersed in performing fandom “like a man”—shouting, cursing, jumping and so on. Hearing her raising her voice and screams over a referee’s decision about an offside, more than a few spectators turned heads her way. In the interview immediately following the game, Shiran said that as far as she was concerned, cursing the referee was an automatic and “natural” response for any real fan, including her. The following quote illustrates her strong belief that her fandom allows her to pass as an authentic fan and shed her visibility: I don’t feel I am seen, not at all. I think that when you saw me [she told the interviewer] I was yelling like anybody else in the stands. I climbed down a few rows, took off my hat and went up to curse the linesman […] It feels a bit strange when I realise that I’m surrounded only by men, but I’m not doing it just so people see there is a woman [among the serious fans]; I really enjoy cheering for the team and see [my support as] [ … ] important to it [… ] It is strange for me to be almost the only woman but it does not affect me.

The fandom practices of women like Shiran tear at the overlap between the gendered body and its performative visibility and challenge it. Nonetheless, Shiran’s claim that she acts like men fans “not just so they’ll see there is a woman [in the stands who really knows how to perform fandom seriously]” indicates that this overlap remains firmly in place. Ruth, who opposes the emulation of male supporters, criticized woman like Shiran at her interview: “I am very critical of all those women who come wearing … ten scarves and three shirts layered on top of each other to show that they are real participants; that’s just like Tzipi Livni [a former senior Israeli woman politician] who tried to show that she had become a genuine masculine minister, a sort of military 14This event is documented in a the film, ‘Offside’ by Jafar Panahi (2006): https://www.imdb. com/title/tt0499537. Accessed 26 Dec 2019.

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woman”. Ruth’s gaze, like that of men fans, barely leaves breathing room for women fans like Shiran, who are often rejected by men and women fans alike and accused of imitation bordering on fakeness. Like Shiran, Dana is invested in cheering for her team. “You cannot sit idly on the sidelines and not cheer [ … ] I don’t have the right to not sit in the stands with those cheering”, she told the interviewer. When she was asked if there is any type of behaviour which she avoids, like cursing or making certain gestures, she offered an indirect answer riddled with inconsistencies reflecting her reluctance to address the issue directly: “No doubt, I think I do it [but] more elegantly and not as aggressively … but I do everything [ … ] let’s put it this way … there are a lot of things I would like to do but don’t”. Though Dana would like to come in shorts and a tank top and take off my shirt like men do, she refrains from this behaviour as the reactions it would illicit would create an intolerable situation. She emphasized that other than these practices, she does everything men fans do. Despite Dana’s best intentions, however, as her foregoing comments demonstrate, overexposure of the woman’s body within the fandom field would be met with a direct, scrutinizing gaze. During the entire interview, she conveyed an imagined reality in which women do fandom like men, but without the prevailing gendered connotations and consequences deriving from visibility. At the same time, Dana, is well aware of the reality in the stands, where the gendered regime precludes successful passing. Attempts to pass in another hyper-masculine field, the army, were examined by Orna Sasson-Levy (2006),15 who looked at the bodily practices and appearance of women soldiers serving in combat roles in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Sasson-Levy found that many women in this situation embrace male patterns of behaviour and, in so doing, find strength and proof of their alleged equality. By their imitation and embrace of male performativity, however, the women soldiers inadvertently participate in the masculine discourse about soldiering, gender and the army, which had initially excluded them and assigned them inferior positions.

15 For

more on this subject, see Lovell, Note 13.

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Moreover, women’s service in non-traditional, male-dominated roles in the IDF can be understood as being a mere token (as discussed earlier). The allocation of traditional male roles to females, particularly combat roles, is a token effort aimed at demonstrating the liberal gender ideology of the armed forces.16 (2) Selection The second mode of doing fandom is the most widely used: It consists of performing only certain practices but not others, for example, singing and jumping, but not getting into a fight or shouting loudly. Each woman fan compiles a dynamic set of practices for herself and thus creates her individual fandom toolkit that its content might change between games. Implementing a selection of male practices, the woman fan shapes her doing of fandom in accordance with her experiences in the stadium, personal circumstances and dispositions. The woman fan thus manages how and when she will be visible and evaluated. In this way, Rivka, one of the few women fans belonging to the national-religious camp in Jerusalem, generally behaves and dresses modestly in the public sphere, including the stadium, in line with her and her community’s expectations. She thus practices in accordance with this goal. A particularly interesting rationale for using this practice was suggested by many women interviewees who directly compared their way of doing fandom to the mens’. They proposed that doing fandom should be kept in due proportion. Per Yael, “Losing a game does not depress me for the rest of the day; you have to keep going with your life—you cannot afford to have such a thing be of such great import”. Similarly, per Ronit: “Football is not truly connected to my real life. I believe that in the case of men fans … [a match] can be a very significant experience, even when they are not physically present in the stands”. These women did not denounce male fan practices and commitment, but rather, criticized their application in excess: “I very much like to attend matches, but I would never stand in the rain”, said Miriam, defining the limits of her commitment. 16 Women’s service in such roles in the army is heavily debated in Israeli society, the main reason against it, as voiced by religious groups, being that it jeopardizes women’s modesty.

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Speaking ironically of men’s excesses and their fanaticism, the women avoid the option of attempting to pass. Keeping their practices in due proportion, they subvert the monolithic manifestation of the fandom toolkit, offering a more flexible, relaxed definition, more loosely based on the repertoire of chosen practices. The women fans found the notion of “keeping things [fandom] in due proportion” useful in comparing their fandom performance not only to men fans but also to their daily activities outside the fandom field. In consciously tempering her practices and thereby managing her visibility, Idit has opted out of performing authentic fandom. In a break from her self-professed inclination towards totality and obsessiveness, this choice, according to Idit, has allowed her to take it down a notch. Managing their fandom by selection, Idit and other women say they enjoy comfort and release in the fandom field from their routine public performance outside of it. Paradoxically, as we shall discuss shortly, it is in the fandom field that they temporarily experience relief from pressures they experience in other arenas in the public sphere. (3) Presence The third practice is being visible and present in the stands. We deem this practice to be particularly revealing, as it embodies feminist positioning with respect to visibility and the hegemonic male model of fandom. The first two fandom practices reside within the territory of this model, while this third practice steps outside the fandom toolkit. Making almost no attempt to conform to the male model and attaching no particular importance to doing so the women who employ this practice release themselves almost completely from the expectations and endeavour of passing. They are aware of and accept that—destined to retain an accent—they will never become native speakers of the fandom language. In their view, there is no flaw or disadvantage to their mode of fandom, since they view themselves as serious supporters of the club, as keenly interested in its sportive achievements and as no less authentic than other men and women fans. According to them, the designation, “real fan” should be subjective and not objective.

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Tamar is one of the fans that use this practice. Aware of tokenism, she believes that her presence and the presence of other women in the fandom field of their beloved club are of highest importance. The club’s achievements, success and continued existence are as important to her as to men fans, she stated. It is Tamar’s hope that the visibly of a large turnout of supporters in the fandom field—women and men—will not be used as a token but attests to the social and political significance of her club’s agenda: “For me”, she told the interviewer, “the most important thing about being a Katamon fan is attending and supporting the club, so that people see that our club’s membership is large; its continuity is highly important to me in a Jerusalem that is turning rapidly into a religious and non-liberal city”. Tamar defines herself as a “feminist ideological fan”. She does not attempt, nor would she ever try, she said, to adopt the habitus of fandom: “It is very clear to me that I neither wish nor am able to do fandom in the way that men do [ … ] if I jumped and shouted, I would look ridiculous to myself, and certainly so to other fans, but I have the right to claim that I am a real fan”. Efrat, many years younger than Tamar, also described herself as a political-feminist, leftist fan. She related how immediately after becoming a Katamon fan, she consciously strove to do fandom like an authentic male fan: “My motivation was to prove that by traversing gendered categories, gender equality is possible, that we women can also understand football and be fans like men”. Efrat was quick to realize, however, that in her very attempt to support the club like a man, she unintendedly reproduced the gendered dichotomy, visibility and stereotypes: “I understood that my drive to prove the possibility of gender equality by imitating male practices was a result of my own internalization of the external male gaze”. Consequently, Efrat consciously gave up her attempt pass and make visible her ideology in gender equality, she chose instead to participate and be visible in the fandom field as a woman. She suggested that the non-violent nature of the Katamonian fandom field allowed her to formulate a different non-masculine form of fandom; like other women, she does fandom in her own way. Edna, another self-identified feminist, ruled out any attempt to pass as a man from the outset. In her interview, she claimed that though it is easy for a woman to pass as an authentic fan, which she has seen women

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do successfully, this holds no interest for her: “I can fake it [fandom] in a second”, she dismissively claimed, borrowing a Hebrew expression referencing women’s ability to fake an orgasm. Though passing according to her is possible and easy, she cannot ignore the deception entailed in imitation, and therefore chooses to abstain from “the passing game”. Women who chose their presence as their primary mode of fandom are particularly reflective; they are well aware that passing is the only path open to them and to other women who do fandom, that passing reproduces the gendered structure and that doing fandom like a man feels like speaking a foreign language. The conscious resistance and criticism of passing paradoxically confirms that, in doing fandom, women are expected to pass.

Relaxing in the Permission Zone When I am in the stadium, the whole world out there just disappears. (Anat)

The above quote communicates Anat’s attempt to convey to the interviewer how her experiences in the stadium differ from those outside of it. The disappearance of the exterior world when a fan is within the stadium occurs, as Anat put it, because the stadium operates as a permission zone (Ben Porat 2009) in which the dominant norms of behaviour are distinct from those of other sociocultural spaces in the public sphere. According to Ben Porat enlightening concept, the term denotes a relatively autonomous behavioural and emotional domain of sociocultural and political behaviour and activity having its own logic and regularity. In this arena, fans are allowed, and allow themselves, to perform in non-traditional and even unexpected ways that are barred outside the stadium. For example, alongside performing clichéd male behaviour, men fans publicly demonstrate intense emotionality and bodily intimacy: They embrace strangers, cry and laugh, shout and jump and expose their upper bodies. They are allowed to violate normative bodily and emotional dictates, both social and cultural, without risking punishment

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or being labelled feminine or bizarre. This behavioural and emotional legitimacy is granted for only a relatively short period of time in the confined space of the stadium. Ben Porat’s (2007) conceptualization of a permission zone applies mainly to the behaviour of men fans. Nevertheless, we contend that it is instructive for understanding women’s fandom. We suggest that in the permission zone, women undo gender norms temporarily. Women’s fandom is not regulated, is unrestricted by habitus and is free of veneration or historical–cultural precedent. Thus women fans have the benefit of a wider range of fandom practices to choose from and greater breathing room for performing fandom. Relative to their practices in their day-to-day life and their experiences outside the stands as mothers and wives, for example, in the stadium, women fans experience fewer and less imposing demands for accountability for their behaviour. Moreover, sanctions imposed upon them in the fandom field have little bearing on their life outside that is, on their off-field reputation, social status or self-regard. Thus paradoxically, women’s foreignness in the fandom field grants them freedom to suspend and release themselves temporarily and partially from the hegemonic model of fandom and to relax their fandom performance. The lack of a pre-existing model for women’s fandom and the overarching impossibility of truly passing enable them to experience a sense that we term “gender relaxation”. Our contention concerning the relaxation of doing gender departs from West and Zimmerman (1987), who view doing gender as a continuous endeavour, a ceaseless reproduction of gender. The subject of undoing gender has gained attention in gender research. The discussions of doing and undoing gender are inter-linked, with both aiming to understand how gender categories emerge, are reproduced and undone. Butler (2004) as well as Deutch (2007), each from different analytical standpoints, call on researchers to shift from talk about doing gender to illuminating how gender is done and undone. A similar argument had previously been raised by Riessman (1987) and Hirschauer (1994, 2001) who proposed that paying attention to undoing

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gender would advance and enrich research related to doing gender.17 Following their idea that undoing gender needs to be explored, we suggest that there are contexts and particularly sociocultural enclaves in which gender can be undone whether partially or fully. This is the case, for instance, in situations in which gender identity is “forgotten” or set aside consciously or not. The idea of gender relaxation in the fandom field points to women’s agency. By making space to undo the performance of fandom, women disrupt the taken-for-granted gendered regime of the fandom field. Nonetheless, as long as gender categories are hierarchical and powerrelated, passing fully will remain impossible, as the gender structure resists and rejects transformation wherever there is a hegemonic model of doing to which women are expected to conform. Even if the gendered structure of accountability were to transform, gender differences and gender itself would not vanish. Thus, according to West and Zimmerman (1987, 2009), gender may be redone but never undone. An alternative utopic model for women’s fandom was articulated by Anna a Katamon fan, who re-emphasized during the interview that she is a feminist. Speaking in a collective voice—on behalf of women in general, she said: “We [women fans] don’t come to the game to be like men who come to football … We want to come as women who come to football matches, to be a woman at a game, and not a ‘man-woman’ [our emphasis]”. Anna expressed a desire to be a fan unoccupied with passing and at the same time she discarded the convention that women’s fandom should be based on femininity. Instead, when it comes to doing fandom, she wished that gender were devoid of power relations. Her utopia could be realized, it would seem, only when the gender order is transformed. The day seems far off. Until Anna’s utopia is realized, we propose that social research utilize the conceptualizations of passing across gender boundaries and doing and undoing gender to study other hyper-masculine arenas (the military, for instance) and organizations (businesses, corporations and sports). Moreover, research of child and men fans in football and other sports 17 In

her book Undoing Gender, Butler (2004) focuses on how gender is continuously undone from a different perspective with possible disruptions of the binary concepts of gender.

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might be enriched by using these concepts to unveil the gendered fundamentals of performing fandom and of the fandom field as well as the meanings and experiences of fandom. Given the rapid increase in the number of women who define themselves as football fans, the question arising here is whether and under what conditions a new model of fandom might emerge. The typical female sports fan remains notably different from her male counterparts. As Markovits and Albertson (2012), too, argue, even as bona fide fans, they talk sports differently from and remain largely unaccepted by men. Based on what we know to date, we may speculate that men will defend to the end one of the few bastions where their hegemony is not yet at risk. They might receive women with arms more widely open, but women, through their presence, will continue to be held up as proof of equality, yet to be tokens. However, women fans will keep attending games because they like football and enjoy the sense of freedom that the permission zone affords them.

References Ben Porat, A. (2007). Oh, What a Delightful Game. Israeli Football Fans. (Hebrew). Haifa: Pardes. Ben Porat, A. (2009). Not Just for Men: Israeli Women Who Fancy Football. Soccer & Society, 10 (6), 883–896. Birrell, S. (2000). Femnist Theories for Sport. In J. Coakley & E. Dunning (Eds.), Handbook of Sport Studies, 61–76. London: Sage. Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (1993). Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (2004). Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge. Cox, P., & Thompson, S. (2000). Multiple Bodies: Sports Women, Soccer and Sexuality. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 35 (1), 5–20. Deutch, F. M. (2007). Undoing Gender. Gender & Society, 21, 106–127. Fanon, F. (1952). Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977 . London: Harvester Press.

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FREE - Football Research in an Enlarged Europe. (2012–2015). Identity Dynamics, Perception Patterns and Cultural Change in Europe’s Most Prominent form of Popular Culture. Gaffney, C., & Mascarenhas, G. (2005). The Soccer Stadium as a Disciplinary Space. Esporte e Sociedade, 1 (1). Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs: PrenticeHall. Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the Social Organization of Spoiled Identity. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Goffman, E. (1979) Gender Advertisements. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press [hardback]; New York: Harper and Row [paperback]. Gosling, V. K. (2007). Girls Allowed? The Marginalization of Female Sports Fans. In J. Gray, C. Sandvoss, & C. L. Harrington (Eds.), Fandom: Identities and Communities (pp. 250–260). New York: NYU Press. Hirsch, D. (2010). Body and Cultures: Outline of a Thriving Academic Succession. In Body and Cultures: Traditions, Questions, Problems: A Reader (Hebrew). Ra’anana: The Open University. Hirschauer, S. (1994). Die soziale Fortpflanzung der Zwei-Geschlechtlichkeit. Kölner Zeitschrift Für Soziologie Und Sozialpsychologie, 46 (4), 668–692. Hirschauer, S. (2001). Das Vergessen des Geschlechts: Zur Praxeologie einer Kategorie sozialer Ordnung. Kölner Zeitschrift Für Soziologie Und Sozialpsychologie, Sonderheft, 41, 208–235. Jones, K. (2008). Female Fandom: Identity, Sexism, and Men’s Professional Football in England. Sociology of Sport Journal, 25 (4), 516–537. King, A. (1997). The Lads: Masculinity and the New Consumption of Football. Sociology, 31(2), 329–334. Lenneis, V. (2013) Weibliche Fußballfans in Da¨ nemark. Sozialisation zum Fan, Fanverhalten und Fanalltag sowie Konstruktion und Verhandlung von Geschlecht im Stadion [Female Football Fans in Denmark. Socialization, Behaviour and Everyday Life of Female Fans, Gender Constructions and Negotiations in the Stadium]. Master’s Thesis, University of Copenhagen. Lovell, T. (2000). Thinking Feminism with and Against Bourdieu. Feminist Theory, 1(1), 11–32. Markovits, A. S., & Albertson, E. (2012). Sportista: Female Fandom in the United States. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Mintert, S. M., & Pfister, G. (2015). The FREE Project and the Feminization of Football: The Role of Women in the European Fan Community. Soccer & Society, 16 (2–3), 405–421.

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Moss, Kanter R. (1977). Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books. Pfister, G., et al. (2013). Female Fans of Men’s Football—A Case Study in Denmark. Soccer & Society, 14 (6), 850–887. Pope, S. E. (2010). Female Fandom in an English ‘Sports City’: A Sociological Study of Spectating and Consumption Around Sport. Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Sociology, University of Leicester. Poulton, E. (2012). If You Had Balls, You’d Be One of Us!’ Doing Gendered Research: Methodological Reflections on Being a Female Academic Researcher in the Hyper-Masculine Subculture of ‘Football Hooliganism. Sociological Research Online, 17 (4), 4. Rapoport, T. (Ed.) (2016). Football Belongs to the Fans! An Investigative Journey Following Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem (Hebrew). Tel-Aviv: Resling. Renfrow, D. (2004). A Cartography of Passing in Everyday Life. Symbolic Interaction, 27, 485–506. Riessman, C. (1987). When Gender Is Not Enough: Women Interviewing Women. Gender & Society, 1, 172–207. Rubin, M. (2009). The Offside Rule—Women’s Bodies in Masculinized Spaces. In U. Pillay, R. Tomlinson, & O. Bass (Eds.), Development and Dreams: The Urban Legacy of the 2010 Football World Cup (pp. 266–280). Cape Town: HSRC Press. Sandvoss, C. (2005). Fans: The Mirror of Consumption. Boston: Polity. Sasson-Levy, O. (2006). Identities in Uniform: Masculinities and Femininities in the Israeli Military (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Press. Sasson-Levy, O., & Shoshana, A. (2013). “Passing” as (Non)Ethnic—The Israeli Version of Acting White. Sociological Inquiry, 83(3), 448–472. West, C., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1987). Doing Gender. Gender & Society, 1(2), 125–151. West, C., & Zimmerman, D. H. (2009). Accounting for Doing Gender. Gender & Society, 23, 112–122. Williams, J. (2007). A Beautiful Game: International Perspectives on Women’s Football . Oxford: Berg.

Fair to Swear? Gendered Formulations of Fairness in Football in Turkey ˘ Yagmur Nuhrat

Returning to my apartment in Be¸sikta¸s one September night in 2010, I struck up a conversation with the cabbie about football (soccer) as we drove by the Be¸sikta¸s ˙Inönü Stadium.1 After a short exchange about his team (Fenerbahçe),2 my interest in football as a “lady” (shocking but admirable) and the previous weekend’s derby between Fenerbahçe and This chapter was first published as follows and is reprinted here with permission: Ya˘gmur Nuhrat, “Fair to Swear?: Gendered Formulations of Fairness in Football in Turkey,” in The Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Volume 13, no. 1, pp. 25–46. Copyright, 2017, Association for Middle East Women’s Studies. All rights reserved. Republished by permission of the copyrightholder, and the present publisher, Duke University Press. www. dukeupress.edu. 1This

stadium was renovated and reinaugurated as Vodafone Arena in 2016. are three major football teams in Istanbul: Be¸sikta¸s, Fenerbahçe, and Galatasaray; referred to as the “big three” of football in Turkey. 2There

Y. Nuhrat (B) Istanbul Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 T. Rapoport (ed.), Doing Fandom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46870-5_7

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Be¸sikta¸s (an underwhelming tie), I probed him about an incident surprisingly fresh in the memories of football fans in Turkey: the national team’s defense player Alpay Özalan receiving a fair play award in 1996 for not tackling a rival striker on his way to score against Turkey in the country’s first ever experience competing in The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Euro Tournament. I asked the cabbie, “Do you think Alpay should have tackled the guy down?”3 Although this might have seemed like a random question with little context beyond our having been talking of football, the cabbie instantly responded: “Of course he should have. He is a son of a donkey for not doing so.4 We’re talking about the country here.”5 I added, “And for that he received a fair play award.” “That was nonsense,” he replied; “That’s not fair play, that’s not how you play football.” This article explores how the internationally salient concept of fair play, which advocates a certain understanding of fairness, diverges from how football actors in Turkey conceptualize fairness (hakkaniyet ). The above example presents a context wherein the official delineation of fair play indicates that an action is fair when it does not encourage winning at all costs. However, the same context also hints that for a football fan fairness may be conceptualized differently, as something that is necessarily tied to national interests (“We’re talking about the country here”) or as something that can be evaluated based on what is permissible given the set of unwritten rules in a particular sport (“That’s not how you play football”).6 I argue that one way in which the concept of fairness emerges in football in Turkey is through swearing in football chants, which form and maintain a specific, delikanlı masculine gendering of fairness, shared by men and women fans. Delikanlı is not a football-specific term; it literally means crazy or hotblooded and it is commonly used in Turkish to refer to young men. However, its meaning goes beyond this reference to age. A delikanlı is 3 In

Turkey, footballers from Turkey are commonly referred to by their first names but foreign footballers by their last names or nicknames. 4 “Son of a donkey” is a common insult in Turkish, achieving roughly the same effect as “ass.” 5 All translations belong to the author. 6 While I acknowledge that nationalism or unwritten rules affect fairness verdicts, I do not deal with these issues here.

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someone who is tough, true to his word, has his friends’ back, honest, straightforward, and charismatic. While delikanlı is typically the attribute of heterosexual males, this paper reveals it as a flexible category that does not necessarily map on to a specific gender or sexuality but is used by fans as a gendering criterion for fairness. This sense of delikanlı fairness diverges from standardized fair play, construed as the antithesis of swearing and gendered by mainstream media and the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) as “feminine” or “gentlemanly.”7 Reviewing masculinity studies in Turkey, Maral Erol and Cenk Özbay (2013) highlighted two major foci: the framework of militarism and nation-building (e.g., Açıksöz 2012; Basaran 2014) and that of sexualities (e.g., Bereket and Adam 2006; Özbay 2010). Erol and Özbay critiqued that studies on “hegemonic masculinity” (cf. Connell 1987) in Turkey often treat “men” as a “monolithic category” whereby “…the ways in which…the economy, sports, popular culture and religion affect and reconstruct men and masculinities… are… unexplored.” The authors called for a need to interrogate how masculinities in Turkey are embodied vis-à-vis “bodily movement, gestures, social relations and subjectivity” (159). Tracing enactments of gendered ethics through the motif of delikanlı addresses this critique, also engaging anthropological scholarship that moves away from universal ethics toward an analysis of “ordinary ethics” (Lambek 2010). I demonstrate that everyday negotiations of ethics entail concurrent negotiations with interwoven variables such as gender, thereby contributing to the burgeoning body of literature that seeks to highlight gender and masculinities in the Middle East as sites of contestation vis-à-vis other categories (e.g., Ghannam 2013; Achili 2015; Dharir 2016; Inhorn 2012). Football scholars have asserted that football not merely reflects but actually forms social dynamics (e.g., Armstrong and Giulianotti 1997;

7The Turkish Football Federation was established and joined FIFA in 1923. All sports clubs were consolidated under the Turkish Sports Organization (Türk Spor Kurumu) founded in 1936 and directly affiliated with the state. With the end of the single-party rule in 1950, the state relinquished control over football and TFF accepted the Law for Professionalism rendering football as a business. In 1992 TFF became autonomous (Irak 2010). Football economy in Turkey was estimated at approximately 1 billion EUR in 2016 (Fortune Türkiye 2016).

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Goldblatt 2006; Farred 2008; Dubois 2011). Football’s political significance became clearer especially in the aftermath of the Arab Spring (Dorsey 2012; Tuastad 2014) and the Gezi protests of Summer 2013 in Turkey when rival fan groups collaborated to spearhead the uprising at critical instances.8 In the Middle East, football scholarship has largely focused on the role of football vis-à-vis political conflict (Montague 2008). Studies that interrogate gender mostly follow this trajectory highlighting football as a site of political contestation for women’s claims to public space and visibility (Harkness 2012; Fozooni 2008). In Turkey, more than constituting a site for expressions of women’s political subjectivities otherwise less visible, football is grounds for negotiating nuances of gender norms and identities. Through this focus I contribute to the literature on gender vis-à-vis resistance, resilience, and transgression in the Middle East, which aims to highlight contestation and negotiation as key ways in which women (and men) navigate hegemonic masculinity (e.g., Le Renard 2013; Yessayan 2015; Duboc 2013; Al-Qasimi 2010). Also, examining women’s roles in this male-dominated site and studying women fans’ positionalities help me to situate TFF’s anti-swearing policies within a larger mission to Europeanize football in Turkey (a discourse in line with Turkey’s “modern” aspirations) and to demonstrate the failure of such policies. I first describe how fair play is operationalized in Turkey, specifically focusing on the opposition built between fair play and swearing. Then, I analyze the on-the-ground conceptualization of delikanlı fairness. This analysis demonstrates the tension between fair play and delikanlı fairness by highlighting how the category of gender and the phenomenon of fan swearing are implicated differently in each formulation. Examining a gendered conceptualization of fairness allows me to discuss women’s football fandom in Turkey. I critique the role TFF assigns to women

8 Football

fan involvement marked the Gezi Uprising (Nuhrat 2013; McManus 2013a). Be¸sikta¸s fan group çAr¸sı was particularly conspicuous in this movement and charged with conspiring against the state; they were acquitted in 2015 (see McManus 2013b for more on çAr¸sı). The government’s intense surveillance over the site of football, already consolidated with the Law to Prevent Violence and Disorder in Sport (Resmi Gazete 2011) intensified after Gezi. This piece does not tackle per se how football and contemporary politics intertwine in Turkey.

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fans, treating them as natural guardians of fair play and finally, I interrogate women’s linguistic practices in relation to a hegemonic masculine emergence of fairness.

On Fieldwork This article is based on fieldwork I conducted in 2010 and 2011, mostly in Istanbul but also in other cities around Turkey, exploring dynamics of watching, playing, mediating, administrating, and refereeing football, with a focus on the concept of fairness. During this time, I attended 34 football matches; I travelled away to games outside of Istanbul and spent time in various locations where fans congregate. I held in-depth interviews with fans, former footballers, coaches, referees, journalists, football federation, and club administrators. I also analyzed online and printed media discourse on fair play circulated by administrators, players, and fans of football in Turkey. Since 2011, I have continued to hold follow-up interviews with key interlocutors in Istanbul. Although my fieldwork included going to home games, spending time with and interviewing the fans of all three of the prominent Istanbul teams, more of my interlocutors were Be¸sikta¸s fans. I realized early on in fieldwork that if I intended to get closer to groups of fanmates, share their pain in the face of loss and their glee upon last-minute goals, exchange e-mails with them complaining about the coach, and to accompany them to the airport welcoming new recruits, then I would have to manage the delicate issue of partisanship.9 There is fierce rivalry among the big three of Istanbul; loyalties are commonly defined in one’s childhood and multiple team affiliations are not tolerated. Hence, I could not very well cry with Be¸sikta¸s fans one day and dance arm-in-arm with Fenerbahçe fans the next. If I had any doubts as to whether I was exaggerating the fragility of this matter, they disappeared when one of my interlocutors looked at my wristband in the

9I

use the term fanmates to describe a group of fans who are accustomed to pre-gaming and attending matches together as well as spending time on matchless days, composing songs, designing banners, discussing recruits, etc.

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black-white Be¸sikta¸s colors and mockingly asked me if I switched it to dark blue and yellow (Fenerbahçe colors) on other days of fieldwork. My choice to live in Be¸sikta¸s and my closer relations with Be¸sikta¸s fans were due to my personal history more so than strategic research choices. I grew up in Istanbul and I have been a Be¸sikta¸s fan since I was a child; therefore I had a lot more initial contacts from within the Be¸sikta¸s community.

Fair Play in Turkey FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) and UEFA have guidelines and campaigns detailing fair play.10 Some recent examples include FIFA’s “Fair Play Code,” UEFA’s “Respect” Campaign, and the “UEFA Fair Play Regulations,” which target both football professionals and spectators (FIFA 2011; UEFA 2015a, b). The FIFA code defines fair as honest and respectful of rights. Accordingly, fairness is proof of courage, character, and grace bringing joy and deserving reward. Unfairness, on the other hand is shameful. The rules instruct one to be fair, help others to be fair, and expose those who are not fair. Examples of fairness include congratulating the winner after a loss, and examples of unfairness include being dishonest, going easy on a weaker opponent, arguing with the referee, or finding excuses for defeat. FIFA extends the definition of fair play to social issues where the mission is to fight drugs, violence, racism, sexism, nationalism, gambling, and all “other dangers.” In Europe, more recent fair play campaigns tackle racism (FARE 2015; also see Doidge 2015). The mainstream way of conceptualizing and operationalizing fair play in Turkey is in line with those of FIFA and UEFA. For example, in an April 2015 conference on violence in sports, former footballer and manager Ergün Penbe stated that fans in Turkey have to learn to treat football like the game it is, be gentlemanly, congratulate rivals, and 10The

2015 FIFA corruption scandal may lead one to reevaluate FIFA as a generator of ethical standards. I contend that regardless of its affiliates’ (un)ethical deeds, FIFA’s (and other governing bodies’) top-down, institutional guidelines to provision fair play in and around football miss how on-the-ground negotiations inform fairness verdicts in various contexts and contingencies.

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relinquish the contention that everything is fair for the sake of victory (Milliyet 2015). In an article published on TFF’s website entitled “The universal concept that beautifies sports: ‘Fair Play’” Kenan S¸ ebin (2012) stated that fair play must be understood as “sportive virtue.” This echoes the discourse of olympism that locates a universal essence of virtue within sports itself (olympic.org 2015). S¸ ebin also asserted that fair play means to be honest, decent, and courageous, to live humanely, and by the rules. He added that tolerating difference and politeness are the main principles of fair play. The common thread here is that it is possible to prescribe a standardized and universal set of behaviors for the entire global football community, the adherence to which will guarantee shared ethical conduct. Fair play is sometimes translated into Turkish as “honest play” (dürüst oyun) or as “just play” (adil oyun). At times, the term “gentlemanly” (centilmence) is substituted for fair play, as in the case of TFF’s Fair Play League entitled the “Gentlemanly League.” Often however, the term is used in its original English. Almost every week, the media invoke fair play, especially in reaction to instances such as a footballer helping an injured rival or home team fans applauding a victorious visiting team. Physical violence on the pitch or between fan groups and collective fan swearing constitute causes for more elaborate calls for fair play. In these cases, post-match commentaries usually include statements by popular media figures, clubs, or TFF administrators advocating the virtues of sportsmanship, gentlemanly behavior, and encouraging all members of the football community to act more in line with fair play. While FIFA and UEFA also define “insulting chants” as a disciplinary problem (mostly associated with racism) TFF has for decades focused specifically on swearing as the antithesis of fair play and a major problem concerning fan behavior. It has systematically increased fines and stadium bans for clubs whose fans engage in collective swearing. As a part of promoting its measures, TFF organizes various meetings and events one of which was a joint panel with the National Olympic Committee entitled “Combating Violence and Discrimination in Sports in Light of

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Fair Play” (TFF 2006).11 Supporting TFF’s stance, club presidents of Be¸sikta¸s, Fenerbahçe, and Galatasaray came together in 2006 to declare a “war on swearing” (Hürriyet 2006). Also, TFF’s Fair Play League, called the “Gentlemanly League” which ranks clubs on the basis of fair play (by computing the number of footballer bookings, etc.) deducts points from teams whose fans swear (TFF 2012). Ultimately, TFF sought legal channels to officially prohibit swearing with the “Law to Prevent Violence and Disorder in Sports,” passed in April 2011 (Resmi Gazete 2011). Club administrations and Turkey’s major television broadcaster of league football, Lig TV, have joined TFF’s campaign to combat swearing, the first in the form of online warnings for fans, statements from presidents or footballers, stadium announcements and banners that read “love without swearing,” the second in the form of no-swearing messages during football programming, and by lowering the volume of broadcasting when there is swearing in the stadium. The subscription-based digital platform, which carries Lig TV, Digiturk actually sponsors TFF’s “Gentlemanly League.” When the financially powerful agents—the federation, club administrators, and the broadcasting company—engage in practices to curtail swearing, they do this through a discourse that posits swearing as the opposite of fair play.12 For example, in September 2010, Ertu˘grul Sa˘glam, then coaching Bursaspor (from the city of Bursa), said the following in a press declaration: …Another wish of mine is for our fans…to embrace their sensitivities of fair play during tomorrow’s match…We don’t want to hear swearing in our stadium. It isn’t becoming for us…We absolutely demand that our fans support us within the spirit of fair play. We don’t want to hear a single word of swearing, whatever the circumstances… (Sabah 2010)

11 Campaigns and legislations against swearing in football in Turkey sometimes treat physical violence and swearing together as examples of inappropriate fan behavior that contradict fair play and exacerbate hooliganism. 12 See Nuhrat et al. (2014) for a discussion on how the fair play versus swearing opposition in Turkey substitutes the fair play versus race opposition in Europe thereby contributing to the discursive erasure of the category of race as a significant social differentiator in Turkey.

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Similarly, in March 2012, before a derby, Fenerbahçe’s former midfielder Alexsandro de Souza, tweeted the following: “Let’s not forget fair play. Let’s not go overboard. Let’s definitely, but definitely not swear…” (Hürriyet 2012). In line with Turkey’s never-ending struggle to come to terms with Westernization, TFF defines for itself a “civilizing mission” to “cleanse” (read Europeanize) football in Turkey (see Ahıska 2003 for more on Turkey and Occidentalism). I have argued elsewhere that the Law to Prevent Violence and Disorder in Sports, devised after many European examples of reform, is a major instrument of this class-based mission (Nuhrat 2016). To ban swearing through the readily available rubric of fair play is a moral stance on the part of TFF and aligns with their larger “civilizing mission.” Swearing is not only considered rude and crass by these football authorities but it is also an index of being uncivilized, a constant reminder of unperfected Europeanization.13

The On-the-Ground Formulation of Delikanlı Fairness The discourse of fair play (as the opposite of swearing) imposed topdown by TFF, other football administrators, and sports media, misses how football fans conjure and gender fairness. In examining how fans understand and enact fairness, I turn to Michael Lambek (2010) who identified an “ethical turn” in anthropology in the 2000s, which puts forth an Aristotelian action-based study of “ordinary” ethics, focusing 13 As scholars of Turkey (e.g., Kasaba and Bozdo˘ gan 1997) have explained, Turkey has had a love/hate relationship with Europe throughout the history of the Republic, a legacy inherited from the Tanzimat Era of the Ottoman Empire. Equating desirability with progress and that with Westernization and Europeanization has caused intense anxiety due to the predicament of not having “caught up” to Europe and the idealized civilization it is assumed to represent. This predicament, which is based on an aspiration regarding an imagined Europe, manifests itself at all times when the naturalized European order seems absent. The regulation of football is one such site, allowing football to emerge as formative of social dynamics rather than merely reflective as described in the introduction.

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on how memory, history, precedent, and reciprocity form evaluations of ethical action. This approach is different from Kantian deontological ethics, which seeks a universal rather than a negotiable formula for ethical action. The non-normative anthropological approach also differs from how much of sports philosophy engages with ethics, which, though not necessarily exhaustively Kantian, ultimately aims to identify the ethical (e.g., Loland 2002; Simon 2010) or assumes that there is a consensus on what is “moral” when for example considering the cultivation of ethics through sports (McNamee et al. 2003). While TFF prioritizes not swearing as key to fair play, I demonstrate that the everyday notion of fairness among football fans in Turkey includes swearing as part and parcel of fandom and its specific formulation of masculinity. Fans bond and sustain as communities through chants and cheers (Back 2003; Collinson 2009; Kytö 2011). Swearing allows them to enact and construct a specific masculinity as they join together in communities of delikanlı. Below I offer a section of a popular fan song, which is an adaptation from a Turkish folk song like many other football cheers in Turkey to illustrate how fan swearing and a specific notion of fairness intertwine in Turkey. The crops reach my knees, Fener (Fenerbahçe) come over for a little bit (Ekinler dize kadar, Fener gel bize kadar) I might show you something that spreads from my groins to my knees (Sana bir ¸sey göstersem, kasıktan dize kadar) Take this, oh can you? What kind of a delikanlı are you? (Al bunu alamaz mısın, sen ne biçim delikanlısın?) I stepped up on the ledge and opened my legs (Çıktım ta¸sın üstüne açtım bacaklarımı) Eat my balls Fener as you pass beneath (Altımdan geçen Fener yesin ta¸saklarımı) Take this, oh can you? What kind of a delikanlı are you? (Al bunu alamaz mısın, sen ne biçim delikanlısın?) Peel the orange, can you ever get enough? (Portakal soyulur mu, tadına doyulur mu?) Fener if I just stuck it in you, would they hear it from Fezzan? (Fener sana bir koysam, Fizan’dan duyulur mu?) Take this, oh can you? What kind of a delikanlı are you? (Al bunu alamaz mısın, sen ne biçim delikanlısın?)

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This fan song, like many others, posits the rival team as a sexual object, one that is to be assaulted sexually since they are not “man enough.” The rival here is accused of not being delikanlı, which is a significant indicator of “hegemonic masculinity” in Turkey, indexing the qualities of honesty, resilience, and trustworthiness. A delikanlı is streetwise and ready to mobilize unwritten codes toward conflict resolution in their community. Delikanlı, as a type, is different from maganda (cf. Öncü 2002) or kabadayı (aka qabaday cf. Joubin 2016) because characteristically, delikanlıs don’t harass or bully; they are not aesthetically repellant, their aggression is warranted and they are respected and admired in their communities. In turn, someone who is not delikanlı is untrustworthy and unreliable especially in situations where his mates or his family need his help. Many football songs in Turkish describe the “self ” as delikanlı, and mock the rival as a “faggot” (ibne). Fans self-present as delikanlı and refer to rival fans, players, or other professionals as ibne. Also, “ref is a faggot” (ibne hakem) is one of the most common chants in Turkey’s stadiums. When fans are unhappy with a referee’s decision, they accuse him of “shaking his hips like a belly dancer.” By indicating that rivals are “assmongers” (göto˘glanı) who “offer/sell their asses” fans use emasculating language to differentiate themselves from other clubs’ fans. They claim an ideal image of masculinity, while simultaneously depriving their rivals of this standard, indexing the desirable and undesirable qualities of normative masculinity by invoking the image of the delikanlı and its associations.14 While fishermen in British Colombia use sexist and homophobic swearwords to associate “being a man” with usefulness and worth (Menzies 1991) and high school students in California use the word “fag” to consolidate the hegemonic masculine norm of competence (Pascoe 2005), in Turkey, “being a man” is associated in part with a sense of fairness. The “ref is a faggot” chant begins when fans believe that the referee has made an unfair call. Moreover, this sense of fairness is inherent in the term delikanlı itself. For example, a wiki entry on Ek¸si Sözlük, a most popular online wiki/community in Turkey, entitled “manly play”

14 See

Martínez and Morales (2014) for a discussion of profanity and identity formation.

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(delikanlı oyun) attempts to translate the concept of fair play into Turkish as follows15 : …people seem to be translating fair play into Turkish as “honest play” (dürüst oyun) …they don’t realize that fair play can directly be translated into Turkish as “manly play” (delikanlı oyun)… You know what Robbie Fowler did in England? When the referee called a penalty where Fowler knew was not a penalty, he knowingly missed the shot.16 This is called “fair play.” But this is called “fair play” in England. In Turkey, footballers grow up in neighborhoods…they have older brothers in the neighborhood.17 These brothers are the first role models a boy sees in the name of being delikanlı. The brothers stand by the powerless and against the unjust/wrong. They watch out for the younger kids in the neighborhood so no one bullies them and they prevent people from disrespecting the older ones. They are never unfair and they never allow for unfairness to happen. Now, if you want to teach the philosophy of fair play to footballers in Turkey, you just need to gather the whole team and tell them to be delikanlı. You teach them that it is not a delikanlı move to score if your rival is down or injured… (Ek¸si Sözlük 2007)

According to the fan entry above, it can be considered an act of fair play if a player deliberately misses a shot on goal if the shot was undeserved. It is also an act of fair play if one voluntarily suspends play when their rival is injured. However, not only do these acts attest to fairness, they are also delikanlı acts that are carried out by “real men.” As the notion of fairness is built into the term delikanlı, so is the notion

15 Ek¸si

Sözlük is a collaborative online wiki and a community with approximately 400,000 registered users. On the wiki, there is a topical strand for nearly every football game (national and international) where members discuss issues pertaining to that game in entries. The wiki also includes entries unrelated to football. 16The fan commentary here misrepresents Fowler’s intention to miss the penalty shot. However, it is noteworthy that according to this fan, knowingly missing a penalty shot is what someone would call “fair play in England” or “delikanlı play” in Turkey. 17This is a reference to fictive kinship forged between boys from the same neighborhood who play football together on the street, a common practice among children and adolescent boys that continues in Turkey. As the fan comment explains, “older brothers” have more prestige in these socialization settings and constitute role models for younger boys in terms not only of how to play football but also of how to be “proper men” in society.

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of unfairness included in the construction of ibne. One of my main interlocutors, Emir, explained18 : Imagine a Be¸sikta¸s versus Galatasaray match. Imagine that Galatasaray players begin to commit malicious fouls. What would the Be¸sikta¸s fans sing? They would sing “Oh look Galatasaray act like fags again. Oh but Galatasaray have always been fags” (Yine ibnele¸sti Galatasaray; zaten hep ibneydi Galatasaray). This chant only starts when Galatasaray begin to act in unfair, malicious ways. (Emir, in discussion with the author, October 2014)

Maliciousness (çirkeflik) is a key indicator of unfairness in football in Turkey, referring to instances where players allegedly play with intent to injure rivals or deceive referees. Here, Emir confirms how such malicebased unfairness can be gendered. In addition to individual interviews or discussions, I also spent time with multiple groups of fanmates. I would meet with these groups before games as they spent hours pre-gaming (singing, chanting, drinking) in parks, attend games with them and their post-game meetings, celebrating victories or commemorating losses. One such group I got to know well is a group of five friends who consider themselves to belong to a larger group of around 50 fans that frequented the Southern (Eski Açık) stands of the ˙Inönü Stadium. As I was interviewing these five friends on a gameless January night in 2011, one of the guys, Umut, brought up an incident that had taken place a few weeks earlier. During a Galatasaray versus Be¸sikta¸s derby, Be¸sikta¸s’s striker Marcio Nobre had received a yellow card for having fouled Galatasaray’s Lucas Neill. Upon the booking, Neill walked up to the referee and told him that the decision was faulty and that Nobre had not in fact committed a foul that deserved to be booked. Umut recalled this instance: That was a magnificent move on the part of Neill. Honest…He was right/fair (haklı). But still, I couldn’t help but sing…excuse my language… “Oh how we put it to you/fucked you” (“koyduk mu!”) at the end of the game [when we beat Galatasaray] That was a humane (insanca) 18 All

interlocutor names are pseudonyms for privacy purposes.

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move. A delikanlı move. You know normally, there are not many of those at Galatasaray. You know what? If it had been a Turkish Galatasaray footballer, he wouldn’t have done it!…But they should. They should be men and act like this. (Umut, in-depth interview, January 2011)

In this quote, Umut praises Neill’s honesty and fairness on the basis of his manliness and him being delikanlı. For him, this attempt to restore justice was a delikanlı move, one that he would not expect from Galatasaray players. Also striking is how Umut is convinced that a Turkish Galatasaray player would not act like Neill who is from Australia. For Umut, a Turkish Galatasaray player would have been more deeply immersed in the alleged qualities of Galatasaray (being unmanly or ibne) whereas he sees a foreign player as more transient and thus less adulterated with the ibne-ness of Galatasaray. In the end, Umut celebrated Be¸sikta¸s’s victory by singing about how they “put it to” or “fucked” Galatasaray, once again pushing the image of sexual conquest. Him excusing this language in front of me, a woman, is an issue I visit later. When fans call other fans or referees ibne, they are indeed passing a judgment about normative manliness and not so much about sexual orientation. CJ Pascoe wrote, “The fag epithet, when hurled at other boys, may or may not have explicit sexual meanings, but it always has gendered meanings. When a boy calls another boy a fag, it means he is not a man, not necessarily that he is a homosexual” (2005: 342). I arrived at a similar conclusion following the case of Halil ˙Ibrahim Dinçda˘g, an openly homosexual referee whom TFF banned from refereeing in 2009 for the sole reason that he is gay. Dinçda˘g sued TFF for discrimination and won his case in December 2015. In the meantime, a group of fan organizations released a statement in solidarity with Dinçda˘g calling on TFF to give Dinçda˘g back his job since, according to them; he was always a fair referee (Bianet 2012). Moreover, some bloggers, news portals, and fan commentaries referred to Dinçda˘g’s move to come out as a courageous and delikanlı move, referring to him as a “delikanlı referee” (delikanlı hakem) and as a “delikanlı homosexual” (delikanlı e¸scinsel ) (Footballove 2009). For example, one fan commentary read as follows:

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…“Dinçda˘g turned out to be much more of a delikanlı compared to the so-called delikanlıs of TFF. I commend those fan groups who support him. To be able to referee fairly, one needs to be a delikanlı, not a heterosexual” (Radikal 2013).

Dinçda˘g himself asserted that he is not an “ibne” but a “homosexual” since fans refer to “scheming” (entrika çeviren) referees as ibne (Karaka¸s and Çakır 2013). The solidarity declaration emphasized the criterion of fairness as a decisive one by which fans evaluate referees. Reimagining Dinçda˘g as a delikanlı homosexual underscores that heterosexuality (or even maleness) may be less of a critical component for being considered delikanlı in comparison to the ‘manly’ virtues of courage and fairness. As indicated before, TFF uses the figure of the “gentleman” to promote fair play. However in Turkey, there is a sense of fairness that is evoked in tandem not with the image of the gentleman but with the image the delikanlı. In other words, while there is already a gendering in TFF’s description of fair play, this gendering contrasts with how fans gender fairness. Those engaged in an effort to eradicate swearing in the name of a borrowed concept of fair play forget that a specific notion of fairness flourishes precisely through the language of swearing. Surely there are fans who share the idea that swearing is indecent and rude. But whereas this evaluation exhausts the official reasoning behind swearing bans, the role of swearing has further implications for fan communities. The rift between a top-down notion of fair play and negotiated versions of fairness may explain why, in Turkey, swearing is banned and condoned at once. A sense of fairness is embedded in an idealized gender norm. That enmeshed relation must be identified to gain an understanding of how hegemonic masculinity works in Turkey and, relatedly, how the prescribed standard of fair play falls short of encompassing all negotiated meanings of fairness.

Women in Charge of Guarding Fair Play? Football in Turkey is generally understood to be a men’s game and a men’s pastime like in most other countries (Archetti 1999; Magazine 2007;

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Bora 2013) save for some exceptions including the USA (Andrews et al. 1998). Football scholars have explained how women in various playing and non-playing roles are systematically discriminated against in football, and how women seek to claim this site (Jeanes 2011; Schlessinger and Weigelt-Schlessinger 2012), illuminating and theorizing women’s participation in football (Selmer and Sülzle 2010; Caudwell 2011; Pope and Williams 2011). Fairness is generally overlooked in this literature even though it is a productive lens to see how gender norms are built within footballing practices that may from the outset not appear gendered. Battling swearing in stadiums for the sake of fair play led to a specific TFF policy. Prior to 2011, teams whose fans engaged in collective swearing would receive the penalty of playing their subsequent home game in an empty stadium. Between 2011 and 2014, the empty stadiumban was replaced with the women-and-children-only policy whereby adult men were disallowed in stadiums and clubs distributed free tickets to women and children under the age of 12. Despite the attendance of women and children, the name of the penalty matches remained the same: “spectator-less” (seyircisiz ).19 TFF argued that by allowing women to attend penalty games for free, they were helping to increase women’s access to football; the policy was often justified as a way to encourage women’s participation in a site where they are systematically underrepresented. UEFA appeared to agree with this outlook when they nominated Fenerbahçe for the FIFA fair play award after the first of such penalty games between Fenerbahçe and Manisaspor in 2011. Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, reported that UEFA’s letter to Fenerbahçe explaining the nomination “mentioned that the game played in [this] unprecedented atmosphere aroused great interest” and that “women’s cheerful, enthusiastic and peaceful attitude was also praised” (TRT 2011). Later in 2014, UEFA also debated whether or not to extend the policy to Europe as a means to battle racism (Guardian 2014; for a critique see Teng 2014). 19The

women-and-children-only policy was discontinued in 2014 and replaced with the “partial stadium ban,” which entails closing off the section of the stadium where fans engage in problematic behavior. This replacement policy is common across Europe. TFF did not announce a specific reason for the switch but fans speculated that the reason had to do with continued swearing in women-and-children-only games.

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The women-and-children-only policy is sexist and essentializing due to its problematic assumptions about womanhood. TFF’s underlying assumption here is that women will not, and more importantly cannot swear, simply because they are women and therefore naturally predisposed to use sterile, polite language. Second, the policy expects women to carry out a societal housecleaning mission whereby they are to show men, by example, how to behave in a stadium. Women are treated as being responsible to tame men, to restrain, control, and sterilize their behavior and language. Describing the role of European women in Dutch colonies after the 1920s, Ann Laura Stoler (2002) explained that European women were allowed and encouraged to be present at the colony as guarantors of their men’s morality since men were thought to be more susceptible to moral decay. The women-and-children-only policy recycles this age-old, sexist, and colonial mentality. Third, the policy infantilizes women by inserting women and children in the same bracket, supposing that similar to the children who accompany them, women are innocent, harmless, and dependent. Moreover, the representation of women next to children recalls the patriarchal image whereby the women’s place is with her family as the caretaking, nurturing wife. When I interviewed a woman fan and sports journalist, she complained about how in the stadium, during non-penalty games, sometimes men would randomly leave their children with her when they needed to move about, assuming that she would take care of the child for as long the parent was gone, simply because she is a woman. Lastly, distributing free tickets to women, instead of requiring them to purchase tickets like regular fans, shows that women are not considered to be real fans. It is telling that penalty games continued to be discursively termed as “spectator-less” even though thousands of women would be in attendance. Also, the policy demanded that women be present in the stadium without performing a crucial aspect of fandom— that is, singing songs that include swearwords, a social practice that, as I argued above, contributes precisely to a definition of fairness that differs from the kind of fair play these women fans are assigned by TFF to uphold. Thus, the policy denies women their fandom not only by allowing them in the stadium for free but also by forbidding them to embody and perform fandom in the customary way. According to

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this policy, women’s presence in the stadium is a means to punish men and safeguard fair play as understood by TFF and international football organizations. Yet women’s actual spectatorship of football or support for a team remains illegible and invisible. While TFF genders fairness by associating gentlemanliness with fair play, the woman-and-children-only policy feminizes fairness by identifying women and their essential womanhood as guardians of fair play. However, neither of TFF’s formulations of fair play (the gentlemanliness or the feminization) includes the kind of delikanli ethics of masculinity that fans espouse. The gap between TFF and the fans at once involves a negotiation of gender and specifically masculinity norms and a contestation of what constitutes fairness in football. For example, I contend that some conventional descriptions of fair play such as exposing those who are not fair or continuing to challenge a weaker opponent would not be considered delikanlı acts according to many football fans in Turkey since they index behavior that contradicts the image of delikanlı as siding with underdogs or having a mate’s back. The rift between fair play and fairness not only concerns the evaluation of the practice of swearing but also impacts how fans judge other footballing acts as their self-appointed delikanlı-ness and rejection of ibne-ness is continually reinforced through songs. It is precisely through this gap that we are able to observe the ongoing co-negotiation of ethics in the ordinary, everyday sense and gender.

Women Fans’ Swearing and Contentious Relations with Hegemonic Masculinity Contrary to the expectations of TFF, the women-and-children-only games did witness swearing.20 One may interpret women’s swearing in football as a social problem associated with furthering men’s domination by circulating references to hegemonic masculinity. This interpretation 20 See

Erhart (2011) for an analysis of how some women fans refuse to engage in collective swearing to act against hegemonic masculinity and Davis (2012) for the still remaining ambiguity in regards to their positioning.

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would highlight that, even though women suffer due to the impositions of hegemonic masculinity in their daily lives and in football, they reproduce the language of this masculinity in songs. In this way they become complicit in their own domination (Birkalan-Gedik 2010). While there is certainly merit to this line of analysis, its conclusions are limited in accounting for the potential for women to challenge the construction of hegemonic masculinity. When women swear, they act against language ideology about swearing, which deems it appropriate only for men, thereby contravening hegemonic masculinity. Language ideologies are sets of ideas, assumptions, and evaluations we have about languages (Schieffelin et al. 1998). Deborah Cameron explained that one of the “most…widespread and most historically persistent of all language ideologies pertaining to gender” denotes “clear-cut and stable differences” between normative expectations about how men and women should talk (2003: 450). It is a deeply engrained language ideology in Turkey that swearing is ‘men’s talk.’21 Not only is it considered inappropriate for women to swear, but some men also consider it rude to swear in the presence of women. Swearing is understood to be crude and impolite and therefore contradicts the manner in which women should normatively self-present in society. Men who share this language ideology feel that when they expose women to this language, they “corrupt” innocent women. Women have explained to me that they have been told how it is unbecoming of their “princess mouths” to swear or how their high-pitched voice is not fitting for swear words. This kind of naturalization also informs the womenand-children-only policy. In fact, when word got out that there was still swearing in the stadium filled with women, then Minister of Youth and Sports, Suat Kılıç said “…it must have been the men who smuggled in,” since he didn’t think that “women would do such a thing” (NTV 2011). The gendered language ideology about swearing is precisely why Umut excused his language when he swore in my presence when he was referring to the match between Be¸sikta¸s and Galatasaray. Even though we had met in an informal setting (a bar) after dinner, I was still “interviewing” 21 See

McElhinny (1995) for a discussion of women police officers in the USA using profanities to sound more “masculine,” authoritative and credible.

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this group of men and they saw me as a woman researcher, not a fan. Unlike that instance, here is a passage from my field notes describing a pre-gaming episode when fans (both men and women) swore freely next to me without feeling a need to excuse themselves. …They were all…drinking hard…And singing at the same time. Chants…One person starts with no reservations or consideration for anyone or anything else…They swear…ass, fuck, whore, faggot… no reservations. They don’t sweat it; they’re not shy. They don’t turn to me to excuse their language… (Field notes, February 2011)

Another component of language ideology about swearing is that it is the fans’ talk. My presence among these fans, pre-gaming with a beer can in my hand, made a difference in that they considered me a fan and assumed that I would be familiar with the pervasiveness of this language around football. My fan presence was ordinary so this language did not need to be excused. The creativity and humor that go into authoring new songs each season and the practice of singing together even on matchless days are bonding experiences for fan communities. So as it is common for women to sing these songs, it is also common for their male fanmates to accept that this language is not offensive in the presence of a true football fan, even if she is a woman. In addition, when women fans swore in the penalty games, they did so as a means to underscore the genuineness of their fandom. Therefore, their swearing can be interpreted as their refusal to take on the role of guarding fair play and as their claim to “true” fandom. One of the first women-and-children-only games took place in Be¸sikta¸s’s home stadium. The women in attendance sang the song that starts with the line “The crops reach my knees” quoted above. After the game, a woman fan wrote the following on Ek¸si Sözlük where she referred to her swearing as a way to establish the “authenticity” of her fandom. "Oh yeah…what did you think, my cock (yapra˘gım)!22 There were just a few of us, but we were synchronized… We got shocked looks from the security guards. There was this old auntie walking around saying “the

22 yapra˘ gım

is a play on the word yara˘gım which means “cock” in Turkish.

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administration called, stop swearing.” [There was] the banner that read “Be¸sikta¸s is love without swearing” … which we ignored, obviously…Oh by the way, I think we gave a nice response to TFF that discounts women as fans (Ek¸si Sözlük 2012).

According to this fan when TFF introduced the women and children only policy, they “discount[ed] women as fans” precisely because they assumed that women could not and should not practice the language of fandom, which includes swearing. She was fully aware that her presence in the stadium was granted by the presupposition that she did not count as a real fan. She found herself on display as an instrument of anti-swearing propaganda, which she mocked. Through the practice of swearing, she regained what is understood as the appropriate language of fandom and thereby asserted herself as a legitimate fan. While it is thus possible to argue that women’s swearing reproduces hegemonic masculinity, it is also clear that women’s swearing contravenes gendered language ideology about swearing which denies women the space to use this language. Within the framework of football in Turkey, denying women the conceptual possibility of swearing for the sake of fair play means that they are being confined to a representation of fair play that does not hold for fans. When women fans swear, when they sing about how their team’s rival is not man enough, they are also sharing in the delikanlı conceptualization of fairness in football in Turkey. Women fans’ relationship to hegemonic masculinity is neither one-dimensional; nor are they duped. They further hegemonic masculinity because they participate in a delikanlı notion of fairness. But this furthering also entails an opposition to normative gender impositions.

Conclusion Discourses of fair play are well entrenched in sports, thus providing us with material to investigate how sporting officials conceive of fairness and how alternative on-the-ground notions may interact or conflict with those. This article showed that ordinary notions of fairness are gendered in football in Turkey and differently gendered in comparison to

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universalizing norms, also highlighting women’s reproduction and repurposing of hegemonic masculinity in forming and expressing gendered on-the-ground fairness. Addressing the critique outlined by Erol and Özbay (2013) this article interrogated football, and its particular institutions and actors to trace the construction and enactment of masculinities. Masculinity studies in Turkey must account for the clout of reigning masculine domination, not only with reference to generalizations about patriarchy but by considering how it is through masculine norms that ideas about key social categories like fairness emerge—for both men and for women. While delikanlı typically represents a heterosexual male, its circulation and enactment in football highlight it as a more flexible gender category, able to accommodate a homosexual referee as well as women so long as they conform to fan formulations of ethics. That those formulations are articulated on the basis of gendering norms underscores the intimate entanglement of gender and ethics in Turkey. This entanglement produces implicated parties complicated relations with norms—at times upholding and at times challenging them. A major concern of works that study how women navigate maledominated sporting sites marked with constellations of hegemonic masculinity is identifying whether women’s practices further or contravene hegemonic masculinity (Jones 2008; Pope 2013). Jo Welford emphasized the importance of whether or not women may claim football without “shifting between masculine and feminine norms” and instead by challenging those norms (2011: 367). Writing not about sports, Amélie Le Renard described young women’s “transgressive acts” in Riyadh, through “ambivalence of practice, between transgression and conformity,” key for understanding how women navigate and negotiate their behavior in public (2013: 128). Similarly, what we find in Turkey is not a scenario where women either reproduce or challenge gender norms. Instead, various norm-endorsing and norm-resisting components are interwoven in the subjectivities of women fans. They breach gendered language ideology about swearing while they simultaneously abide by the gendered notion of fairness. Therefore, rather than trying to define a single motivation for a course of action for women, I depicted here the

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current constellation of motivations that inform how women fans selfpresent—available to us through a consideration of the issue of fairness. Delineating the particularity of the contingencies where women reinforce or challenge norms enriches our understanding women vis-à-vis gendering norms in Turkey. The entwinement of gender and ethics also exposes the gap between TFF’s depiction of fair play as divorced from fans’ formulations. The divergence here not only has to do with what constitutes ethical behavior in and around football but also how fairness itself is to be gendered— as gentlemanly/feminine or as delikanlı. TFF’s civilizing mission fails both because it employs sexist arrangements such as the women-andchildren-only policy but also because it does not consider the dynamics through which practices like swearing consolidate fan ethics grounded in gendered norms. My subject position as a woman Be¸sikta¸s fan, conducting fieldwork in my hometown has had various impacts on my study. Like many other women fans, I too was made to feel like my fandom was fascinating or aberrant. In fact, my being a woman sometimes compromised (or alleviated depending on how one looks at it) my status as a “native ethnographer” (cf. Ortner 2003) since interlocutors (most of them men) often felt the need to explicate the details of football for me. Being familiar with the site of football, I had anticipated this before beginning research. What I did not anticipate was that my precise research question, the negotiations of fairness, would be implicated by the very gendered dynamic I experienced on a day-to-day basis exploring football in Turkey. The gender-related problem in football in Turkey is not the mere reproduction of hegemonic masculine language by women; rather, it is the fact that the fairness verdict in football in Turkey is articulated and continually emerges as a derivative of hegemonic masculinity. Swearing is just one manifestation of how we may see this. The ordinary ethics of football thus demonstrates the dynamics of gendering ethics in Turkey, illuminating both the negotiation of gender and of fairness. Acknowledgements I am grateful to the many fans and groups of fanmates who allowed me into their communities and shared with me their personal and footballing stories. I sincerely thank Banu Gökarıksel and the Journal of Middle

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East Women’s Studies’ anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful reading and feedback. I also thank Matthew Gutmann, Paja Faudree, Marcy Brink-Danan, Ay¸se Parla, Tamar Rapoport, Anna Secor, Inna Leykin, and Magnus Pharao Hansen for their insightful comments at various stages of the research and writing process. Funds for this research were partly provided by the Middle East Research Competition.

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Threatened Masculinities Marginalise Women in Israeli Football Tamir Sorek

The photograph in Fig. 1 was featured on the cover of the April 24, 2000 issue of the Israeli magazine, Anashim, published in Hebrew.1 Although at first glance it appears to be just another tabloid’s eye-catcher, its multilayered subtexts touch fundamental issues concerning the interrelated construction of ethno-national and gender identities in Israel.2 The man leaning on the Israeli national flag is Sami Daniel, an Arab citizen of Israel, and the major heading poses the rhetorical question, “Do I look like a terrorist?” Beaming a smile and with an Israeli flag adhering to his skin, Daniel’s portrait most certainly does not correspond to the common depiction of a terrorist. His complexion is light and his 1The

magazine name means “people” and its content is styled after the American People Magazine. 2This chapter is an extensive rewriting of the author’s article originally published in Scholar and Feminist Online, 4 (3), 2006, http://sfonline.barnard.edu/sport/sorek_01.htm.

T. Sorek (B) Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 T. Rapoport (ed.), Doing Fandom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46870-5_8

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Fig. 1 Arab Footballer Sami Daniel on Anashim Magazine Cover

chest hairless, while stereotypically, terrorists are generally imagined as dark and hairy. Moreover, the popular image of contemporary Palestinian terrorists incorporates conservative religiosity and they are expected not to expose their naked body in public. The marketing of an Arab man as a sex symbol in a Hebrew-language magazine is an unforeseen occurrence; indeed it might be considered highly provocative in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Jewish Israeli popular culture that is produced by men frequently manifests latent anxiety about the sexuality of Arab men, which combines dark magic with moral claims of a nationalist challenge (Yosef 2002). In the case at hand, the representation of this sexuality was disarmed through the de-orientalization of an Arab man and the dissolution of any link between sexuality and nationalist aggression. Specifically, Daniel is a light-skinned sexy Arab man whose sexual partners include Jewish women (as suggested by the magazine cover’s subtitle); he is an Israeli patriot and has no nationalist aspirations as an Arab.

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Daniel’s pictorial representation obviously makes him an excellent candidate for this depiction. I would argue, however, that there is another important dimension to his identity and self-presentation that contributed remarkably to his being selected as an embodiment of an unthreatening masculinity: Daniel was a football player who played in the first Israeli division in 2000 and became a local celebrity for a year. Not only does this photograph capture an historic attempt of the Jewish Israeli society majority to “tame” Arab men, but it also represents the importance of football in this “taming process.” The subtitle explicitly connects Daniel’s identity as a football player with the conversion of nationalist aspirations into sexual desires: “Sami Daniel, the Arab player of [the Jewish] Maccabi Petah Tikva [FC], speaks about life in the State of the Jews (Jewesses included).” The disarmed sexuality of an Arab football player represents the broader cultural–political context in which Israeli women footballers struggle for recognition, a context where masculine anxieties interact with colonial dynamics, national conflict, and ethnic tension in Israel’s stratified society. After describing the state of women’s football in Israel and beyond, this chapter examines the historical, political, and sociocultural contexts in Israel which, I suggest, engender the marginalisation of women in Israeli football.

Women’s Exclusion from Football Women’s sports in Israel are significantly less developed than men’s and thus, even in comparison with women’s sports in other countries, women in Israel have fewer chances of achieving success as athletes and fewer opportunities to hold key positions in sports organizations (Galily and Betzer-Tayar 2014). Indeed, women’s sports, and women’s football in particular, suffer from low prestige and consistent discrimination in the allocation of public funds.3

3A

law comparable to US legislation known as “Title IX”—which bars discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education programs and which is notably applied to sports—has never been legislated in Israel.

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In football, the marginalization of women is particularly pronounced, as reflected in their participation in the World Cup.4 Because of the decision to comply with new EUFA regulations, the Israeli Football Association hastily established a women’s national team in 1997 and a year later, an official women’s league. Until 2005, lack of minimal funding impaired regular activity for the entire senior women’s league, and both Jewish and Arab teams struggled yearly for their mere survival. In 2004, the Israeli Gambling Authority (IGA), the main provider of public funding for sports, allocated funds unevenly: 100 million NIS went to men’s football and only 470 thousand to women’s. Following an appeal by women’s teams, the Israeli Supreme Court set universal criteria for the financial support of athletes and sports teams, but a major element among these criteria was the popularity of the game or its “rating.” Because men’s sports enjoy far stronger popular support, the criteria set by the IGA ensure that this gap will not narrow any time soon (Seigelshifer 2012), clearly affecting the number of women attracted to particular sports. In 2012 women constituted 34% of individual athletes funded by the IGA but women’s football teams constituted only 12% of the funded teams. While this is an improvement as compared with the past, it is still evident that the closer a certain sport is to the status of a hegemonic sports culture—one that dominates a country’s emotional attachments (Markovits and Hellerman 2001: 10)—the lower the number of women participants.5 In 2009– 2010, twenty-seven senior Israeli women’s teams played in three leagues in addition to dozens of teams in younger age categories, but women’s sports remain marginalized in terms of resources invested as well as

4The first women’s World Cup took place as early as 1970 with the participation of seven teams, and in 1984, sixteen European teams participated in the qualifiers for the European Competition for Women’s Football. In Israel, women players established a national team in 1977, but at the time it gained no institutional recognition. 5 While women’s teams comprised 44% of the volleyball teams funded by the IGA, they made up 21% of the funded basketball teams, the second most popular sport among Israeli spectators, and only 4% of the funded football teams (Seigelshifer 2012).

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public attention and media coverage.6 In Israel, the gap between women’s and men’s football is not as severe as it is in other spheres of life (the military,7 for example), in which women’s struggle for equality has failed; but women’s football is nonetheless weaker in terms of sportive accomplishment. This lack of equality calls for an examination of the broader cultural–political context as well as the emergence of modern sports that might account for the challenges facing women’s football in Israel. Feminist studies have contended that the emergence of modern sports in Europe and the US was tightly linked to the crisis of masculinity and the aspiration to create an exclusive sphere of masculine socialization (Messner 1992: 9–13). Similarly, sports in Israel in general, and football in particular, have been a sphere which Jewish men of European descent (Ashkenazi8 men), Arab-Palestinian men, and Jewish men from Muslim countries (Mizrachi men), have all attempted to use to rehabilitate their threatened masculinity—to deorientalise and modernise their self-image and outward presentation. Football is of particular importance in this regard since in Israel it is a hegemonic sports culture. These cultures, according to Markovits and Hellerman, are “what people breathe, read, discuss, analyze, and historicize.” Next to football, basketball is the second hegemonic sports culture in Israel, football being the more popular of the two and the more lower-class oriented. A major recurring theme of hegemonic sports is their explicit and implicit exclusion of women supporters and their crucial role in constructing heterosexual masculinity, which is very frequently identified with toughness, robustness, and roughness. Hegemonic sports contain and produce the highest levels of the country’s political power and may provoke the strongest collective emotions of pride, joy, and frustration in people 6 It

is noteworthy that this is not a mere reflection of women’s weaker status in Israel relative to men, as measured, for example, by the UN’s GEI (Gender Equality Index). This organization measures gender inequalities in three important aspects of human development—reproductive health, empowerment, and economic status. On this scale, Israel was ranked 24th in 2018, above Australia, UK, New Zealand, and the US. For a detailed look at the data, see http://hdr. undp.org/en/data. 7 In its patriarchal organizational structure and public discourse the Israeli military is the second main bastion of masculinity in Israeli society and rivals football in the degree of its unfriendliness to women. 8 See N5, Rapoport and Noy, part “The Gendering of Fandom”.

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through their mere encounter in the stands with others whom they have never met. Unlike other sports, these sports generally attract fans from diverse social classes and very frequently, they are a focus of national pride either through international competitions or through a common belief that they represent the nation’s character. I argue that it is the hegemonic status of football that makes it a multidimensional contested terrain, where gender, class, ethnic, and national identities are interdependently struggled over and negotiated. Moreover, my contention is that the three-fold struggle in regard to masculinities among three groups of Israeli men—Arab-Palestinian, Mizrachi Jews, and European Jews—has imposed significant obstacles to inclusion of women in Israeli sports.

Jewish European and Arab Masculinities Under Threat—Historical Highlights The particular dynamics of the Arab-Jewish encounter in the realm of sports are highly influenced by the historical crisis regarding collective images of masculinity and the construction of national identities on both sides of the conflict. According to Cynthia Enloe, “Nationalism has typically sprung from masculinised memory, masculinised humiliation, and masculinised hope” (Enloe 1989: 44). In part, both Zionism and the Palestinian national movement aim to “redeem manhood and masculinity through nationalism” (Katz 1996).

Jewish European Nationalism, Sports, and Masculinity The discourse on sexuality in Judaism and Zionism is relevant here. As several scholars of Zionism and sexuality have shown, the earliest of the Zionist leaders regarded the body of the Jew of European descent as a reflection of a remarkable internalization of contemporary anti-Semitic stereotypes and pseudo-scientific literature, which found the Jewish male body inferior and drew similarities between the physiology of Jewish

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men’s and women’s bodies (Biale 1992; Boyarin 2000). Zionism strove to redeem the Jewish man from his femininity by converting him into an Aryan man. The “athletisation” of the Jewish man was seen as a cure to his non-masculine, non-muscular character. Max Nordau’s extensively quoted speech at the Zionist Congress of 1898, called for the establishment of a “Muscular Jewry,” emphasizing the tie between national redemption and masculine rehabilitation: “We shall develop a wide chest, strong limbs, a courageous look – we will become a people of valor. Sport is educationally significant to us, the Jews, for we have to recover not only physically, but also spiritually.” In the decades following Nordau’s speech, Jewish sports clubs were established throughout Europe and several large-scale Zionist sports organizations were founded. Although women were included in this movement, its predominant masculine orientation was evident both in quantitative terms and in the ambient rhetoric. The names given to sports clubs, for example, reflected the yearning for mythological muscular warriors of the ancient Jewish past—Maccabi,9 Shimshon (Samson),10 and so on. By the time the State of Israel was founded in 1948, these sports organizations were well established and active in Palestine, holding competitions at both local and international levels.

Arab-Palestinian Nationalism, Sports, and Masculinity As in Israeli sports, the Arab-Palestinian sports movement of the 1930s and 1940s was an integral part of a nationalist movement. As with other colonized peoples, their masculinity was challenged by their subjugation to British rule (1917–1948) and their inability to halt Zionist immigration and the settlers’ movement (Katz 1996). The emergence of an Arab-Palestinian sports movement, which was almost exclusively male, can be seen partly as a reaction to this challenge. Like the Zionist sports movement, the nationalist-masculine character of the Palestinian sports 9The Maccabis were Jewish rebel warriors against Ancient Greco-Roman Hellenization in the Second Century BCE. 10 Samson was a legendry Israelite warrior and judge (Biblical Book of Judges).

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movement was particularly exemplified through youth sports teams that were named after historically renowned Muslim and Arab military commanders, such as Khaled Ibn al-Walid11 and Salah al-Din.12 The rhetoric of the newly born Arabic-language sports press frequently emphasized the militaristic instrumental function of sports, as illustrated by the following excerpt from the sports column of the newspaper Filastin (Filastin, February 7, 1946): One is forced to point out here that sport’s most important virtue is that it is creating a generation of youth and adults with healthy bodies, free from sickness, who do not complain of feebleness and weakness. There can be no disagreement that such a generation is the standing army of the state, which it will call upon in its hour of need.

Another prominent aspect of the rhetoric during the 1940s was the presentation of sports as an important element in the modernization of Palestinian society, which was frequently equated with adopting European institutions and practices. The sports columns explicitly presented European sports as a paradigm of proper sporting activity and as offering a model worthy of replication. Whether this replication should include limited participation by women in sports was a controversial issue (Sorek 2007: 25–27). Ironically, before Israel was established in 1948, sports had been assigned the role of redeeming the insecure masculinity of both Jewish European and Arab-Palestinian men, and in both cases, the masculinizing sporting movement proposed to transform them according to the imagined model of non-Semitic European men. At this stage, football was already the most popular game on both sides of the conflict. In 1947 dozens of Arab-Palestinian sports clubs were active, mostly in cities. The large-scale destruction wrought by the 1948 war and the forced exile of Palestinian urban elites brought almost all of these sports

11 Khaled Ibn al-Walid was a war hero who played a vital role in the Meccan victory against the enemies of the Muslims. 12 A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish ethnicity, the first sultan of Egypt and Syria. He led and won the Muslim military campaign against the Crusader state.

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clubs to an end. After the war, 160,000 Palestinians, mainly rural inhabitants, remained under Israeli rule. This small minority was previously semi-detached from the Palestinian sporting movement. Although the Palestinians who remained in Israel received formal citizenship, until 1966 they were subjected to strict military rule which severely curtailed their freedom of movement, speech, and livelihood. While both Palestinian women and men suffered from these conditions, they experienced them differently. The humiliation of the Arab men who were defeated in the war was multiplied by the loss of significant tracts of their land, which had been an important element in the peasant masculine image before 1948 (Katz 1996). Furthermore, by blocking political organization and neutralizing public protest, the Israeli military regime eliminated Arab men’s activity in the public sphere and reduced masculine roles that could provide livelihoods for their families to a minimum (Hawari 2004), causing Arab men to be extremely vulnerable. Under these exceptionally imbalanced circumstances, the threatened masculinity of European Jewish men met the threatened masculinity of Arab-Palestinian men. A major policy goal of Israel’s state authorities in the 1950s and 1960s with respect to the Arab-Palestinian minority was to deter both its economic development as well as the emergence of any nationalist consciousness; at the same time, Israeli authorities sought to foster a non-Palestinian local Arab identity for the new excluded second-class Israeli citizens. The development of state-dependent sports clubs was one expression of these efforts. Hence, after 1948, sports were assigned not only the role of rehabilitating the image of Jewish men and consolidating national identity and modern Hebrew, but they were also used as a mechanism to facilitate control and surveillance of the Arab-Palestinian minority which remained under Israeli domination after the 1948 war (Sorek 2007). The State of Israel became the sponsor of football, with the game being one of several strategies through which the state sought to present itself as a facilitator of modernity. State functionaries13 took advantage 13 More

precisely, the Jewish functionaries were of the General Federation of Labor Unions, assigned by the government to encourage the establishment of sports clubs in Arab villages.

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of the elder rural leadership’s opposition to the game to highlight their own image as bearers of modernity. These elders did not welcome the idea of youth playing games such as football. At best, they considered the sight of barely dressed young men purposelessly running around chasing after a ball a waste of time, and at worst as, a licentious, un-masculine activity. For the younger generation, however, football provided an outstanding opportunity to rehabilitate their masculinity. Thus while for the elders football was a game associated with childhood play and immaturity, for the younger generation it provided an opportunity to test their masculinity in muscular competition shortly after their people had suffered a catastrophic and humiliating defeat in war. The Israeli political establishment and the young men of the Israeliruled Palestinian towns and villages thus paradoxically shared an interest in developing Arab sports. After the early 1960s, football clubs mushroomed among Arab citizens of Israel. Israeli authorities considered these clubs a useful antidote to nationalist consciousness and deliberately encouraged and supported them, as long as they played under the official umbrella of the Jewish-Zionist sports organization. Independent Arab sports organizations were banned and quickly disbanded if created. Interestingly, the Israeli government initially tended to encourage sports such as table tennis, basketball, and volleyball, which required much less physical contact, and to discourage contact sports such as wrestling, boxing, and football, in which muscle and power play significant roles. Since the non-contact sports could not compete with the popularity of football, however, this policy was quickly abandoned and football matches were disrupted only if the Palestinians attempted to establish autonomous sports institutions (Sorek 2007: 43–44). Under these circumstances, football became a safe ground for Arab men to display a combative, quasi-nationalist masculinity without incurring the risk of confronting state authorities. Paradoxically, by muting their expression of nationalist aspirations, or by channeling them to other spheres, Arab male football players were able to simulate a war against Jewish men. As for football fans, in the late 1960s they identified with successful Arab football players, even if they played in Jewish teams; this made it possible to reinforce masculine-national self-respect and evade the potential sanctions involved in identifying with other heroes, such

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as the Fatah movement,14 that started to gain momentum at exactly the same time. The growing popularity of football among Arab men is related in part to their exemption from Israeli military service and the risk involved in fighting against the state. At the same time the Zionist ethos promoted the military, the ultimate bastion of masculinity, to the top of the prestige hierarchy. Under conditions of violent, tense, and continuous national conflict, the hegemonic ideals of Zionist masculinity were embodied in the combatant soldier, preferably an officer in a special unit (LomskyFeder and Ben Ari 1999). Some scholars have emphasized the similarity between sports institutions and the military as sites of masculine competitiveness (Archetti 1994; Burstyn 1999), leading to the assumption that the two institutions perhaps provide similar opportunities for men to rehabilitate their masculinity. This claim is reflected in the steady increase up to the late 1990s in the number of Arab football teams playing in the Israeli Football Association; this percentage peaked at 42% of the teams, more than double their percentage of the population (17%). Interestingly, boxing is another sport in which Arab men have been overrepresented and even dominated. In the early 1960s, boxing, which stretches to the limit the fine balance between violence and the regulation of violence in sport, was also not recommended for Arabs by the Israeli government.

Mizrachi Masculinity Under Threat—Historical Highlights Following the immigration waves of the 1950s and 1960s, Israel emerged as an ethnically stratified society in which Palestinian citizens were relegated to the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. Among Jews, significant inequality between Ashkenazim and Mizrachim, in favor of the former, was established as early as those decades (Khazzoom 14 Founded

in 1959 by a group of Palestinian men in the diaspora and led by Yassir Arafat, Fatah was once at the center of the fight for the Palestinian national cause.

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2008). Although the boundaries between Ashkenazim and Mizrachim are far more diffused, blurred, and fluid than those between Jews and Arabs, the intra-Jewish schism seems to remain a crucial factor in Israeli sociopolitical and cultural dynamics and discourse as of 2020. Mizrachi men suffered during the 1950s and 1960s from high unemployment rates and had the non-prestigious, lowest paid occupations. A combination of structural discrimination and perceptions of cultural supremacy by Ashkenazim pushed many Mizrachim into the margins. In these two decades of mass immigration from Arab and Muslim countries to Israel, these developments were especially traumatic and humiliating for fathers in Mizrachi families, who struggled to provide for their families and lost their independence and dignity in the transition process. These experiences had trans-generational effects and manifested, among other ways, in the yearning for an image of a powerful Mizrachi masculinity (Yosef 2004). In addition, in the first decades of Israel’s existence as a state, the Israeli army—where hegemonic ideals of ZionistWestern masculinities were reproduced—replicated ethnic stratification extant in civilian life, with Mizrachim underrepresented among the higher ranks (although to a lesser extent in the last two decades) and in the more prestigious units and positions (Sasson-Levy 2003). The 1970s, a decade of turbulent Mizrachi activism, was accompanied by the success of football teams supported mainly by Mizrachi fans and the growing visibility of Mizrachi football stars. As members of the lower class of the emerging Israeli society, Mizrachi men gradually became the dominant group among Israeli football players.15 Many of them and others saw it as an education bypass affording them social mobility, even though this perception proved to be mostly illusory when subjected to systematic examination (Semyonov 1986). The first two championships of Hapoel Be’er Sheva FC (1974, 1975)—the southern city populated 15The

first Israeli national football team that traveled to the US (fall 1948) included a majority of players with surnames thought of as Ashkenazi, like Shneior, Botska, and Shlemzon, Zimmerman, Rosenboym, Fuks, Maromowitz, Shpiegel, and Glazer) Ha-Mashkif , 8 September 1948). Ashkenazi names remained dominant until the late 1960s and then almost vanished. When the national team travelled to games in Paris, 1978, names considered Mizrachi made up the majority, for example, Habib, Mizrachi, Makhnes, Malmilian, Peretz, and Azulai (Davar, 7 May 1978). Although the inference regarding ethnicity cannot be considered completely precise, it is nonetheless significant.

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by a Mizrachi majority—and the winning of the state cup by Beitar Jerusalem FC (1976, 1979) were regarded by many of their fans as a successful Mizrachi victory and protest. These victories were compatible with the emerging image of a strong Mizrachi man and football stars provided a successful model of Mizrachi masculinity for Mizrachi fans and other men. Two factors have rendered Mizrachi–Palestinian relationships particularly tense despite their initial cultural similarity, relatively speaking. Obtaining state privileges and acceptance as legitimate Jews by other Jewish Israelis has been tied to the ability of Mizrachi Jews to distinguish themselves clearly from the Arab population. Since they have perceived Arabs as the ultimate enemies of Zionism, many of the Mizrachim have tried to distance themselves culturally from being identified as such. The second main factor is their competition with Arab-Palestinians for similar low-paid jobs during the first decades of the state’s existence, which was far less prevalent for Ashkenazi middle-class men. Finding that they shared their primary pastime in the football stadium with Arab men was unpleasant for Mizrachi fans, especially given the growing success and visibility of Arab football. The most charged encounters in the football stadium between Arab and Jewish fans occurred when Arab teams faced Jewish teams such as Beitar Jerusalem FC (a predominantly Mizrachi-identified fan clubs)—the club most extreme in its exclusion of Arab players and hostile behaviour toward Arabs.16 Beitar is the only team in the Israeli first division which has always excluded Arab players from its roster.17 An attempt by the owner Arcady Gaydamak to recruit Muslim players from Chechnya in 2013 failed. The players left Israel as soon as the season ended due to harassment by fans and players, the revolt against their inclusion, and fans’ boycotts of matches.18

16 See

the movie, “Forever Pure” by Maya Zinshtein (2016). a non-Arab Muslim player from Nigeria who joined the team in 2004 left it in the middle of the season under pressure from fans. 18 For an entirely different interpretation of the anti-Arab attitude of Mizrachim in Beitar, see Guy Abutbul-Selinger (2019) “We Are Not Racists, We Are Nationalists”: Communitarianism and Beitar Jerusalem. 17 Even

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After Beitar was defeated 4:1 by Sakhnin (Jerusalem, October 4, 2004), Beitar fans published a video clip on the web featuring goals from the game. Preceding the clip was the following text: “Yesterday was the most painful, humiliating and embarrassing day in the history of our club since its foundation in 1936 […] this day has been inscribed in the history books as a day of mourning.” For Beitar fans, defeat by Arab men was clearly an extreme and irregular form of humiliation. Their tightly interrelated aspiration and attempt to reaffirm their Jewishness, deorientalize their image, and fortify their normative sense of masculinity are reflected, among other things, in the ethno-religious slurs that put their opponents’ heterosexuality into question: “Mohammed is gay!” is an insult commonly hurled at Sakhnin fans by Beitar fans. This homophobic discourse is especially relevant here because it is an important indicator of the experienced level of threat to fans’ masculinity. Homophobia is often interpreted as an expression of men’s fear that other men might detect their insufficient masculinity (Kimmel and Aronson 2004). While football fans commonly taunt their opponents by ascribing homosexuality to them, in Israel this form of labeling is most frequently directed at the football club of Hapoel Tel Aviv by other Jewish teams. On the website forum of Beitar Jerusalem fans, for example, whenever Hapoel Tel Aviv is mentioned, the adjectives, “Arabs,” “Ashkenazim,” “non-Jews,” and “gays” are immediately invoked, expressing the ethno-national rupture extant in Israeli society to this today. These expressions are used not only because of Hapoel Tel Aviv’s long tradition of including Arab players, but also because of its history as the flagship team of the former Mapai19 party—the Ashkenazi political establishment which ruled Israel until 1977 and contributed, through its policies, to the inferior positioning of Mizrachim within the socio-economic and educational hierarchy. Because of its historical tie to the Ashkenazi establishment as well as its tradition of including Arab

19 Mapai, based on an acronym, was literally the “Workers’ Party of the Land of Israel,” a center-left political party, and the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger into the modern-day Israeli Labor Party in 1968. Yet, its symbol as degrading to Mizrachim survives.

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players, Hapoel Tel Aviv is thus viewed as Ashkenazi, Arab loving, elitist and yefe nefesh (Hebrew)20 by fans of other clubs. The image shown here (Fig. 2)—formerly displayed (without attribution) on the web site of fans of Hapoel Be’er Sheva FC, a rival of Hapoel Tel Aviv—reflects the tight association between threatened masculinities and the construction of ethnicity within the Israeli football sphere. It embodies an attempt to humiliate Hapoel Tel Aviv fans by superimposing two flags on their club’s emblem—the Palestinian flag and the flag of the gay community (Tel Aviv is generally regarded as the gay capital of Israel).

Ethno-National and Class Conflicts at Football Stadiums The commonly expressed notion that football is a substitute for war is far from satisfying. In Israel, outbreaks of violence are generally no more common at matches between Arabs and Jews than at other football games (Sorek 2007: 83–84). While expressions of nationally based protest in stadiums are more common and evident lately, the majority of Arab fans are still uncomfortable and hesitant with regard to the explicit display of political protest and Palestinian national symbols in the stadium (Sorek 2019). While Jewish lower-class fans frequently intensify the ethno-national conflict at football stadiums (see below), Arab football fans are in a more ambiguous position. On the one hand, football is indeed an opportunity for them to beat the Jewish men in a physical competition, yet on the other hand, football also offers a unique opportunity for Arab citizens to attain integration and acceptance by the Jewish majority. As a sphere which glorifies a meritocratic ethos, football offers protection to the Arab citizens from the discriminatory practices they face in many other spheres of Israeli society. Skilled footballers’ inclusion on the national and professional teams is not conditioned on military service, proficiency in 20Yefe

hearts.

nefesh (Hebrew) is a cynical reference to humanists, akin to do-gooders or bleeding

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Fig. 2 Illustration mocking Hapoel Tel Aviv FC

Hebrew, or security clearance, which are some of the hurdles that Arab citizens face in the Israeli job market. Arab fans manage their national-political confrontation with Jewish fans attentively and cautiously. One implication of this carefulness is

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that sexual and sexist symbolism is prominent, overshadowing nationalist expressions. For example, at one of the matches I attended in 1999, fans from Sakhnin (an Arab town in the Galilee) responded to anti-Arab curses by fans of the Jewish team Beitar Jerusalem FC with the slogan, “Sarah on the dick” (in Hebrew), referring to Sarah Netanyahu, the wife of the right-wing Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who is admired by many Beitar fans to this day. This slogan was a symbolic attempt to subjugate the political identity of Beitar fans sexually without attacking their ethno-national identity as Jews. In this way, Sakhnin fans’ national protest remained sublimated. The Arab fans’ choice of slogan represented a broader attempt on their part to abate national tensions on the football field, or at least to leave these tensions unarticulated, hence implicit. What about the Arab-Palestinian football players? Their remarkable presence in Israeli football has a special significance when they are invited to play on the Israeli national team, namely, to represent Israel in international arenas. Victories of the Israeli national team are frequently perceived by Arabs as provocations against the national and masculine pride of Arab men (Amara and Kabaha 1996), yet when an Arab player plays for Israel, the integrative aspirations on the part of Arab fans gain prominence and the team is widely supported by Arab men (Sorek 2007: 122). My claim is that this support depends on the men’s self-confidence in their masculine identity. In a survey of fans that I conducted in 2000, I found that Arab men who described themselves as proud of their masculine identity had a higher tendency to oppose the Israeli national team as compared with other fans (Sorek 2007: 123). The negative association between support for the national team and pride in male identity suggests that fans who are concerned about their male identity consider the international sport encounter an opportunity to shoot down the masculinity of the Jewish male. The threat to masculine identity is associated to a high degree with the sense of degradation on the national level, and these two dimensions—gender and national identities—maintain a mutual relationship, shaping one another. If these threatened masculinities are indeed an obstacle for including women in football, the way to investigate the exclusion is to examine the attempts to challenge it.

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Basketball as a Counter-Example The importance of national, ethnic, and class division for the dynamics of women’s inclusion and exclusion becomes evident when we compare Israeli football to the second hegemonic sport in the country, basketball. As mentioned earlier, in the 1960s, the initial tendency of the authorities was to encourage Arab men to play basketball rather than football. In the long term, Arab men have been underrepresented and unsuccessful in basketball; an Arab men’s team has never played in the first division, and the Israeli national basketball team for men has never included an Arab player. Compared with Jewish municipalities, Arab municipalities have invested far more financial resources in football and far fewer in basketball (Sorek 2007: 60). Also, while Arab men are highly overrepresented in football, they are significantly underrepresented among men’s teams officially registered in the Israeli Basketball Association. Interestingly, this tendency is reversed among women. Arab women are overrepresented in basketball and underrepresented in football (Sorek 2013). These inverted tendencies might reflect the masculine-combative image of football in Israel as opposed to the relatively more gender-neutral image of basketball. Basketball, the sport in which Israel has been the most successful internationally, also plays a role in marking intra-Jewish ethnic and class distinctions. Victories of the Maccabi Tel Aviv men’s team in Europe21 are celebrated in Israel by the Jewish public of all social classes. However, most Israeli basketball stars are Ashkenazi Jews, and basketball is not uncommonly referred to as “an Ashkenazi sport.” The particular ethnicity-based character of Israeli football is evident in the municipal authorities’ support of various sports, which frequently reflects the popularity of those sports in the municipality (Sorek 2007: 59–68). In my 1998 analysis of municipal support of sports clubs in Israel, I calculated the correlation between the level of support for football and basketball associations (as a ratio of general support of sports associations) in Jewish localities with a population under 60,000. It 21 Maccabi Tel Aviv won the European championship in basketball in 1977, 1981, 2001, 2004, and 2005.

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turned out that the support level for a football association was positively correlated with the ratio of residents originating from Africa and Asia (0.58) and negatively correlated with the ratio of residents originating from Europe or America (−0.65). In both cases the correlation was statistically significant. Support for basketball associations was positively and significantly associated with the ratio of residents of European and American origin (0.38), but no significant correlation was found between support for basketball and the ratio of residents from Africa and Asia. At the same time, basketball is the one women’s team sport that has managed to gain substantial recognition and is the country’s only women’s professional sport (Bernstein and Galily 2008). Unlike the crippled Israeli women’s football league, women’s basketball in Israel has a stable semi-professional league which has attained success internationally. What we can deduce from the analysis above is that when the intersection between class-orientations to sports and gender achievements is considered, the gender gap in achievements in the lower-class group (that is oriented toward football), is much wider than in the middle-class group (that is oriented toward basketball). My argument is that in both of the major social divisions in Israel—the ethnonational Arab-Jewish divide and the Mizrachi-Ashkenazi ethnic divide—the social association of basketball with the stronger ethnic group has made it more likely to include women. Until recently, when women were accepted as legitimate participants in institutionalized sports, those sports tended, globally, to be associated with the middle and upper classes (Hargreaves 1994). Thus, in a given country, the level of women’s inclusion in football is highly dependent on which class is associated with the sport (Knoppers and Anthonissen 2003; Sugden 1994).22 A possible explanation spanning the intersection of class, gender, and type of sport is that the fewer the threats masculinity faces in the economic and political spheres, the lesser the need for masculinity to be reassured via sport, which allows for women to be included more readily.

22 For

instance, in the case of football (soccer) in the US, the middle-class character of the sport coincides with greater tolerance for the inclusion of women.

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Conclusion This chapter suggests that the status and significance of football (and basketball) in Israeli society is directly related to the role of sports in protecting and cultivating the masculinity of men of diverse sociocultural backgrounds and more generally to Israel’s ethno-national stratification. As I have aimed to demonstrate, women’s exclusion from (or inclusion in) a sport is related to the sense of threat that men experience regarding their masculinity, and at the same time, to the society’s stratified structure and prevailing socio-economic inequality and discrimination. The common tendency among Israeli liberals is to embrace Arab football (and other sports) teams and players and to celebrate their success. The accelerated commercialization of Israeli football since the 1980s (Ben Porat 1998) and Israel’s meritocratic sporting ideology, have provided fertile ground for cultivating the liberal discourse on citizenship—an inclusivity that legitimizes rights for all Israeli citizens (Sorek 2003; Shafir and Peled 1998). In light of this discourse, we may account for why, from the liberals’ point of view, Arab football seems to be a glimpse of light in the darkness of discrimination, oppression, and growing inter-communal suspicion, hostility, and discrimination. Yet the liberal discourse on citizenship has not included women in the world of football, since football has remained crucial for protecting and fortifying diverse masculine identities. The struggle for women’s inclusion in sports (and other areas) is an integral part of a broader societal struggle for power and equality. The painful question of women’s inclusion in football is viewed in this chapter as tightly bound to the game’s characterization as a major battlefield among several collectives of injured, threatened masculinities. The male hegemonic nature of football in Israel has its counterparts in other countries, even where other sports are at the center (as in the US, Canada, and New Zealand). Nevertheless, during the past decades there has been quite a dramatic change: Girls’ and women’s football leagues have been established in many European countries. In Israel, too, this phenomenon is growing, yet more slowly and with more obstacles.

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References Abutbul-Selinger, G. (2019). “We Are Not Racists, We Are Nationalists”: Communitarianism and Beitar Jerusalem. Israel Studies Review, 3(3), 64–82. Amara, M., & Kabaha, S. (1996). A Split Identity—Political Division and Social Reflections in a Divided Village (Hebrew). Giv’at Haviva: The Institute for Peace Research. Archetti, E. P. (1994). Masculinity and Football: The Formation of National Identity in Argentina. In R. Giulianotti & J. Williams (Eds.), Game Without Frontiers: Football, Identity, and Modernity (pp. 225–244). Arena: Aldershot. Ben Porat, A. (1998). The Commodification of Football in Israel. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 3(33), 269–276. Bernstein, A., & Galily, Y. (2008). Games and Sets: Women, Media and Sport in Israel. Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues (15), 175–196. Biale, D. (1992). Eros and the Jews: From Biblical Israel to Contemporary America. New York: Basic Books. Boyarin, D. (2000). Outing Freud’s Zionism, or, the Bitextuality of the Diaspora Jew. In C. Patton & B. Sánchez-Eppler (Eds.), Queer Diasporas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Burstyn, V. (1999). The Rites of Men: Manhood, Politics, and the Culture of Sport. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press. Enloe, C. (1989). Bananas, Beaches, & Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. Berkeley: University of California. Galily, Y., & Betzer-Tayar, M. (2014). Losing Is Not an Option! Women’s Basketball in Israel and Its Struggle for Equality (1985–2002). The International Journal of the History of Sport, 31(13), 1694–1705. Hargreaves, J. (1994). Sporting Females: Critical Issues in the Sociology and History of Women’s Sports. London and New York: Routledge. Hawari, A. (2004). Under the Military Regime. Adalah’s Review, 4, 33–44. Katz, S. H. (1996). Adam and Adama, ‘Ird and Ard: Engendering Political Conflict and Identity in Early Jewish and Palestinian Nationalisms. In D. Kandiyoti (Ed.), Gendering the Middle East: Emerging Perspectives (pp. 85– 101). Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Khazzoom, A. (2008). Shifting Ethnic Boundaries and Inequality in Israel: Or, How the Polish Peddler Became a German Intellectual . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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Kimmel, M. S., & Aronson, A. (Eds.). (2004). Gendered Society Reader. New York: Oxford University Press. Knoppers, A., & Anthonissen, A. (2003). Women’s Football in the United States and the Netherlands: Differences and Similarities in Regimes of Inequalities. Sociology of Sport Journal, 20 (4), 351–370. Lomsky-Feder, E., & Ben Ari, E. (1999). From ‘The People in Uniform’ to ‘Different Uniforms for the People’: Professionalism, Diversity and the Israeli Defense Forces. In J. Soeters & J. Van der Meulen (Eds.), Managing Diversity in the Armed Forces: Experiences from Nine Countries. Tiburg: Tiburg University Press. Markovits, A. S., & Hellerman, S. L. (2001). Offside: Football and American Exceptionalism in Sport. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Messner, M. A. (1992). Power at Play: Sports and the Problem of Masculinity. Boston: Beacon Press. Sasson-Levy, O. (2003). Military, Masculinity, and Citizenship: Tensions and Contradictions in the Experience of Blue-Collar Soldiers. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 10 (3), 319–345. Seigelshifer, V. (2012). Changing the Rules of the Game: A Gender Perspective on Sports Allocations in Israel: Adva Center. Semyonov, M. (1986). Occupational Mobility Through Sport: The Case of Israeli Football. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 21(1), 23–33. Shafir, G., & Peled, Y. (1998). Citizenship and Stratification in an Ethnic Democracy. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 21(3), 408–427. Sorek, T. (2003). Arab Football in Israel as an ‘Integrative Enclave’. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 26 (3), 422–450. Sorek, T. (2007). Arab Soccer in a Jewish State: The Integrative Enclave. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sorek, T. (2013). Sport, Palestine, and Israel. In D. L. Andrews & B. Carrington (Eds.), A Companion to Sport (pp. 257–269). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell. Sorek, T. (2019). The Palestinian Flag Is Back: Arab Soccer in a Jewish State Revisited. Israel Studies Review, 34 (3), 83–99. Sugden, J. (1994). USA and the World Cup: American Nativism and the Rejection of the People’s Game. In J. Sugden and A.Tomlinson (Eds.), Hosts and Champion: Football Cultures, National Identities and the USA World Cup (pp. 219–252). Hants, UK: Ashgate.

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III: Claiming a Foothold in Spaces Beyond the Stadium

Thematic Introduction - III The three chapters of Part III illustrate how, by their activism, fans in football clubs in Tel Aviv, Hamburg and Egypt “claim the right to space.” It was Henri Lefebvre who theorized the notion of the right to the city that can be claimed by social groups inhabiting it (1995). Inspired by Lefebvre’s understanding of space, we discuss fans’ symbolic and concrete claims to a significant and even equal political footing in spaces beyond the stadium. By crossing and widening the traditional boundaries of the stadium to pursue social and political goals, fans extend the practices of doing fandom from inside to outside the historically designated space of the stadium, thereby challenging the traditional definition and meanings of fandom and of being a fan. Fans’ identity and the meaning of fandom are shaped, then, not only by how they do fandom within the stadium, but also beyond it. As illustrated by the three chapters of this part, fans’ action and ideology often reverberate far beyond the stadium, eliciting diverse public response within their club and elsewhere. The driving power of fans’ activism corroborates the contention that their historical identity remains an enormous force in the global space of football and attests to their agentive power and even their capacity to bring

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about change. The challenge that fans present to the authorities, their struggle for change, their rebelliousness and drive are described by James M. Dorsey in his blog entry, “Sports: A battlefield for freedom of expression and political change": “Fans,” according to Dorsey, “are turning sports in an era of defiance and dissent into a battleground for freedom of expression and political change”; they highlight and “puncture the fiction of separation of sports and politics.” In Egypt and Syria, for example, fans demand reforms of regime-controlled football federations that are widely viewed as corrupt (“The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer”, blog post 25.12.19). Daniel Regev’s Chapter “‘Representing Hapoel, Not Israel’: Hapoel Tel Aviv Fans Alternate Between Local and National Identification”, discusses the tension between national and local identities and practices experienced by the fans of this club. It highlights the practices that these fans employ in decoupling, challenging, and problematizing the strong bond between nationalism and football, as evident in the banner that proclaims, “Representing Hapoel, not Israel,” which they have displayed for many years both in Israel and at international games in Europe. Regev’s analysis follows fluctuations in the expression of national loyalty among Hapoel fans between the years 2001 and 2015. It begins with fans’ initial disavowal of national identity as they embraced an alternative, local identity and traces the swing of the pendulum toward fans’ increased manifestations of nationalism in the stands. Starting his analysis with fans’ symbolic divorce from the oppressive, nationalistic Jewish-Israeli space, Regev shows how fans turned to cultivating their attachment to their city and Tel-Avivian identity. Most recently, fan groups of national orientations have become more visible in the stands as they hold Israeli flags, reflecting the growing nationalism/patriotism in Israeli politics and society. The author sheds light on how these changes in the fandom field are related to the transformation occurring in the political arena, climate and discourse within Israeli society as well as, more recently, to the team’s diminishing achievements. In Chapter “Saving Red Flora: The Political Mobilisation of Sankt Pauli Fans”, Roy Siny discusses the link between the political practices of Sankt Pauli FC fans in the stadium (Hamburg, Germany) and their

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hands-on radical politics against capitalism and neoliberalism. It illustrates how doing fandom and doing politics converge by discussing fans’ grassroots political activism inside and outside the stadium in a club that proudly embraces a leftist, anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, and anti-institutional ideology that mobilizes fans. The club indeed enlists, promotes, and energizes fans’ activism and transforms fans into political agents. The fans claim the right to a sociocultural space in the St. Pauli district, especially to its old theater, “Red Flora,” that was squatted and has subsequently served as a cultural center and a symbol of an anticapitalist space. The fans, who developed the space over many years to suit their communal needs and who regard it as free space for realizing an autonomous life, have been deeply involved in defending it against eviction. In December 2013, their demonstrations led to direct, sometimes violent, confrontation with the police, the city, and the German state. The analysis thus explicates the power of fans’ political practices that emerge from the stadium to drive local, municipal, and national political criticism that resonates far beyond the stadium, the district, the city, Germany, and even beyond. Chapter “Football Arenas in the Middle East and North Africa: Battlegrounds for Political Control”, is authored by James M. Dorsey. The chapter discusses how since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, doing fandom has played a central role in the formation of nation states and regimes in the Middle East and North Africa as well as in ratifying and shaping ethnic identities and political demands for independence, liberties, and rights. The chapter shows how during the late 20th century, Middle Eastern and North African leaders have enlisted sports to attain independence, strengthen their hold on centers of power, and further their political aims, even as at times the stadium turned into the site of anti-government protest. The age-old ability of autocratic leaders to continue in their ways was significantly restricted at the beginning of the twenty-first century with the rise of militant, battle-hardened political groups of football fans and the Ultras, which challenge the repressive regimes’ power centers and persistently and doggedly confront autocrats’ need to control all public space (as in the protest sites, Tahrir

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Square in Egypt and Taksim Square of Istanbul). In the course of intense and sometimes violent change, their struggle turns football and the stadium into a battleground demanding political control, increased political freedom, and equal economic opportunity.

“Representing Hapoel, Not Israel”: Hapoel Tel Aviv Fans Alternate Between Local and National Identification Daniel Regev

The first football book I was ever exposed to as a child was Football Against the Enemy (Kuper 2002 [1994]). In what became a best seller, journalist Simon Kuper examined the mutual influence of football and national identity in twenty-two countries. Numerous studies have followed focusing on the close nationalism and sport affinity, particularly in football (Ben-Porat 2003; Bishop and Jaworski 2003; Majer-O’Sickey 2006; Tomlinson and Young 2006; Llopis-Goig 2008). The presupposition is that a bond of heart and soul to one’s nation and state is forged at football stadiums (Morgan 1994; Alegi 2010). Recognizing this phenomenon, Eric Hobsbawm aptly describes the global social power of football: “The imagined community of millions seems more real and tangible as a team of eleven players” (Hobsbawm 1990: 43). The stands according to Giulianotti (2002) provide an opportunity to strengthen national sentiment, which can lead to diplomatic conflict and even war D. Regev (B) Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel © The Author(s) 2020 T. Rapoport (ed.), Doing Fandom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46870-5_9

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Fig. 1 “Representing Hapoel, Not Israel”

(Kuhn 2011). Football, then, is clasped in the grip of nationalism and is at the service of the state when needed (Ben-Porat 2003). Israeli society, where nationalism and patriotism have always played a crucial role in the nation-building project and in consolidating the collective Israeli identity (Bar-Tal and Ben-Amos 2004), constantly engages in recruiting football, along with other public arenas, in an attempt to secure national solidarity. It follows, then, that the football stadium arena in Israel is a suitable context for researching manifestations of nationalism and patriotism, both of which are highly visible in the routine raising of the Israeli flag at the vast majority of Israeli football stadiums and in the occasional singing of the national anthem. These symbolic acts manifest and seek to reinforce ties among the club, fans, state, and nation. For fans of Hapoel Tel Aviv FC, hereafter called “Hapoel” (or, ha-po’el, literally “the worker” in Hebrew), the raising of the flag was subject to controversy, and hence gave rise to tension and conflict.1 Many fans refused to assume that the presence of the blue-andwhite national symbol is natural and viewed it as foreign or as disruptive of the “Red” sociopolitical, cosmopolitan spirit of the club, while other fans supported its presence in the stadium. “Representing Hapoel, not Israel,” read the red and white banner displayed by fans in the stands (Fig. 1) at every match for over fifteen years, during which no open opposition was voiced. However, following a long period of unopposed display, a group of fans manifested resistance to the symbolic disengagement of the stadium from nationalism which the banner communicated; these fans sought to reverse the 1 For

example, see, the fan forum page, http://shedim.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=1594341#p15 94341, titled “Representing Hapoel, not Israel” (Hebrew), accessed 17.10.2019.

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anti-nationalist image provoked by the banner as well as the negative reputation of the Reds (as the club is called) as non-Zionist traitors. This chapter analyzes random practices to demonstrate fans’ agency in challenging and dismantling the presumed connection between football and nationalism in Israel; it specifies how fans acted to contest and subvert this presumption. The chapter also aims to understand the meaning of re-directing the sense of belonging from the Israeli nationstate and popular nationalism to the local-urban entity which Israelis dub “the State of Tel Aviv.” In this context, I will elucidate what Tel Aviv signifies for fans both personally and collectively and how fans manifest their affiliation with the city in their fandom practices. The chapter reveals how fans turn from nationality to locality and consolidate their urban identity through their support of Hapoel, which provided them a civic-national alternative to the national-political ethos characterizing Israeli football and Israeli society at large.

Researcher-Fan In the course of this study, I wore two hats—I was a researcher in the field of cultural anthropology as well as a fervent Hapoel fan of over twenty years. The dual positions of fan and researcher drew together my routine performance of fandom practices and my investigative gaze as I studied fans’ behavior within and outside the fandom field as well as behind the scenes. I witnessed the events cited throughout the chapter as they transpired, including displays of posters and banners, flag waving, chanting, and the conflicts between fans of opposing worldviews with respect to nationalism. I first encountered football as a young child. As a university student, I became an ethnographer who conducted participant-observations and interviews with my fellow fans, allowing me to bring multiple perspectives to bear on events and at times employ a reflective, critical gaze. Moreover, my lifelong personal acquaintance with the club and reputation as a key activist in the fan community opened doors to a variety of materials and events. Occasionally, I had to consciously make the familiar foreign, neutralize the fan’s knowledge so that as researcher I could pose

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probing questions about both obvious and surprising events. As discussed in the anthropology at home literature, this approach presents difficulties and obstacles, but also sharpens the insights gleaned through familiarity with the phenomena (e.g., Abuhav 2010; Strathern 1987). In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 men and women fans, mostly between twenty and sixty years of age; all interviewees were of Jewish–Israeli background but differed in ethnicity, social status, and place of residence. Interviewees were selected on the basis of personal acquaintance, the snowball method, or online search of the fan forum. Paralleling the interviews, I held participant observations in the stadium and its vicinity both before and after matches. The observations provided a direct view of “doing fandom” (see chapter “An Analytical Framework for Investigating Fandom”, this anthology) in real time, furnishing evidence of fans’ bodily practices, their emotions and their level of commitment to their club. During these observations I documented the diverse practices of doing fandom and fans’ verbal expressions (as reflected in chants, curses, and discussions).

Hapoel Tel Aviv Fans—An Intentionally Non-normative Minority vs. an “Aggressive Herd” My opening questions of all interviewees probed for their view of the spirit of Hapoel and what values were important to them. These questions revealed why fans identified with the club. They mentioned several social and political attributes, specifically, “co-existence [with Arabs],” “tolerance,” “community,” “political orientation,” “non-conformity,” “an anti-herd mentality” and “anti-racism.” A national survey (April 20142 ) of Israeli football fans of different clubs which examined the phrases they commonly used concurred with this finding: In that study, Hapoel fans characterized themselves as “anti-racist,” “anti-establishment,” “left” and “familial.” They were aware of their “anti-” stances, of their challenging 2 See

reporting on the poll: http://sports.walla.co.il/?w=/7/2734410 (in Hebrew), accessed 24.9.2019.

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common orientations, and of being a minority sports-wise as well as in their sociopolitical values in Israeli society, a distinction in which they took pride. The sociopolitical values of Hapoel fans were clearly expressed in their fandom practices. For example, a group of leftist fans confronted Israeli– Jewish nationalism in Israel by offering a sociopolitical alternative for Jewish–Arab relations: “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies,” read a banner waved in tandem by supporters of Hapoel and Bnei Sakhnin FC (an Arab Israeli club) at a match between them (21.12.2013). This slogan, displayed at demonstrations by left-wing Israelis for many years, conveys support for “co-existence,” “tolerance,” “anti-racism” and “left.” Eight years earlier, before a match in their home turf against Beitar Jerusalem FC (January 2006)—a club notorious for its fans’ racist orientations—Hapoel fans staged an anti-racist performance in the stadium. Facing Beitar fans, they displayed red posters bearing Hapoel’s emblem at the center surrounded by the decree, No to Racism, in over ten languages. Additional rallying cries, such as “otherness3 [we are different],” “antiherd,” “anti-establishment,” and “non-conformist” were expressed in the backdrop that Hapoel fans created for the derby match against Maccabi Tel Aviv FC, Hapoel’s arch rival (August 2005). Inspired by the film “Trainspotting,” they hung a huge banner proclaiming, “We chose not to live a normal life, we chose you - Hapoel Tel Aviv.” Two dozen smaller banners elucidated that the normal choices are those of the civilian-hegemonic consensus—“establishment”, “law”, “military enlistment”, “majority”, “top team”, “Yad-Eliyahu“ [Maccabi Tel Aviv’s basketball home], and “optimism”. The display underscored that Hapoel fans differ in that they shun those normative life preferences. Hapoel fans suggest that fandom and citizenship are linked; indeed, being a fan and having a civil-political affinity are tightly connected (Guschwan 2011). Because of their worldview, Hapoel’s supporters are regarded as a minority by fans of other teams, extreme both in their fandom practices and their social-civil orientations. Moreover, they are Hebrew, the word ‫‘( תורחא‬Acherut ), meaning otherness, derives from the root, ‫‘( רחא‬Acher ), meaning other or different; fans use it to highlight the special, unique nature of their club within the Israeli football landscape and more generally.

3 In

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perceived as a foreign, disruptive, disloyal element in Israeli–Jewish society: “Just emigrate from Israel, you’re not Jews,” chant Maccabi Tel Aviv fans at the Reds. Expressing the view that Hapoel fans are traitors, they chant “Hapoel Tel Aviv [is] Hezbollah4 .” By using derogatory, popularized language intended to exclude Hapoel fans from the Israeli– Jewish collective, Hapoel’s right-wing rivals accentuate the cultural and sociopolitical fissure between themselves and Hapoel fans. The political slurs echo the rapidly growing impassioned, hostile discourse directed against the Left in Israel, that goes beyond politics to include sexual (“gays / transsexuals”), cultural and ethnic epithets such as yefe nefesh Yefe (Hebrew, literally “beautiful souls”, a cynical reference to humanists akin to “bleeding hearts”), anti-Semite, Ashkenazim (of Western ethnic background) and Arab lovers.5 Such slurs are also voiced in light of the significant, growing presence of Arab Hapoel fans and footballers who play for Hapoel. They are also provoked by Hapoel fans’ intentional use of expressions taboo in Israeli society, for example, “Put Jerusalem [back] in Jordan” (alluding to Hapoel’s support of renouncing East Jerusalem as part of Israel), “May the Wailing Wall fall on you,” or “May Maccabi have a Holocaust.” The blatant invocation of sacred cows by a group of leftist fans, compounded with venomous blasphemy regarding rivals’ personal misfortunes, are repulsive to fans of the rival team, to the Israeli media and to a considerable number of Hapoel fans as well.

4 An

Islamic, militant political party situated in Lebanon that fights the West and is considered an enemy in Israel. 5 Maccabi Tel Aviv fans habitually chant the following lyrics at Hapoel fans: “No reds, no attacks, Gate 5 are Muslims, they do not represent Israel; Salim Toama [Israeli Arab footballer who played for Hapoel] is a terrorist.” Likewise, at Classico matches, fans of Beitar Jerusalem sing to Hapoel fans: “Hapoel is hated everywhere in the country, they represent neither us nor Israel, Hapoel are Communists, sluts [prostitutes], Arabs; may the red pigs burn”.

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“Representing Hapoel, Not Israel”—Pulling Back from Nationalism For almost twenty years—starting with Hapoel Tel Aviv’s Cinderella story debut on a journey to Europe for the 2001–2002 season European games—the banner, “Representing Hapoel, not Israel” (Fig. 1) has displayed at every match played by the team. The sporting journey that included exceptional victories (in Israeli terms) of the Reds over elite European clubs became the club’s crowning achievement. The fairytale journey was engraved as a formative event in fans’ memory because of the historical-political context that shaped it, the Second Intifada.6 During this period, life in Israel was marred by terror attacks, political tension spread to the football arena and European rivals expressed concern about playing in Israel. Hapoel and its impressive sporting campaign were immediately coopted by politicians for political-national purposes joined by members of the Israeli Football Association, the media and many fans of other Israeli football teams. The latter were enthusiastic about the dizzying Israeli success and attended Hapoel’s overseas matches armed with Israeli flags that made a sudden appearance in the stands. The ultimate expression of nationalism was the singing of Israel’s national anthem at the end of the journey, after Hapoel had lost 2:0 at the San Siro stadium in Milan to AC Milan in the presence of ten thousand Israelis, thousands of them not Hapoel fans; the latter rejected the national embrace and refused to tint their red banner in the national colors. Thereafter, the vocal fans at Gate 5 of their home stadium, Bloomfeld (the gate accommodating the most enthusiastic fandom performers who orchestrate the fandom practices throughout each match) would chant, “We do not represent Israel,” sweeping all fans along with them. The message transmitted by the banner—born as a counter-reaction to the wave of nationalistic fervor that had swept over football in Israel and the club’s stands in those days—antagonised fans 6The term refers to the revolt against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. This uprising followed the first Palestinian uprising, which occurred between December 1987 and 1993. It had been a period of intensified Israeli–Palestinian violence, which Palestinians describe as an uprising against Israel, while Israelis consider it a prolonged period of terrorism.

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of other clubs as well as the Israeli sports media. In thus expressing their rebuff, Hapoel fans separated themselves from the growing Israeli nationalistic stream, an unusual act which was perceived as anti-nationalist, blatant, and extreme both in the sports landscape and in Jewish–Israeli society. The sign, “Representing Hapoel, not Israel” was interpreted by the interviewees and forum contributors in two distinct ways: Some perceived it as an anti-nationalistic message expressing criticism of Israeli nationalism, while others read it as a non-political statement, expressing the aim of detaching sports from politics. Although fans differed in their interpretation of the banner, for a time, the fan community appeared to share a critical attitude toward the automatic coupling of a sports team with a nation and nationality. Moshe (59) clearly represented the non-political interpretation in saying at his interview that he is not bothered when a fellow Hapoel fan waves the Israeli flag in the bleachers. “I myself would not do that,” he clarified, “but I will respect the rule that every fan may act as he wishes.” At the same time, like other interviewees, Moshe rejected the nationalistic appropriation of the flagship Israeli basketball team, Maccabi Tel Aviv, which often plays in European tournaments. He made a point of saying that he is not anti-Israeli and therefore does not support the banner. Given his view that sports rivalry takes precedence over national sentiments, he would like all fans to focus solely on supporting their clubs. Many fans who supported display of the banner emphasized that unlike norms of other countries, in Israel it is not legitimate for a club to abstain from nationalism. Indeed, every Israeli is expected to support all Israeli clubs at their overseas matches. In a forum thread titled, “Representing Hapoel, not Israel ” (8.11.12), the fan Red Toro made it clear that he prefers a fan’s total loyalty to his club (by virtue of sport) to the hypocritical support of a rival club in the name of nationalism when it competes in Europe. Similar sentiments were voiced by many of the Hapoel fans interviewed, who expressed their desire to separate from Israeli nationalism and support their club’s social stance. Following Hapoel’s great sporting success in Europe at the beginning of the millennium, the media crowned its winning game as “the

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best show in Israel.” Some interviewees said that they identified with the protest sign (“Representing Hapoel, not Israel”) due to the media’s attempt at the time to portray Hapoel as “the state’s team”, a phrase previously reserved for Maccabi Tel Aviv. Most Hapoel fans felt uncomfortable with the media’s likening their club to the Maccabi basketball club, which Hapoel perceived as belligerent, predatory, and bent on success at any cost. Hapoel, per fans’ testimony, clashes with Maccabi over the values that the clubs espouse: Hapoel’s equality versus Maccabi’s capitalism, modesty versus arrogance, and different versus establishment. Shira (34), a familiar face in the Red stadium, was interviewed shortly after Maccabi (the basketball club7 ) had won the European championship (Milan, May 2014). I played a video clip for her that was circulating on social media at the time showing an enormous Israeli flag spread across the entire width of the Duomo square in Milan surrounded by hundreds of Israelis singing the Israeli national anthem.8 After frowning at the sight of the video, she drew a parallel between politics and sports: It’s a question of majority versus minority, hegemony versus antihegemony, the power relations between them and freedom of expression. Both [Shimon] Mizrachi [the chairman of the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team] and [Avigdor] Lieberman [chairman of a secular right-wing nationalist party, later a minister] believe that they are right, the others are wrong and that dissent should have no voice and be silenced; that anyone who speaks out is a traitor of Israel and can Go to h… I know these lines only too well, as I have been attacked at my workplace many times when I dared express a different opinion […] Luckily, Hapoel exists. […] No matter what people say, we will continue to go with Hapoel, as we do with our truth. (Shira, May 2014)

Pointing to the “political and sport thugs” who try to silence opponents of rampant nationalism and patriotism, Shira regarded the sweeping demand that every Israeli support the nation no matter what; 7 All

interviewees stated that they were also fans of the Hapoel Tel Aviv basketball club. video capturing the scene at Duomo square can be viewed on the Facebook page, https:// www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152431298539662, accessed 17.10.2019.

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the silencing of leftists; and the dismissal of minority opinion in Israel as connected. Throughout the interview, she referred to the inextricable relationship between the Maccabi basketball club and the State of Israel, noting that she was “proud not to be part of that relationship.” For her, as for many interviewees, the fans of Hapoel represented a minority with which she identified and which fortified her against the strong bad winds prevailing in Israel. Like Shira, most interviewees regarded Hapoel as an island of sanity in an abnormal state which sought to promote an all-embracing patriotism. Some fans were aware that opposition to the fast-spreading cultural–political reality made them outcasts, while others expressed pride in being a minority persecuted because of its otherness. As demonstrated below, a small number of interviewees felt differently. While the issue of national identity created a lively, complex dialogue within the Red community, characterized by a variety of voices and opinions, the local-urban identity became increasingly solid over the years. Turning away from the state and the nation as a source of identity and sense of home, fans of Hapoel assigned central importance to the localurban space. Unlike nationalism and its controversies, localism drew fans together.

The Swing Toward the “State of Tel Aviv” When asked to describe the city, many interviewees named the same characteristics that they had attributed to the club, namely, “tolerance,” “sanity,” “pluralism,” “freedom,” “non-conformity,” and the like. Most described the city of Tel Aviv as a “home” and “the only option” for living in Israel. While Hapoel is portrayed as a separatist enclave in the Israeli football scene, the “State of Tel Aviv” is similarly portrayed as an island, or enclave of sanity. The descriptors selected signify the drawing of symbolic, cultural, and social boundaries between Tel Aviv and the rest of Israel, and the existence of an autonomous urban space that symbolizes non-religious, liberal Israeliness. The disavowal of conformity and racism became a symbol of Tel Aviv, which serves as an identity resource for the fan community, including those who currently live elsewhere.

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The turning toward locality, which embraces an alternative urban identity over a national one, is clearly expressed in fans’ civic-urban activities and projects outside the stadium, such as their resistance to the capitalist-motivated destruction of the legendary Hapoel basketball court, Ussishkin, that was perceived by fans as an aggressive, conspiracy on the part of those in power, led by the mayor of Tel Aviv, Ron Huldai. The mostly non-violent resistance included protests at city council meetings, erection of a tent next to the arena, rallies, posters displayed throughout the city, organizing demonstrations, and collaborating with neighborhood committees which also wished to protest against the municipality. A group by the name, the Coalition of the People of Tel Aviv, failed in the struggle to save Ussishkin, but the relationship between Hapoel fans and their city grew stronger. A year after the struggle, Hapoel fans supported a candidate for the municipal council who was associated with a Jewish–Arab radical leftist movement (Hadash). The failed struggle against the capitalists manifested in additional ways. The beginning of the team’s capitalist era was marked by Hapoel’s disengagement from the General Organization of Workers. Then, the transition to private ownership in 1997 symbolized the reality for fans that sports clubs are businesses in every respect (Ben-Porat 2002). Many Hapoel fans had hoped for financial backing that would enable the club to succeed professionally; others insisted on maintaining the social and socialist character of the club through fandom practices deploying socialist slogans and symbols in the stadium and around the city, where the socialist roots of the club, established in 1927, resonate (Sorek 2013). Parades were held every year on May Day in major cities in Israel, with representatives of Ultras9 Hapoel (UH) joining the Tel Aviv parade and Hapoel fans’ graffiti filling the streets. Further textual and visual markings by the Reds were reflected in the mass social protest of summer 2011,10 known as Social Justice, in the form of a building-size poster bearing the inscription, “Working Class!” Above the caption, a man in a 9 See

note on football club Ultras: N4, Dorsey, part “Claiming a Foothold in Spaces Beyond the Stadium”, this anthology. 10The 2011 Israeli social justice protests were a series of demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of diverse protesters opposing the continuing rise in the cost of living and the deterioration of public services.

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Fig. 2 A counter-statement: Representing Hapoel under the flag of Israel (Source Kobiko)

red worker’s uniform points forward, with the inscription HTA (Hapoel Tel Aviv) emblazoned above him.11 During the period of these protests, the local civic-urban activity of the Hapoel fan community, including support of and social work with African refugees, consolidated the local-urban identity on both the individual and collective levels. The sense of being “other” and the struggle against the establishment comprised an umbrella for the community’s two interrelated facets—the challenge to nationalism and the cultivation of a strong local identity. However, as the local identity solidified in the community, a highly different, nationalist-patriotic voice that had long been dormant began to arise during the 2013–2014 season which sought to reinstate nationalistic symbols in the stadium, including the blue-andwhite Israeli flag. A poster proclaiming, “Representing Hapoel under the flag of Israel” (Fig. 2) was displayed at a match against Maccabi Haifa in March 2014 along with Israel’s national flag.

11 An image of this gigantic poster by Oren Ziv of Activestills displays on the following page: https://972mag.com/photos-j14-movement-holds-largest-protest-in-israels-history/601571 7053_f8687cb78f_b/, accessed 5.1.2020.

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The Swing Back to National Identity In the days following display of the counter-statement, the club’s management featured the patriotic banner in the club’s social networks (Facebook, Instagram). For some fans this raised suspicions that the management was responsible for the display, especially in light of repeated claims by certain of their representatives that the sign, “Representing Hapoel, not Israel,” deterred potential buyers.12 Fan forum entries and interviews with fans demonstrate that most of them did not accept this allegation and that they regarded the new banner as an abdication of responsibility, claiming it was the management’s attempt to cast blame and transfer responsibility to the fan community instead of taking it upon themselves. At the same time, some fans were concerned that the sign may indeed deter potential buyers, but they did not view this as necessarily bad, as they preferred deterrence to the possibility that a new capitalist management might attempt to market “Maccabi in the form of Hapoel.” This position was adequately summarized by a fan going by the name, Red Enemy, who accused the management of precisely this behavior and warned them against blurring the differences between Hapoel (Red) and Maccabi (Yellow). He wrote the following in the Shedim (Devils) Forum13 (16/09/2014): The wonderful thing about this [forum] thread is its primary conclusion that if we were Maccabi and more Israeli consensus, it would be easier to find Hapoel an investor. So thanks, but no thanks. I prefer to stay Hapoel, remain outside the consensus and lose to them [Maccabi] three times a season than try to be them in the hope that someone might become confused and think that red is yellow and that the sickle [which features in Hapoel’s logo] is a Star of David [which features in Maccabi’s]… Being Hapoel is what we create as a community, in all of its broad shades, political and social.

12 http://shedim.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=1981200#p1981200 (Hebrew), last accessed 23.12.2019. 13The name means the devils’ forum. Like Manchester United FC, the club’s nickname is the Red Devils.

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Red Enemy would rather pay the price of game losses and lack of funding for the club than alter Hapoel’s red skin and suffer the heavy price of welcoming symbols identified with Maccabi and the Israeli consensus. These sentiments are reiterated painfully and with irony by Berger, a fan who reported that his fandom for Hapoel is his main identity. After writing that he will never entertain the possibility that the Red community “straighten out” for appearances, he rhetorically asks his buddies in the forum community: What is going on? Are you tired of being mocked in the Israeli army, at work or at school? I’m a fan of Hapoel before I am an Israeli and a Jew […] it seems that Hapoel is a little less important to you, for sure less important than the desire to belong to the [dominant national] collective. (Shedim Forum, 16.9.2014)

Berger, like other fans, rejects Maccabi’s nationalistic spirit and orientation. With a measure of sarcasm, he suggests that Hapoel fans who align with national opinion and its symbols become Maccabi basketball fans, whereby they could assimilate in the throng. The fans who displayed national pride in the stands in March 2014 were present at the opening game of the 2014–2015 season, which started in the shadow of fighting in Gaza during the summer of 2014. Just before taking my seat at my usual place at the top of Gate 7, I was surprised to notice five Israeli flags hanging on the stadium fence. A quick scan revealed at least two more flags in the stadium and even one at Gate 5, the home of the Ultras. Curious about the motives of the flag hangers, I engaged in a long conversation with one of them. Per his statement, laced with curses, flags are hung principally to counter the image of Hapoel fans as not loyal to the state: “The idiots from [Gate] 5 hang their stinking banner and create a shit image of us,” he said to me. The issue of the club’s and the fans’ bad political image repeatedly arose in our conversation. When asked why the sign had not bothered him for thirteen years and why it does now, he alluded to the fighting in Gaza: “Everywhere in the world, fans wave their country’s flag after a war. We are all Jews, and the draft

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dodgers14 from [Gate] 5 will not change that.” When I reminded him that not all Hapoel fans were Jews he was speechless. His friend standing next to him expressed a more conciliatory stance: “We are all fans of Hapoel – next time we will bring red flags.” Indeed, at the next game the red flag displayed among several Israeli flags. The link in the minds of the fans who displayed the Israeli flags between the Gaza war and the club’s public image indicates their wish to reverse the negative image of Hapoel fans’ as disloyal to the state. The sweeping attribution of leftism to the Hapoel fans has assigned them the blanket epithet, “Draft dodgers,” young people who breach the tenet of contributing to the nation through military service. In the two home games following the military events that coincided with the opening of the season, there appeared to be a growing return to what I call “exhibited nationalism,” promoted with the help of social media calling on Hapoel fans to bring Israeli flags to matches15 : Increasingly more Israeli flags began to surface in Hapoel stands. This practice was primarily inwardly directed toward the fans at Gate 5 (those that “do not represent Israel”), but the target was also external—the media, public opinion, potential donors, and other clubs. The final events of autumn 2014 signaled a reversal of the situation in the stadium over a short time span: In March 2002, I was surrounded by Israeli flags in the stands in Milan raised by thousands of non-Hapoel fans around me singing the Israeli national anthem. In the following years, most fans at Hapoel’s home stadium, chanted in unison, “Not representing Israel” and refused to exhibit the national flag. Then years later, I saw a few Israeli flags at Gate 7, dozens of fans crowding around it to take a photo, while in the background there was loud applause and just a few cries of contempt on the part of isolated fans (Fig. 3). Overall, then, in Hapoel’s fan community, the relationships among the various sub-groups were changing. The dominance of those opposing 14The

discourse regarding military service and support of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) often arises during discussions of the banner, “Representing Hapoel, not Israel.” Banner opponents are invited by its supporters to re-seat themselves at Gate 11, among the fanatic Maccabi (Hapoel foes) fans, who demonstrate their support of the IDF while expressing racism against Arabs. 15 A Facebook group devoted to this topic was created by fans, https://www.facebook.com/Hap oelisrael, last accessed 23.12.2019.

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Fig. 3 Dual flags: Representing Hapoel as well as Israel (Source Daniel Regev, chapter author)

the embrace of national identity was challenged by sub-groups that performed the assumption of this identity in the fandom field in keeping with changes transpiring in the Israeli sociopolitical context as reflected in national, anti-democratic laws, harsh public criticism of those perceived as anti-patriotic. At the same time, changes taking place in other Israeli contexts—economic, sociocultural, and religious—influence events in the fandom field (Wagg 1995). Dissenting voices of fan groups that had lived in peace with the sign, “Not representing Israel” at times when the team was successful grew louder in times of crisis. Accompanied by strong expressions of patriotism, moreover, the fighting in Gaza, weakened the otherness identity of many people affiliated with the Israeli Left, Hapoel fans included. Thus the situation which seemed to be, and was presented as an existential threat in the political and public discourse allowed the patriotic voice to ascend the Hapoel bleachers as well. Thus on the one hand, the sports-wise weakening of the club, the dwindling of

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the Left, and the rapid strengthening of Israeli nationalism split the fan community, exposing the heterogeneity that had always been there. At the same time, the fan community’s local identity is increasingly taking root and steadily extending its hold.

Final Whistle The twentieth century was the century of nationalism (Hobsbawm 1999), which, in its attempt to devour everything, appropriated sports, too, a development that persisted into the first two decades of the twentyfirst century. Virtually from the game’s beginnings, football stands were fertile ground for expressing national identity and strengthening it (BenPorat 2003) so that it became commonplace to couple football with nationalism. In Hapoel Tel Aviv, a significant voice sought to remove nationalism permanently from the stadium while a voice promoting an alternative agenda rejected the removal. What unified fans was their association with the local-urban community of Tel Aviv, which had in various ways dissociated from nationality and nationalism (Gurevich 2007). With this collective-communal urban identity at its base (Nathan 2013), fandom was maintained without necessarily conforming to the call of the national flag. The dissociation from nationality and nationalism, however, did not ultimately triumph: Hapoel’s golden age faded along with the fighting in Gaza and the team’s sportive and economic decline. Likewise, the retreat from nationalism no longer prevailed by default and was subject to negotiation. Sharp criticism was leveled at Hapoel fans by the media and fans of other clubs, so it is not surprising that the song, “The whole world hates Hapoel and I’m its only lover” became fans’ quasi-official anthem, eclipsing the socialist slogan which had formerly been proclaimed on a huge banner in the stands of Hapoel fans, “It is not the masses lacking in ideals that will triumph, but the handful of people loyal to their flag.” It can be argued that fans’ tenacious nurturing of an alternative-atany-cost stance was a fatal, self-inflicted shot in the foot, that the ethos that fans embraced was limiting and fixed. Fans who rejected it claimed that the separatist fans—the proclaimers of “anti”—had become fans of

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themselves, forgetting that the object of fandom is to strive for a winning football club.

National and Local Identity at Play The present study demonstrates that the issue of national identity sparks division and friction. What had bonded the community was a common sense of otherness, anti-racism, tolerance, and pluralism that was enveloped in supportive local-urban activities and identity. Many of the interviewees concurred that “the city is the team, and vice versa” (Guschwan 2011); thus the strong affinity bonding the club, its fans, the city, and what it symbolizes has never been undermined in Hapoel (Bromberger 1995; Guschwan 2011). As to the affinity between football and national identity, research over the past two decades shows that it is neither unidirectional nor unambiguous, that weakened expression of national identity in the stadium is linked to broader sociocultural developments, including global dynamics. Using ethnographic case studies, the research contends that the subversive, divisive potential of sport and football can indeed spark division and friction and challenge and even dismantle national identity, not just strengthen and preserve it (Giulianotti 2005; MacClancy 1996). Thus, for example, a study of football in Argentina refers to a “crisis of national representation” on the football field, although the game has been part of the nation-building project and the consolidation of national identity since the middle of the last century (Alabarces and Rodriguez 1997). On the other side of the world, in Cameroon, sweeping domestic support of the national team at international matches coexists with doubts cast on the national affiliation of ethnically diverse players at intra-state competitions (Vidacs 1999); the latter, involve matches between local groups distinguished by ethnic origin, where their common national affiliation sometimes becomes marginal. This body of research demonstrates that fandom at the local-regional level creates an alternative reality that may contradict and challenge

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national identity, exist in parallel to it or even be in conflict with it.16 Focusing on fandom in a local context, another topic addressed by this research, studies seek to understand how fans’ loyalty to a club is constructed and reinforced through their identification with or, alternatively, protest against qualities of their citizenship. These studies suggest that for fans who identify intensely with their city, the club represents a unique form of collective existence, not merely an arbitrary, elementary indicator of shared identity (Sorek, part “The Gendering of Fandom”; Bromberger 1995; Budka and Jacondo 2013). The conflict between national and local identity was the subject of Tamir Sorek’s research concerning fans of the Israeli Arab FC, Bnei Sakhnin (Sorek 2003, 2006), and of Maccabi Haifa, FC, which has a relatively high percentage of Arab fans. Sorek (2005) identifies a dual-focused localism among fans of the club: One focus is on historical narratives of heroism and pride related to the Palestinian national struggle. This localism overlaps with the hegemonic narrative of Palestinian nationalism. The second focus on localism aims to blunt local Palestinian nationalism in order to gain recognition from fans of various Israeli Jewish football clubs and from the Israeli sports media in. In this instance, local pride is temporarily devoid of nationalism and thus refrains from negating Israeliness. Sorek discovered that in the case of Arab fans of Maccabi Haifa,17 the club and the city provided them the sense of an island of tolerance and co-existence in the context of the deprivation and discrimination they experienced on the outside. The Arab Israeli fans face an identity challenge fraught with internal contradictions that they share with Arab citizens of Israel in general: Which identity (or identities) are they to adopt—national, Arab or Israeli? In such cases, fans turn to an alternative source of identity, which is local-urban.

16 Localism

assumes various forms depending on the geo-political context: a region (LlopisGoig 2008; Szabo 2013); a province (Riley 2012); an island (Szabo 2012); a city (Ranc 2009; Bernache-Assollant et al. 2011; Guschwan 2011; Kossakowski 2013) or a neighborhood (Totten 2014). 17 Maccabi Haifa is a professional football club based in the city of Haifa playing in the Israeli Premier League. The club was established in 1913.

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Vis-a-Vis the Arab Israeli struggle with identity and the situation of non-Jewish fans in Sakhnin and Haifa, it is particularly interesting to consider Jewish fans’ challenging of national identification. While Arab fans in Israel are subject to conditions precluding their choosing an Israeli–Jewish national identity, Hapoel fans’ rejection of a nationalist orientation is an ideological choice which simultaneously seeks to keep the fandom field devoid of nationalism. Such a choice may stem from the valuable cultural capital possessed by most Hapoel fan. This sociocultural position allows them to take pride in their otherness and minority status while appearing to be a homogenous group of fans. As outlined in this chapter, this apparent unity vanished, however, with the swing of the pendulum toward growing nationalism among fan groups on the heels of military conflict and the team’s sportive deterioration. Moreover, in the broader context, there has been a progressive decline of liberal leftist discourse in Israel accompanied by mounting nationalist-patriotic vehemence. Will the pendulum swing back in Hapoel Tel Aviv? Will the sign, “Representing Hapoel, not Israel” regain its symbolic power? How will it reverberate with any additional losses or further rapid changes in the Israeli sociocultural and political climate? The future cannot be predicted, yet developments in the club and fan culture between the end of this research undertaking in 2015 and the present, 2020, indicate that the sportive and political changes discussed here have accelerated greatly and dominated what has been happening in the stands: The deterioration of the team’s performance on the pitch from year to year alongside its failed management have led Hapoel to be relegated to the secondary league for the second time in its history. It seems that during such times, the question of national identity becomes less relevant for fans. A year after relegation, Hapoel was promoted back to the premier league, but its days of sportive darkness have not yet ended. While the hated Maccabi Tel Aviv rival accrues accolades, Hapoel Tel Aviv is fighting for its life in the league and its loyal fans are experiencing difficult feelings of despair and disgust.

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Sorek, T. (2013). The Hammer, the Sickle, and the Holocaust: Hapoel Tel Aviv Fans and Secular Israeli Identity. Presented at the conference “Cultural Encounters and Mixed Identities in Sports”. Utrecht University, The Netherlands, January 7–9, 2013. Strathern, M. (1987). The Limits of Auto-Anthropology. In A. Jackson (Ed.), Anthropology at Home, ASA Monographs 25. London and New York: Tavistock Publications. Szabo, R. G. (2012). Identity and Soccer in Corsica. Soccer & Society, 13(1), 36–55. Szabo, R. G. (2013). Basque Identity and Soccer. Soccer & Society, 14 (4), 525– 547. Tomlinson, A., & Young, C. (2006). National Identity and Global Sports Events: Culture, Politics and Spectacle in the Olympics and the Football World Cup. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Totten, M. (2014). Sport Activism and Political Praxis within the FC Sankt Pauli Fan Subculture. Soccer & Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970. 2014.882828. Vidacs, B. (1999). Football in Cameroon: A Vehicle for the Expansion and Contraction of Identity. Culture, Sport, Society, 2(3), 100–117. Wagg, S. (1995). Giving the Game Away: Football, Politics and Culture on Five Continents. London: Leicester University Press.

Saving Red Flora: The Political Mobilisation of Sankt Pauli Fans Roy Siny

As with other alternative neighbourhoods in urban areas worldwide, an intriguing constellation of factors led to the development of the St. Pauli Quarter of Hamburg into a distinctive alternative quarter and a focal point attractive to subcultures. What such subcultures mainly have in common is their separation, to varying degrees, from the capitalist essence of competitive Western society. These areas frequently find themselves in more or less permanent friction between rapid urban development and the struggle to preserve the existing way of life. Generally, onset is characterised by the unplanned population of a neglected neighbourhood or quarter having poor infrastructure, circumstances enabling cheap or free housing subject to minimal government intervention. Over the years, the area becomes a magnet for residents desiring a life that is not necessarily considered productive by the larger, competitive society. Musicians, artists and radical political activists settle in these areas with the intention of engaging in their activities free of the struggle for survival typical of life in a capitalist society. At the next stage, the R. Siny (B) Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany © The Author(s) 2020 T. Rapoport (ed.), Doing Fandom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46870-5_10

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creative endeavours of these residents extend the area’s appeal to people not self-identified with any of these groups. The influx of this generally affluent population into these inexpensive residential neighbourhoods increases demand for real estate, products and services and drives out the veteran population through a process of gentrification. The uniqueness of the St. Pauli Quarter lies in how the struggle against gentrification, and further subsequent struggles, crystallised largely around the local football club, St. Pauli FC. The struggle began over 30 years ago when fans blocked the evacuation of Hafenstraße residents and it has culminated in more recent events sparked by the fight to preserve the district’s autonomous cultural centre since 1989, Rote Flora or Red Flora (https://www.rote-flora.de/). This chapter1 reviews the development of the stands at St. Pauli’s Millerntor stadium into the field where the seeds of social and political struggle in the Quarter have been sprouting since the 1980s; it examines as well how football fans came to spearhead these struggles. The chapter deals with the link between football, particularly fans in the football stands, and practical-radical politics. The focus is on how the stadium scene became a locus of political recruitment and how football fans’ mobilisation and organisational practices were translated into the struggle against municipal and state authorities. Also discussed are the events that led to the Quarter’s becoming designated a “danger zone” (Gefahrenzone) after citizens had undermined state sovereignty for a period of nearly two weeks. (There had been two prior incidents in which destabilisation was more limited in scope.) The central issue of this discussion, then, concerns the revolutionary potential embedded in the football stands and in the various subcultures that have developed around the game over the past three decades. The description of events is based primarily on an ethnographic study of St. Pauli fans, conducted by the author between late 2000 and 2013, consisting of extensive information gathering via participant observations, personal conversations and text analysis. To a lesser extent, it relies 1This article originated in research conducted at the Department of Ethnology, University of Munich. The author gratefully acknowledges the support of this research by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität.

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on insufficient research literature in the field (e.g., Totten 2015, 2016; Daniel and Kassimeris 2013).

Understanding St. Pauli Football fans well know that if they wish to understand the complexity, social structure, and moral norms of a society, they need only locate the next big sporting event, where all of these factors readily manifest to the extreme, right before their eyes (Cresswell and Evans 1997). Despite the appeal of this statement, observations at football stadiums across Europe prove it to be untrue: In its current, postmodern phase, football, per Guilianotti (1999), is essentially an entertainment product in many places. As such, community contexts are weakened and so, too, are local and political identities. Football stands are becoming more homogeneous—both in terms of support and the fan population—and in some parts of Europe they have been completely expropriated from the working class. This unequivocal assertion pertains to the St. Pauli Quarter of Hamburg. Hamburg is Germany’s second-largest city after Berlin. The Protestant spirit that has prevailed in this city for hundreds of years has dictated locals’ way of life for the most part. By contrast, west of the city is the relatively liberal town of Altona—a district of the city-state of Hamburg today—which was part of the liberal Danish kingdom from 1640 to 1864. Due to severe restrictions imposed in Hamburg on Jews, for example, many people moved to liberal Altona, where they established homes and cultivated communal life. Exceedingly unlike Hamburg in spirit, Altona adopted the motto, “Believe in what you want to believe, do what you want to do”. The neighbourhood bordering liberal Altona to the west is St. Pauli, and to the south lies the second largest seaport in Europe, where sailors arrive in huge numbers from all around seeking a night out. With a liberal tradition seeping in from the west and multi-culturalism and hedonism from the south, St. Pauli emerged as the Sodom and Gomorrah of Hamburg.

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World War II left St. Pauli devastated, mainly due to the Allied effort to disable the important port. Thousands of young people, students, artists and seekers of an alternative life—the polar opposite of life during the Third Reich years—flocked to the destroyed buildings. This, coupled with the fact that for years the Quarter had suffered deprivation and neglect by city authorities, made the Quarter an inexpensive, attractive residential area for many—whether due to cheap, long-term leases or to the availability of numerous abandoned buildings which were invaded and adapted for permanent residence; they were formerly known as “squats” and more recently as “Hausprojekt”. In the 1960s and 70s the neighbourhood football team, St. Pauli, functioned sluggishly before an audience of 3000 spectators at best, and even fewer by the early 1980s (Martens 2001). During this decade, with Hamburg having recovered from its war wounds, real estate around the port became increasingly attractive. Perhaps the most famous squat established at the time was the one along Hafenstraße, the road overlooking the port. It was spontaneously established at the end of a party in 1981 within a row of abandoned buildings owned by an urban land company. The municipality learned about it several months later, in early 1982, and then squat residents found themselves facing an eviction campaign for which thousands of police officers were mobilised. It was set for a day of a St. Pauli match. Ever since, urban legend relates how the evacuation was foiled, describing a swarm of St. Pauli fans that began flowing from the stadium to Hafenstraße, blocking police forces. The confrontation between fans and police continued for hours, and finally, the authorities yielded and the occupants were permitted to remain in the structure. Subsequently, and especially between 1984 and 1990, the squat became the locus of the struggle between the state and the neighbourhood residents, with fans of the local football club serving as the residents’ protectors. Ultimately, the success of the struggle magnified the myth of the St. Pauli club, but even as it was occurring, one could see how the struggle itself consolidated the fan community around an anti-establishment, anti-capitalist political identity. For St. Pauli fans, events in Hafenstraße symbolise the most significant point in the Quarter’s establishment as one of the important leftist strongholds in Europe and the football club as the flag-bearer of

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the alternative to life in a competitive society: The slogan that crystallised was, “St Pauli is the only option!” Political songs telling of betrayal by the Social–Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) and of the football club’s eternal loyalty resounded in the stands (Martens 2001).

From the Street to the Stands and Back Hafenstraße events became a pivotal chapter in the history of the Quarter and its football club, but the organised political activity of the club’s fans through 1986 bore fruit beyond the stadium and their fandom practices. From 1986, the political practices began to be inseparable from the stadium experience: Anti-racism campaigns were launched in the stands and organised fan groups began demanding more active involvement in club management. Civil, political, and social initiatives found a welcoming home at the Millerntor stadium, and the matches of St. Pauli’s first team became a consolidating ritual at which members of the various fan groups would meet regularly. For example, from the early 1980s a group known as “the Hafenstraße block” settled in the eastern stadium called “Gegengerade”, comprising squat residents and activists in the struggle against its evacuation. Their positioning in the stands as an identifiable block made it easier to enlist support for events and demonstrations associated with this struggle, and the route connecting the stadium to Hafenstraße was often filled with St. Pauli fans who reside nowhere near the vicinity of the harbour street. The tight connection between street politics and football stands became more regular and evident: A commitment to support the football club assumed the additional dimension of a commitment to support events concerning the community that had crystallised around it. As the 1989–1990 season neared, this political spirit took on a practical guise with the establishment of the first openly anti-fascist fanzine, Millerntor Roar (MR! ). The publication of MR! was not merely a symbolic step: In less than two years, fanzine activists managed to mobilise numerous fans for anti-racist, anti-fascist campaigns, making St. Pauli the first football club in Germany to adopt an anti-fascist

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policy and enact laws which remove any fans shouting racist slogans from the stadium. Visitors and fans to Millerntor are greeted by a large poster proclaiming, “There is no football for fascists!” (Kein Fußball den Faschisten!), which attests to the official commitment of the club’s straightforward political agenda. Fans of other teams in Germany have not failed to notice these developments. The reunification of Germany on 3 October 1990 led to a unified football league, and in the encounter between East and West, the identities of many fans were shaped in the stands. West Germany spent the decades following the Second World War striving diligently for a place among the family of nations and accepted a measure of responsibility for Nazi crimes. Great efforts were expended in the fields of education, commemoration and legislation to deal with the dark past. In contrast, East Germany shirked its responsibilities towards its past by leaning on the sponsorship of the Soviet Union, the power which liberated Germany from Nazism. To a great extent one could say that through Soviet sponsorship, East Germany converted its citizens overnight from accused parties to liberators: The citizens of the new East Germany got to be part of the block that liberated Germany from Nazi rule and de facto won the war. In any case, in the absence of democratic education and confrontation with the injustices of the past, the post-war generations in former East Germany did not invest in pushing the remnants of Nazism into the margins of society, and instances of racism, antisemitism and xenophobia were dramatically intensified in the early years following unification and the encounter with the West. Football matches played an important role in events that established and shaped political identities. For St. Pauli fans, unification came after a decade of left-wing politicisation in the Quarter, in the stands and in the club’s management. The club became the symbol in Germany and beyond of the anti-fascist left not only in its own view but also in the view of this camp’s major enemies. Thus, the first encounters of St. Pauli with East German teams resulted in considerable fan violence and racism on the part of East German clubs. Between 1992 and 1994 the police failed to protect St. Pauli fans at away games in the East and recommended, therefore, that they not attend. At the spring

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1993 match between Hansa Rostock2 and St. Pauli, Hansa fans broke past police lines and stormed the Hamburg guests en masse, validating this recommendation. It is noteworthy that among the St. Pauli Ultras,3 many of the most prominent activists were not normative football fans, as corroborated by testimonies gathered during the study: Thus, for example, a member of the St. Pauli Ultras relocated to Berlin and that was reason enough for his severing almost all contact with the club and ceasing to track its performance. Another member of the Ultras withdrew after spending several months in the company of political activists in Greece. She confessed that she had found other frameworks more attractive for political activity and therefore was no longer interested in continuing to attend St. Pauli matches. For these fans and others, the stadium had provided fertile ground for political ideas to grow into actual political practice, even in the absence of any commitment to perform fandom. In his book Biladi Biladi: Hapoel Taibe in the National League (2001), Amir Ben-Porat follows the journey of Hapoel Taibe, the first Israeli-Arab club in Israel’s national league, then the country’s senior league. BenPorat discovered that even though Hapoel Taibe represented the Arab sector, its fans for the most part did not express their Arab national identity at matches. The exception was at matches that drew Jewish audiences with nationalistic leanings. Hate speech directed at Taibe fans, slurring their background (mainly: “Death to the Arabs” or “Mohammed is dead”), ignited nationalist sentiment among them and led to calls back at Jews. Either way—for Taibe fans as well as for fans of Israeli-Jewish clubs like Beitar Jerusalem (see Sorek, part “Claiming a Foothold in Spaces Beyond the Stadium”) or Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv (see N7, Sorek, as above ) – the presence of the “other” is what provoked the expression of national identity. Even if, for example, only a minority on one side initiates racist slogans, the counter-reaction drags others into the fray, thus shaping or consolidating their identity in this unique social field, and perhaps even beyond it. 2A

club established in 1954 in the former East Germany, until 2010 the club played in the Bundesliga, now plays in the third league. 3 For a historical note on football fan Ultras, see N4, Dorsey, part “Claiming a Foothold in Spaces Beyond the Stadium”, this anthology.

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Multiple participant observations conducted from 2007 onwards within the framework of the present study indicate that St. Pauli, too, stirred up extreme feelings on the part of their polar opposites on the political axis: Political, racist, homophobic or sexist phenomena were conspicuous in the stands when teams played St. Pauli, but not when those teams played against other groups that were not politically identified. Likewise, anti-racist, anti-homophobic and anti-sexist displays by St. Pauli fans were expressed mainly when the opposing team’s fans were of a rightist world view. St. Pauli fans’ embracing of the anti-fascist, anti-capitalist cause was one of the local processes transpiring in the club’s quarter. In parallel, fans of teams such as Hansa Rostock and Dynamo Dresden,4 clubs which were East German, embraced their categorisation, albeit informally, as being unemployed, nationalist and underpriviliged. St Pauli’s fans often rush to label any institutionalised or conservative behaviour as evidencing “fascism” or “Nazism”, even when the behaviour does not conform to definitions of these categories. Whether consciously or not, this tendency influences the group doing the labeling: It sharpens the boundary between the inside group and the outside world as well as the identity of its members: East Germans are equated with Nazis, their political counterpart is associated with Antifa5 (short for anti-fascist), and thus a self-view of anti-Nazis is adopted, established and implemented. The rhetoric in the stands fosters such an identity even for those who are not necessarily political (although in the present case of St. Pauli, the very support of the club constitutes a leftist political declaration), while it also forms and strengthens the sense of commonality among those who come with a pre-existing political agenda. On entering the stadium, most fans temporarily shed their individuality and assume the behaviour of their group. Though the cheering leaders in every stadium section often scold those not participating in the singing and slogans, the 4 Established

in 1953, the club was affiliated with the East German police and became one of the most popular and successful clubs. After the reunification of Germany, Dynamo played four seasons in the top division Bundesliga (1991–1995), but has since drifted between the second and fourth tiers. The club currently plays in the 2. Bundesliga. 5 A social movement that is a political current composed of multiple far-left, autonomous, militant anti-fascist groups and individuals, It takes its name from the historical Antifaschistische Aktion.

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conscious choice of a location to stand—that is, of a place in the stands where it is customary to stand and cheer throughout the game—indicates that a fan’s embracing of behaviour signifying a political agenda is due less to the performance of practices under peer pressure and more to a (context-based) process of de-individuation that a fan undergoes in the stands. Theories of inter-group conflict contend that tagging affects the tagged parties, that is, the external groups that are targeted: Ignoring the diversity within a tagged group reflects a conservative way of thinking in which the outside group is perceived as homogeneous, as, for example, in the slogan, “Hansa Rostock fans are all Nazis”. For the inside group, diversity is perceived as inherent, while for the out-group, individuals are united under a single umbrella (Aronson et al. 2012; Taylor et al. 1988). Criminologist Giora Shoham (1983) analyses the process whereby groups or individuals are tagged. He presents as a case study the playwright Jean Genet, who, from childhood, was labelled a criminal to be removed from society and who wrote literature as a prisoner for almost his entire life. Per Shoham, early labeling and stigmatisation led Genet to adopt the role that society had assigned him. Furthermore, Shoham contends that each group or society needs a mirror image in order to distinguish and preserve itself on the one hand, and a different “other” to distance itself from on the other hand. The football stadium is a fascinating arena in which such processes take place with almost no normative filters—that is to say, with a large measure of detachment from the social norms accepted outside the stadium walls. It is difficult to imagine a normative state of affairs in which a person shouts, curses and externalises emotions directly and publicly in the workplace, on the street or in any other social situation. (See Ben-Porat 2002 and discussion of the permission zone introduced in chapter “An Analytical Framework for Exploring Fandom”.) During the ethnographic study carried out by this chapter’s author, dozens of cases were documented in which political content expressed in the stands—via chanting, slogans or posters—constructs collective identities very rapidly. An excellent example occurred at a match played in September 2011 between two football clubs having no official political

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identifications: Dynamo Dresden6 and Eintracht Frankfurt. Dynamo Dresden, whose fans are identified with the neo-Nazi right, is the largest football club in East Germany; Frankfurt’s Eintracht is a glorious club with a Jewish past from a rich city considered one of the world’s largest trade centres and having the highest percentage of immigrants in Germany. Early during the match, the mutual provocation took on a political character. Fans of Eintracht were the first to yell cries of “Nazi pigs!” (“Nazischweine!”) at their opponents, prior to which, no political yelling on the part of Dresden fans had been recorded, but when those slogans were heard, Dresden fans immediately used the stigma attached to them and responded: “Jews, Jews, Jews, Eintracht Frankfurt”, followed by, “Shawarma vendors! You’re only Shawarma vendors!” (“Dönerverkäufer! Ihr seid nur Dönerverkäufer!”), again utilising the stigma applied to them as Nazis. Historically, the term “Jews” was used as an expression meant to humiliate, and then the expression “shawarma vendors” (Dönerverkäufer) was used to refer insultingly to Turks.7 Although neither of the two fan communities has a declared political agenda, their mere geographic location, different historical contexts or current demographics prompted two processes: The first process is the forming of an identity on the part of those fans that enter the stadium with no political agenda of their own. The second is the performance that fan groups assume when encountering an “other” that expects certain behaviours of them (Goffman 1959). When a club is an official leftist icon of German football (Kennedy and Kennedy 2013), these two processes become far stronger and more sweeping. Further evidence of the second process is offered, for example, by one of St. Pauli’s favourite anthems, sung at almost every match they play. In this anthem, fans use the term commonly attached to leftists in Germany, Zecken, or ticks— nonproductive creatures who feed on the blood of others. The anthem abounds with the associated stereotypes: 6 Established

in 1891, the club has played in the Bundesliga most of the time. immigrants brought Döner to Germany, and Frankfurt, based on data furnished by the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung for 2011, has the highest immigrant population (43%) in Germany. 7Turkish

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We are ticks / Wir sind Zecken Anti-social ticks / Asoziale Zecken We sleep under bridges / Wir schlafen unter Brücken Or at the train station / Oder in der Bahnhofsmission.

The analysis of the text leaves no doubt as to the irony with which St. Pauli fans regard their being labelled “parasites”. “We are ticks”, they pronounce in the first line, anti-social ticks. They go on to cite claims made against the German Left as selfishly burdening welfare budgets. Noting the connection between alienation from bourgeois society and the lack of shelter, they refer to themselves as homeless: “We sleep under bridges; at the mission or the train station”, referring to the public funding which the missions receive for taking care of the homeless (mainly in the winter) when the bridge does not provide adequate shelter.

From the Stands to the Football Pitch and Back The politicisation process of St. Pauli occurred in several stages: In the first stage, demographic changes in the Quarter transformed it into a non-normative region that differed from the character of the city. In the second stage, these changes poured into the stands of the local football stadium, and a self-sustaining dynamic was created between the street and the stadium. During the third stage, the football club adapted to these changes, and it was not long before it adopted an official political stance consistent with the winds prevailing in the streets and the stands. Not yet included in the discussion so far are the persons on the St. Pauli pitch. In the early 1980s, goalkeeper Walter Ippig was the first footballer to fully identify with the new St. Pauli spirit. His debut in St. Pauli’s senior team was in 1981, and five years later, in 1986, Ippig was on the team’s permanent staff. During this period, he managed to participate in the construction of a hospital in Nicaragua and return to St. Pauli as a resident and an activist in the Hafenstraße struggle (Martens 2001).

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Ippig became a mythological figure in the Quarter, but he was not the only one on the pitch politically connected with the fans, the club and its surroundings. Over the years, the club’s custom of taking every new player on a tour of the Quarter so as to familiarise him with its social and political projects and struggles has turned some of the first team’s players into regular social activists. Two of the most prominent in this regard are Fabian Boll and Benedikt Pliquett. Despite serving as a half-time police officer alongside his occupation as a professional footballer, Boll was a leader on the pitch and a heroic figure outside of it. His involvement in the life of the Quarter and commitment to help social projects that flowed from the stands to the streets and vice versa accorded him the role of captain of the first team until the end of the 2013–2014 season, at the end of which he retired as an active player. Pliquett, far less regal, served as sub-goalkeeper of the first team until the end of the 2013–2014 season. Despite a three-and-a-half-year stint with the hated urban rival, once he joined the Ultras organisation of the club as a regular member, Pliquett quickly became part of St. Pauli’s most political and active fan scene. According to members of the Ultras, Pliquett’s involvement in demonstrations and clashes with rightwing elements or the police force was so pronounced that club leaders had to request that he exercise restraint. Both Boll and Pliquett stood at the forefront of fans’ struggle to prevent the establishment of a policing centre in the Gegengerade stadium section—(occupied by the Hafenstraße block, described earlier in this chapter), which was renovated and expanded during the 2012–2013 season—and to establish a museum devoted to the football club.

The Ultras as Political Activists Traditionally, fan clubs comprise groups of fans which usually gather on a local basis for the purpose of doing fandom for a specific football team at a stadium or an associated neighbourhood pub; they organise joint trips to away games or group ticket purchases. By contrast, in the second half of the twentieth century three new subcultures emerged among football fans—hooliganism, skinheads and Ultras—for which events on the

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pitch are not their primary interest. While hooliganism and skinheads, the veteran subcultures, originated outside the stadium and their existence and practice are totally separate from football, the Ultras subculture was born in the stands. The common denominator for all Ultra groups is a practice that entails intense, unqualified support for their football club (Testa 2009). The Ultras scene of the political left, better known as the Antifa Ultras, includes several dozen associations, mostly in Europe and especially in Germany, which engage in politics at the stadium and, to varying degrees, at the local, urban or regional levels. The size and professional success of a football club appear to have a decisive impact on the desire and ability of the Ultras organisation(s) to engage in political activities within the bounds of the stadium: Generally speaking, in terms of size, the larger, the more successful the club, the smaller the size and impact of the Ultras organisation. Likewise, its political practices in the stands are more likely to encounter antagonism on the part of spectators or fan organisations of differing orientations. When the club is large and successful, antagonism is usually expressed as resistance to any kind of political involvement in sports. The friction between the Ultras of Hapoel Tel Aviv and the club’s broader membership is an excellent example of this kind of confrontation: The club’s Ultras (which are similar to the Antifa–Ultras supporters) have for many years insisted on displaying a banner at each match proclaiming that the club “Represents Hapoel, not Israel” (see Regev, part “Claiming a Foothold in Spaces Beyond the Stadium”, for a detailed analysis of this friction and the banner’s background story). Judging by the club’s online forum postings, display of the banner appears to be regarded by many fans—including those who support its display—as a leftist political act. Until the club’s recent sportive decline and serious management problems, the banner was criticised by other groups of Hapoel fans and some have defiantly hung the Israeli national flag, formerly absent at domestic settings, at team matches. Another case of opposition by organised groups in the stands is the Infamous Youth Ultras of the German club, Werder Bremen FC. Since its inception in 2006 as an Ultras organisation which declared a clear leftist agenda, members of this group have been violently attacked by at least

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two groups of hooligans belonging to other fan groups of the Bremen club. Similar incidents were documented among groups of fans in the football clubs of Eintracht Frankfurt, Braunschweig, Fortuna Dusseldorf, Koln and 1860 Munich, all West German clubs. The Ultras movement in Germany has played a major role in political changes that have occurred in the country’s stadiums over the last two decades. Andy, one of the oldest and best known activists working against the extreme right in German football, described this development as follows: In the 1970s and 1980s the stadiums in Germany were completely dominated by Nazi hooligans. Two factors contributed to their disappearance or removal from the stands. The first was the rapid commercialisation of the game: more exposure through live broadcasts, and increasingly more advertisers competing for the spectators’ eyes at the stadium and at home. No advertiser would welcome the sight of a neo-Nazi poster next to his company logo. Commercial interest thus prompted football clubs’ management teams to fight extreme right-wing elements in the stands. The second factor was the Ultras organisations that stormed into the landscape of the German stands in the 1990s. Most of the Ultras were young, third-generation post World War II and others who were able to cope with the country’s dark past. Numerically and organisationally, they quickly overshadowed every other organized group in the stands and were quickly accepted in the stands as leaders due to their unceasing commitment to team support and décor.

It follows that even when an Ultras organisation does not introduce leftist politics into the stands, it nevertheless often contributes to ousting rightist politics. A distinction which is related to sociopolitical differences between Germany and Israel might be highlighted in this regard: In Germany, many Ultras groups which regard themselves as apolitical frequently engage in displays of anti-racism. By contrast with Israel, the act of combating racism in Germany’s football scene is not considered a political statement but, rather, a normative sociocultural act. The Ultras organisations in Glazenkirchen (Schalke 04), Hanover, Frankfurt and other locations also exemplify this.

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The case of St. Pauli Ultras is unique. Politicisation of the Millerntor stadium occurred long before 2002, when the club’s Ultras organisation, USP (Ultrá Sankt Pauli) was founded. Even today, years after its establishment, USP is merely one of many St. Pauli organisations that engage in politics within and outside the stadium. Nevertheless, during the years in which this study was conducted, USP distinguished itself not only by leading political struggles related to life in the Quarter, but also through its ongoing political, institutionalised work outside the stadium: The organisation comprises several sub-work groups, of which two are involved in long-term political and social projects. Among other activities, one organisation grants patronage to and houses asylum seekers—at a facility located nearly an hour’s drive from Hamburg. This organisation helps residents meet day-to-day needs, assists with their bureaucratic struggles and ensures they have rides to any of the team’s home games. Lately, football games in Germany have become events involving massive security. The “safe stadium experience”, that grants police enhanced powers of enforcement and surveillance shows that far beyond seeing a threat to civilian security, the state recognises the Ultras movement and the organisational structure of the various Ultras groups as a threat to its hegemony when it comes to perpetrating violence (Giulianotti et al. 1994). Increasingly more powers are granted to the police and even to the secret service at the expense of the rights of members of Ultras organisations to privacy and freedom of movement. In Italy the power exerted is even stronger: Every fan is required to acquire a special identification card called a tessera for the purchase of season tickets or of a ticket to an away game. Acquiring one requires disclosure of a great deal of personal information, while the card itself embeds a detection chip through which police can track the movement of any fan they designate as potentially violent.

On the Way to Red Flora In recent years, the struggle over asylum seekers has become one of the core issues occupying the Quarter, the Ultras, other fans and even the club. The autumn of 2013 brought the struggle to a boiling point in

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Hamburg, sparked by a series of decisions and events concerning the status of roughly 300 refugees from the island of Lampedusa. In my blog,8 Futbolographia, which paralleled the present study, the events in the city on October 25, 2013 were described along with the lead-up to them: Lampedusa is an Italian island in the middle of the Mediterranean, halfway between southern Italy and the coast of Libya. The island has become famous in recent years as a place where African migrant workers who had worked in Libya encountered a civil war. The Italian authorities provided each refugee e500 and a train ticket to any destination desired. About three hundred of them made their way to Hamburg. Initially, the Hamburg municipality helped the refugees survive the winter of 2013 and provided them with accommodations and living expenses, much like projects run by German municipalities during winter. Starting in April of that year, the municipality put a stop to this support and the 300 refugees were thrown into the street. About 80 of them found refuge in St. Pauli’s church, while others lived in the street, in parks and in containers in the port area. In the months between April and October 2013, the Hamburg police intervened and began hunting for Lampedusa refugees in order to deport them. At the same time, civil initiatives were put in place to protect them, with the St Pauli church becoming the focus of the struggle. St. Pauli Ultras members immediately rushed to the protection of refugees, spending months in shifts around the church - to prevent police force entry. At the beginning of October 2013, the Hamburg police started detaining and checking every black person they encountered in their efforts to locate Lampedusa refugees. This move led to a huge outburst of rage in Hamburg and Berlin. Every day hundreds of activists took to the streets, among them Antifas and others belonging to civic initiatives against racism. Almost any contact between police and black people quickly spread through the district and led to confrontations between demonstrators and the police. The management of St. Pauli’s football club also joined the struggle and issued several official statements in support of the refugees and 8The

author’s blog is to be found at http://fussballogie.blogspot.com.

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condemning the measures taken against them. Thus the club once more joined the thousands of fans who were at the forefront of this struggle, and it was not alone in doing so: As in many other cases of political struggles of this kind, the leadership realised very quickly where the power to stir up the streets was to be found, and on Friday the 25th of October a mass demonstration emerged directly from the St. Pauli stadium—the Millerntor—following the team’s league match. Even before the game it was clear that the match was not the main event: flyers calling on fans to join the demonstration after the game were distributed everywhere within and around the stadium. All fanzines devoted their cover pages and much of their content to the struggle and the call to join it. Even the décor at the game did not skimp on the refugees from Lampedusa and the southern stands—the Ultras’ area— waved banners denouncing the ruling party, the SPD, and supporting the absorption of the refugees. The huge demonstration started at the end of the game with about 10,000 demonstrators, most of whom were St. Pauli fans who had come directly from the stands. Considering that there were about 25,000 spectators at the stadium, it is conceivable that about one-third of them found their way to the demonstration.

A Challenge to Sovereignty: The Case of Red Flora On January 7, 2014, the US Embassy to Germany issued a travel warning to its citizens: The US Embassy Berlin informs US citizens that as a result of violent protests in December, the Hamburg police have established a 24/7 restricted zone covering a large area of the city of Hamburg, including the city’s nightlife area. The restricted zone (Gefahrengebiet) gives police officers extra authority to stop, search, and ban people from the area. […] Even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and escalate into violence. You should avoid areas of demonstrations or public gatherings, especially in the restricted areas, and exercise caution when in the vicinity of any large gatherings, protests, or demonstrations. We strongly recommend that US citizens travelling to or staying

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in Germany enroll in the Department of State’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) at travel.state.gov. STEP enrollment gives you the latest security updates, and makes it easier for the US embassy or nearest US consulate to contact you in an emergency.9

To understand how the United States came to declare a certain Quarter in a wealthy foreign city in the heart of one of the most important countries in Europe, a danger zone, one must first understand the story of Rote Flora. The Flora Concert Hall complex opened in 1889, combining a theater and cafe in the central district of Lanza (Schanzenviertel), located at the northern end of St. Pauli. During the Second World War, activity in the building came to a halt, and in the years that followed, several owners tried unsuccessfully to launch various initiatives there. In 1989, when a major entrepreneur by the name of Fritz Kurz attempted to initiate the reopening of the building as a concert hall and theater, he encountered a completely different Quarter from the one his predecessors had found: St. Pauli was at the height of its flourishing as an alternative urban island and residents’ opposition to the initiative completely ruled it out. The residents feared the establishment of a commercial cultural centre that would attract tourists, luxury restaurants and higher rents. In November 1989, in one of the protests against the capitalist initiative, the activists decided to invade the building and populate it as a squat, as they had done several years earlier in Hafenstraße. The activists established a collective tasked with outfitting the building to meet the needs of the community, including launch of a communal kitchen, a cafe for seniors, an assembly hall for different organisations in the Quarter and, later, a club for holding parties and live performances (which continue into the present day). Any attempt to legalise the community centre was unsuccessful. The last such attempt occurred in 1991, after which the authorities came to terms with the centre’s existence and recognised its importance to the Quarter, despite the inconvenience caused by the precedent it set. In 2001 use rights to the building were sold to an entrepreneur by the name of Klausmartin 9 From

the United States Embassy in Germany, web site: www.germany.usembassy.gov. Accessed January 7, 2014

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Kretchmer, with a contractual provision to keep the building a community centre with no commercial purpose. Kretchmer nevertheless made several attempts to shirk the patronage that he had taken on and sought a buyer for the building at ten times what he had paid. Despite statements by several politicians over the years guaranteeing Red Flora’s safety, in 2011 the section of the building sale contract that restricted its use to communal and non-commercial use, expired. In October 2013, Kretchmer and his new co-owner, Gert Baer, announced their intention to evacuate of the building, which they regarded as a political mission against what they termed “an extreme left that undermines the constitution and German democracy”. At the same time, they detailed their plan to demolish the building and build a multi-purpose complex in its place. The announcement drew angry responses from numerous organisations in the Quarter, many of which were engaged in fighting for the Lampedusa refugees at the time. These organisations, too, took their activism to the streets and magnified confrontations with the police force. In December 2013 it seemed that Kretchmer was closer than ever to selling the building to real estate entrepreneurs. An eviction notice was sent on his behalf to building residents ordering them to vacate by the 20th of December. In response, the Red Flora collective issued an emergency call for activists from all over Germany to come to the Quarter and protect the building. The demonstration was planned for December 21, but even before that date, there were violent clashes with local police in Hamburg, including two attacks, per police claims, directed at two police stations in the Quarter. The Red Flora collective’s call was heeded by over 10,000 activists who participated in the large demonstration on December 21. A few minutes after it began, thousands of policemen were seen wearing helmets and blocking the demonstration’s route. Violent clashes broke out and spread to other parts of the city, where small groups of activists carried out targeted actions against police vehicles. Some of these were organised groups that were well established in the Millerntor Stadium. Many of them were even observed on the front line of the large demonstration on December 21, and were the first line of defense against a police-initiated

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attack10 on the demonstrators. The splitting of forces and the movement of organised civilian forces to other areas of the city caught the police by surprise, and it was enthusiastically reported at sites related to the struggle that the police had withdrawn from several locations in the city and in fact, had given up jurisdiction over them (Perryman 2001). Alongside spontaneous and illegal demonstrations following the 21st of December, small organised groups continued to strike police targets. According to the Hamburg police, on the evening of December 28, about 40 activists attacked the largest and most important police station in the district. No evidence was presented in support of this claim, but on its basis, on January 4, 2014, the Hamburg police declared some areas of the city—especially the St. Pauli Quarter and adjacent neighbourhoods—a danger zone. The enforcement of the danger zone did not reduce the level of activity in the Quarter, though it complicated it greatly. It took only wearing black11 or carrying an umbrella to be detained for examination and questioning. Messages about spontaneous demonstrations were published on less secret channels on the Internet, knowing that police intelligence coordinators read and were obliged to report them. In most cases, however, these demonstrations took place in completely different locations that were announced via encrypted channels. This tactic was designed to exhaust the police, and it really seemed to work: Despite police arrests of hundreds of people and orders of hundreds of others to stay away from the Quarter, the struggle showed no signs of abating, and the danger zone proved to be more of a burden for the police forces than for the activists. In addition, the accelerated gentrification processes undergone in St. Pauli and neighbouring districts had brought strong populations having considerable political clout into these areas. These populations did not like the restrictions that forced them, too, to change their movement habits, and on 13 January 2014, nine days after its imposition, the danger zone designation was lifted. ***** 10The

present author clearly identified the attack as such. leftist activists in Germany follow a “Black Block” strategy: They attire themselves entirely in black, covering any identifying detail. 11 Militant

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This chapter has traced, in part, two of the ongoing political struggles in which St Pauli fans have been involved. It has followed only organised groups of fans (and a mere few at that) over a relatively short period of time, while dozens of initiatives and civic organisations have played important roles in leading the struggles. There is a major gap, though, between the struggle of these civic organisations and the groups discussed here: Civic initiatives generally conduct their struggle through the channels made available by the establishment—pressure groups, legislative initiatives, appeals to governmental bodies, and above all, the courts. The groups studied here, on the other hand, view utilisation of these channels as collaboration with a system that is rigged a priori. This view was supported in light of massive organisation around Red Flora despite promises by numerous decision-makers to maintain its status quo. St. Pauli fans identified themselves as an organised force competing with the city of Hamburg’s sovereignty; their mobilisation to lead a struggle, destined from the outset for violence, was integral to the relative autonomy they were demanding for the Quarter in which they operated. In June 2013, a few months before the riots broke out around Red Flora, two published articles described the crucial role played by football fans in general, and by Ultras in particular, in Egypt’s 2011 revolution (Tuastad 2014 and El-Zatmah 2013). The Ultras subculture, within which the active participants’ social life becomes their primary identity, has given birth to a generation of tens of thousands of young people, organised into hierarchical groups with strict boundaries and a very high degree of solidarity. Many of them embraced the violent stereotypes usually attached to the label, “football fan”, and the weekly friction with the state and its police forces accustomed many of them to the use of violence (see also Dorsey, part “Claiming a Foothold in Spaces Beyond the Stadium”). In the stadium and elsewhere, as demonstrated here, organised groups of football fans confront the state and undermine its sovereignty in various spheres of life. Are the football stands indeed the gold mine of the next revolution? Judging by the struggle to save Red Flora, they may well be.

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References Aronson, E., Wilson, D., Timothy, A., & Robin, M. (2012). Social Psychology (8th ed.). London: Pearson. Ben-Porat, A. (2001). Biladi Biladi: HaPoel Taibe in the National League (Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Babel Publishing. Ben-Porat, A. (2002). From Game to Merchandise: Israeli Football 1948–1999 (Hebrew). Sde Boker: Ben Gurion Heritage Center. Cresswell, P., & Evans, S. (1997). European Football - A Fan’s Handbook - The Rough Guide, (4th ed.). Paperback. Daniel, P., & Kassimeris C. (2013). The Politics and Culture of FC St. Pauli: From Leftism, Through Anti-Establishment, to Commercialization. Soccer & Society, 14 (2): 167–182. El-Zatmah, S. (2013). From Terso into Ultras: The 2011 Egyptian Revolution and the Radicalization of the Soccer’s Ultra-Fans. Soccer & Society, 13(5–6), 801–813. Giulianotti, R., Bonney, N., & Hepworth, M. (1994). Football, Violence and Social Identity. London: Routledge. Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Edinburgh, UK: University of Edinburgh, Social Sciences Research Center. Guilianotti, R. (1999). Football: A Sociology of the Global Game. Cambridge: Polity Press. Kennedy, D., & Kennedy, P. (2013). Introduction: Reflections on The Context of ‘Left Wing’ Fan Cultures. Soccer & Society, 14 (2), 117–131. Martens, R. (2001). Here to Stay With St Pauli. In M. Perryman (Ed.), Hooligan Wars: Causes and Effects of Football Violence (pp. 179–190). Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing. Perryman, M. (2001). Hooligan Wars: Causes and Effects of Football Violence. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing. Shoham. G. (1983). Mark of Cain: Stigma of Crime and Social Deviance (Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Shoken. Taylor, S., Paeplai, A. L., & Sears, D. O. (1988). Social Psychology (6th ed.). Engelwood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Testa, A. (2009, December). The Ultras: An Emerging Social Movement? Review of European Studies, 1(2), 54–63. Totten, M. (2015). Sport Activism and Political Praxis Within the FC Sankt Pauli Fan Subculture. Soccer & Society, 16 (4), 1–16.

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Totten, M. (2016). Football Community Empowerment: How FC Sankt Pauli Fans Organize to Influence. Soccer & Society, 17 (5), 703–720. Tuastad, D. (2014). From Football Riot to Revolution: The Political Role of Football in the Arab World. Soccer & Society, 15 (3), 1–13.

Press Clippings Jäschke, M. (2014). Ich frage mich, warum wir nicht geräumt wurden. Der Spiegel Online, 28.8.2014. http://www.spiegel.de/einestages/rote-flora-25jahre-besetztes-kulturzentrum-in-hamburg-a-988541.html. Last accessed 5 Apr 2019. Lamprecht, S. (2013). Schanze: Droht jetzt Krieg? ‘Rote Flora’ soll Kulturzentrum werden. Hamburger Morgenpost, 5.10.2013. http://www.mopo.de/politik/ irre-plaene-des-besitzers-schanze--droht-jetzt-krieg---rote-flora--soll-kultur zentrum-werden,5067150,24537204.html. Last accessed 5 Apr 2019. Sonnleitner, M. (2008). Die Zebras aus der Hafenstraße. Der Spiegel Online, 2.1.2008. http://www.spiegel.de/einestages/hausbesetzer-und-aut onome-a-946486.html. Last accessed 5 Apr 2019. No Author Cited. (2014). Chronologie: Hamburgs Gefahrengebiete 2014. Norddeutscher Rundfunk, 13.01.2014. http://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/ hamburg/hamburgproteste101.html. No Author Cited. (2014). Die Polizei darf auch nicht alles. Die Tageszeitung, 24.8.2014. http://www.taz.de/!144744/. Last accessed 5 Apr 2019. No Author Cited. (2013). Eigentümer droht mit Polizei. Die Tageszeitung, 1.11.2013. http://www.taz.de/!126703/. Last accessed 5 Apr 2019. No Author Cited. (2013). Krawalle in Hamburg: Verletzte bei erneutem Angriff auf Polizeiwache. Der Spiegel Online, 29.12.2013. http://www.spiegel.de/ panorama/justiz/dutzende-vermummte-verletzen-auf-st-pauli-hamburgerpolizisten-schwer-a-941194.html. Last accessed 5 Apr 2019. No Author Cited. (2013). Streit um Rote Flora: Eigentumsrecht vs. Recht auf Stadt (Teil 1). Bar Rossi Magazine, 9.10.2013. http://www.bar-rossi.net/ste rnschanze/streit-um-rote-flora-eigentumsrecht-vs-recht-auf-stadt-teil-1/.

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Independent Sites “Rote Flora Will Stay Incompatible”, Revolution News, 29.10.2013. http://rev olution-news.com/hamburg-germany-rote-flora-will-stay-incompatible/. “Police Attack Rote Flora Demo”, Revolution News, 24.12.2013. http://revolu tion-news.com/hamburg-police-attacked-rote-flora-demo-hh2112/.

Blogs florableibt.blogsport.de. history-is-made-at-night.blogspot.de. publikative.org. usp.stpaulifans.de. victoryviktoria.wordpress.com.

Football Arenas in the Middle East and North Africa: Battlegrounds for Political Control James M. Dorsey

Politics in Football: A Rooted Tradition The confrontation between autocratic Arab leaders and militant, highly politicised, well organised and battle-hardened football fans contributed to the removal of former Egyptian and Tunisian presidents Hosni Mubarak and Zine el Abidine Ben Ali. The confrontation—which builds on a political tradition inherent in the football game since its introduction in the Middle East and North Africa by the British—transformed stadiums across these regions into potential venues of protest and resistance. Since then, the politics of football have played a central role in the development of several Middle Eastern and North African nations. This tradition is reflected in the strong association between politics and the founding of a large number of football clubs in the region. Perceptions J. M. Dorsey (B) Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore e-mail: [email protected] National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore © The Author(s) 2020 T. Rapoport (ed.), Doing Fandom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46870-5_11

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of political differences in football dating back as far as the early twentieth century—primarily in opposition to colonial administrators and long toppled monarchs—live on to this day, even if they are no longer grounded in political reality or representative of the social demographics of a club’s fan base. Politics has played a prominent, central role in the Middle East’s and North Africa’s foremost and most ferocious derby games, some of which rank among the world’s most violent, namely: Cairo’s nationalist Al Ahli SC versus once royalist Al Zamalek SC, Tehran’s Persepolis versus Esteghlal FC, the former team of the shahs, and Amman’s crowned Al Faisali SC versus Al Wehdat SC, a club founded in and named after a Palestinian refugee camp. Former Zamalek board member, Hassan Ibrahim, a man born 14 years after the abolishment of the monarchy, illustrated just how long-lasting and persistent those perceptions are when he commented in 2010 that Zamalek is the biggest political party in Egypt. We see the injustice of the football federation and the government against anything that once belonged to the king. The federation and the government see Zamalek as the enemy. Zamalek represents the people who express their anger against the system. We view Ahli as the representative of corruption in Egypt.1

If the gap between perception and reality has widened in terms of political association among nationalist and pro-ancien regime clubs, it remains far more aligned in clubs and teams in which national or ethnic identity politics play a role. Examples are the Berbers (Algeria’s Jeunesse Sportive de Kabyle), the national teams of Iraqi Kurdistan and Palestine, and at least two Israeli clubs, Beitar Jerusalem (Jewish-Israeli, considered rightist) and Bnei Sakhnin (Palestinian-Israeli).2 Algeria’s national team constitutes the model for the Kurdish and Palestinian national clubs as well as the inspiration for groups who see football as a way of projecting noninstitutionalised ethnic and national

1 “The 2The

Power and the Passion”, BBC , June 14, 2010. Israeli clubs are also discussed in Sorek’s chapter in this part.

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identities that are not yet. The Algerian team traces its roots to ten Algerian players, some of whom were likely to have played in the French World Cup team, but who fled France in 1958 to act as revolutionary goodwill ambassadors of the “National Front for Liberation” of Algeria (FLN, going by the French acronym). They toured the world to play matches during the war of independence. The FLN squad won the vast majority of its matches in North Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Asia, garnering international support for their country’s struggle for independence. The club’s song, Kassaman3 (We Pledge), became Algeria’s national anthem. The defection of the team players constituted a repudiation of the French policy of recruiting Algerian and other African sportsmen to play for France rather than for their countries of origin colonised by France. The team’s success built on Algerian football pitches that had become venues for protests—nationalist, anti-colonial and anti-French as far back as the 1930s. The FLN used the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland to announce the launch of its armed struggle. Two years later, it ordered sports clubs to freeze their activities and instructed members to join the rebels. The FLN-led campaign was rooted in Algerian Arab nationalist use of sports to express nationalist sentiment that started with the establishment of a centre for sports and politics in 1926. Governing world football body, FIFA, in response to the FLN’s employment of football as a vehicle for national liberation, banned the team’s players and levied sanctions against teams that agreed to meet it on the pitch. After 3 Per

its Wikipedia entry, lyrics to “Kassaman” were composed by Moufdi Zakaria (born Zekri Cheikh, 12 June 1908–17 August 1977), an Algerian activist, poet and writer. He wrote “Kassaman” while in prison in 1955. For the lyrics in English translation see: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/algerian-national-anthem-kassaman-%D9%82%D9% 8E%D8%B3%D9%8E%D9%85%D9%8B%D8%A7-qassaman-lagu-kebangsaan-algeria.html. The last stanza is as follows: Shouts home from the battlefield. Listen and answered them a call! Let it be written with the blood of fighters And be read to future generations. Oh, Glory, we hold out our hand to you, We are determined that Algeria shall liveBe our witness-Be-Be our witness our witness!

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independence, the national football club served as a tool in rebuilding Algeria, helping it break with its colonial past by creating the image of the new, socialist–nationalist Algeria; countering regionalism; and projecting the country’s socialist model on the international stage. Its success was premised on the notion that “football is the continuation of war by other means”.4

An Investigative Black Hole The history of the Cairo vs. Teheran derbies, too, illustrates football clubs’ key historical and political role in the Middle East and North Africa. This role has been largely overlooked or deliberately distorted by those in power, with the exception of a handful of scholars, pundits and exceptional journalists, including Shaun Lopez. In a journal article, he lamented the failure of Middle East scholars to include sports in their research (Lopez 2009). “The study of sports, and football in particular, arguably the most popular form of cultural performance in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East, has much to add to our current understanding of the social, political and cultural history of the region”, he wrote. He argued that the lack of research into sports was all the more stunning given “the seminal importance of football and other sports in the region or the central role athletics plays in the formation of national identity in most Middle Eastern and North African countries” (Lopez 2009). More recently, scholars Paul Aarts and Francesco Cavatorta noted that the “real protagonists of the popular Arab revolts in the second decade of the twenty-first century did not come from the usual suspects within established and formal civil society but from sectors of society [such as football] that have been largely under-explored” (Aarts and Cavatorta 2013).

4This is a paraphrase by the Times of London, June 21, 1996, of a maxim attributed to nineteenth century Prussian military strategist, Carl von Clausewitz, saying that “war is the continuation of politics by other means”.

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Those revolts placed football fans centre stage after years of largely unnoticed confrontations in and around stadiums with security forces, the repressive arm of autocratic rulers. As in the past, these forces sought to employ football as a tool for ensuring political support, distract attention from widespread grievances and manipulate nationalist emotions. This is what the Mubaraks did in late 2009 and early 2010 when Algeria defeated Egypt, preventing it from qualifying for that year’s World Cup (Dorsey 2011). Football fans were often the only urban societal grouping to persistently and doggedly confront an individual autocrat’s aim and efforts to control all public space. They did so by challenging the autocracy’s claim to ownership of stadiums, the only venue, alongside mosques, that regimes could not simply shut down because football, like religion, evoked emotions that were too deep-seated among a majority of the population. The challenge forced autocrats to find alternative forms of control. As a result, the pitch became a battlefield and one of the foremost contested public arenas as well as a training ground for the day anti-autocratic mass protests would erupt. Already in the late 1980s, football pitches were the refuge of “hittistes”—educated but unemployed young men who spent their days leaning against a wall, “hit” in colloquial Algerian Arabic, chatting and smoking. The football pitches serve as one of the few public spaces where they could vent their anger against the government. At times violent protests in stadiums forced authorities to postpone local football matches (Hussey 2014). In the 2011 protests in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in post-revolt Egypt and Tunisia, the pitch constituted a gathering point for tens of thousands of often undereducated, unemployed, young football fans from which they rallied against the unchanging symbol of the repressive regime, the police and security forces. The demographics of the Egyptian and other football fans, which included huge numbers of uneducated and underemployed young people, often constituted the exception that proved the rule. These demographics contrasted starkly

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with the educated elite that had staged mass protests in the early twentyfirst century across the globe—from Istanbul, Bangkok and Rio de Janeiro to Kiev, Moscow and Caracas.

A Major Social Force Taken together, fan groups constitute a significant social and political force. In Egypt, for example, they represented one of the largest civic groups in the country. The power of the fans was highlighted by the fact that the first thing embattled rulers like Mubarak, Ben Ali and Libyan leader Colonel Moammar Qaddafi did once mass protest erupted was suspend matches of professional football leagues to prevent stadiums from emerging as rallying points for the opposition. In doing so, they followed in the footsteps of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the twentieth century’s most prominent Arab leader, who as president of Egypt in 1967, banned football matches and popular music after the disastrous war in which Israel conquered the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Sinai and the Golan Heights. Nasser succeeded in averting anti-government protests, but his successors did not. During the twenty-first century, unlike 1967, fans played a key role in the destruction of the barrier of fear erected by neo-patriarchal autocrats5 to condemn their “children” to passivity and silence (Dorsey 2010). Those barriers were internalised and reproduced at virtually every layer of society, ensuring the regime’s sustainability. Years of confrontation with security forces in stadiums, however, had turned fans into a militant threat to that sustainability. The experience moulded fans as an organised, strengthened, battle-hardened force. Their battles escalated as neighbourhood and professional groups launched struggles of their own.

5The term, neo-patriarchal literally means “under the father’s control”. In the social sciences it denotes a social order (relationships included) in which the dominant authority is in the hands of the men, granting them power and excessive rights.

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Fan power was also evidenced by the fact that the groups of Ultras6 posed a serious enough threat that the government kept football leagues suspended even in the aftermath of the autocrat’s downfall. In Egypt, professional football matches were banned for much of the first three years after Mubarak’s downfall. Long term suspension of games remained in effect during a period of struggle between fans and youth groups determined to see the goals of their revolt achieved and post-revolt powers intent on managing the process of change and ensuring that significant structures of the old regime remained in place. Bans were briefly lifted only to be quickly re-imposed, most notably in February 2013, after seventy four fans of Al Ahli were killed in a politically loaded brawl in Port Said, the worst incident in Egyptian sporting history. Fan groups confronted the government and Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president (who was deposed in 2013 after a year in office by a military coup). These groups, backed by the military, protested the banning of fans from Egyptian league matches that had been re-launched later that year. Taking a page out of the book of their counterparts in countries such as Italy, Serbia and Argentina, football fans in the Middle East and North Africa increasingly identified and organised themselves as Ultras. They legitimised their claim to stadium ownership based on the assertion that they were the only truly loyal supporters of their club. They opposed having the club and team management made pawns of a corrupt, repressive regime and players being mercenaries who sell their skills to the highest bidder. Security forces turning of stadiums into virtual fortresses of black-clad steel during matches, particularly during the Cairo vs. Al Ahli-Al Zamalek derby, emphasised the starkness of the challenge. The process also demonstrated the fierceness of the animosity between these rival fan groups, which dissipated only when their mutual hostility was

6The Ultras designate militant fans characterised by their fanatical support and elaborate, choreographed artistic displays. The first group with traits of the Ultras, supporters of Ferencivaros TC, was founded in Hungary in 1929. Most scholars begin their timeline with the emergence of groups in Italy that called themselves Ultras in the late 1960s, from where the phenomenon spread across Europe. See the cases of Ultras in Hamburg’s St. Pauli FC and Tel Aviv’s Hapoel FC (discussed in Siny, Regev, respectively, part “Claiming a Foothold in Spaces Beyond the Stadium”).

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replaced by a common cause, as in the Tahrir Square demonstrations which demanded Mubarak’s resignation. Alessandro Dal Lago and Rocco De Biasi analyse Italian Ultras as follows: “The intensification of police control inside and outside the stadiums led the Ultras to adopt a mode of military organization and a war-like attitude towards the police. As a result, football hooliganism qua social problem has to be regarded as the legacy of such policing” (Dal Lago and De Biasi 1999). The struggle for control of the stadiums resembles the case of hooligans in Britain, where their attitudes were shaped by the decaying condition of sports facilities; this situation produced a complete breakdown and social decay. But in contrast to British and other Western hooligans in pluralistic European societies, militant Middle Eastern or North African fans had no alternative release channel for their pent-up anger and frustration. They confronted a law enforcement force for whom engagement was not a concept but who saw brutal repression as its only tool. Consequently, militant fans would confront the police in stadiums each week during football season. As described by Palestinian-American scholar Hisham Sharabi, the intensity of the confrontation between militant football fans on the one hand and law enforcement, footballers and managers on the other was fuelled by the neo-patriarchic nature of Arab autocracies (Sharabi 1992). Per Sharabi, to a majority of players as well as managers appointed by the autocratic regime, the ruler was a father figure whose franchise they internalised and to whom fans were children that had gotten out of line. Sharabi (1992: 7) characterised Arab autocratic society as built around the “dominance of the father” (patriarch), the centre around whom the national as well as the “natural” family are organised. The same holds for the relationship between ruler and ruled, which is mediated in both the society and the family by “a forced consensus based on ritual and coercion”. The regime was in effect “the father of all fathers” at the top of the pyramid. Egyptian journalist, writer and activist Salam Moussa recall that Gamal Abdel Nasser’s handler would order students at schools he visited to address the leader as “baba” or father. “It was an overt and expensive act of defiance for a boy to use the more traditional ‘Siadat El Rais’ [Mr. President] as a

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greeting, even if beaming while shaking the nicotine-stained fingers”, Moussa reminisces (Moussa 2008). The notion of the father figure—the Zaim who built the nation— was an inseparable element of statements made by public leaders such as Tunisia’s Zine al Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi in the weeks before their demise. It took the 2011 revolt in Egypt for an Egyptian prime minister to answer unscripted questions on television. President Anwar Sadat in 1977 responded angrily to questioning by two student activists, saying: “How can you talk to me like that? I am the president of the family, the president of the country”. In his last televised speech before resigning on February 11, 2011, Mubarak addressed Egyptians as “my sons, the youth of Egypt, and daughters”. He said his was “a speech from the father to his sons and daughters. I am telling you that I am very grateful and so proud of you for being a symbolic generation that is calling for change” (Moubarak 2011). In response protesters on Cairo’s Tahrir Square articulated their discontent as a rejection of neo-patriarchy. “How dare he talk to us like naughty children? He must go immediately”, said protester Abdallah Moktar (Shenker et al. 2011). It was not just the treatment of fans as children, but the attempts of the regime to demonise fans as criminals and thugs and the security force’s brutality that hardened battle lines; there was also deep-seated animosity towards a force that not only sought to stop them in the stadium, but “made daily life unbearable for them and their families in the popular neighbourhoods of cities across North Africa” (Ismail 2006: 165). For ordinary Egyptians, the state was “in the detention cells, in the corrupt police stations, in the beatings, in the blood of the people, in the popular quarters”, in the words of London School of Economics and Political Science historian John Calcraft (2011). The police and security forces were made responsible for official documents such as passports, drivers’ licenses or birth and death certificates; local conflicts, elections, vetting of public sector appointees, labour issues or stadium and mosque security. The performance of these officials often depended on the bribes which they demanded to supplement their meagre incomes. Illegal housing—the construction of unlicensed buildings in neighbourhoods of Cairo stemming from rising real estate prices—was often the

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flashpoint. The regime “decided to solve this via security measures. They just go in, storm the place, demolish it and arrest people. Everything works this way – I could probably cite six examples of economic or social problems that are being solved just via security, and that’s it”, said activist and blogger, Alaa Abdel Fattah, one of the first to have pointed to football fans’ role in protest in the Middle East and North Africa (Goodman and Koudous 2014). The police force impunity was officially enshrined when the force’s slogan was changed under Mubarak’s regime from “The Police in the Service of the People” to “The Police and the People in the Service of the State”. A popular Ultras Ahlawy song, “Oh Nesting Crow”, captured the public’s perception of security force impunity: Oh crow nesting at our home, Who has always been a failure in life, In school, he barely scored fifty percent. Through bribes, his ‘excellency’ obtained an education and a degree worthy of a hundred colleges. Oh crow nesting at our home, Why are you destroying the joy of our lives? We will not do as you want, So please save us your grace. Go ahead and contrive a case since this is what the Dakhliya [the interior ministry] usually does. I was arrested and charged with international terrorism when all I did was wave a torch and chant Ahli.7

Contemporary Protest What particularly characterises Middle Eastern and North African militant football groups is their social-political activism, which aims to challenge existing hegemonies and provoke political or social change.

7 You

Tube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4-kDd4sqeE. Accessed Nov 26, 2019.

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This also characterises the contemporary history of socially aware, politically engaged fan groups elsewhere in the world. Such groups often serve as accelerators of social movements.8 The activism and protest politics of football fans and youth groups in the Middle East and North Africa are more extreme than that of their counterparts in liberal democracies due to the prevailing autocratic rule and the frequent brutal violence of security forces. These confrontations have led Arab autocrats to refuse to share any public space or allow the emergence of more independent non-governmental groups; at best, they have allowed the existence of opposition parties or groups on condition that they water down demands for a greater freedom of action in return for a license to establish a party or a limited number of seats in a parliament dominated by the ruling party. As a result, many activists and Ultras have viewed party politics with a degree of suspicion as long as the goals of their revolt, including reform of the security sector, have not been achieved. Their suspicions have hampered the transition of the post-autocratic regime based on contentious to electoral politics. Opting for continued contentious political tactics was one way the Ultras in Egypt had hoped to fend off attempts by the military, government and party politics to manipulate them. These tactics also constituted their retort to the military’s argument—in the run-up to the country’s first free and fair presidential election in 2012 that brought Morsi to power—that the revolution had achieved its aims and the time had come for Egypt to return to normalcy and move on. It was a struggle that was to prove costly, painful and divisive. Internal differences were inevitable as was the effort to uphold principles with the battle between revolutionary and counter-revolutionary forces escalating and Egypt stumbling from one more polarising and wrenching crisis to another; a year later these crises led to the coup against Morsi. Deep divisions among various groups of Ultras predating the fall of Mubarak were rooted in perceptions of neglect and broken promises by the central government in Cairo. The Port Said football brawl only 8 Examples

include the distinct political activities of fans in the creation of the gay movement in the 1950s or fans of Joss Whedon of the cancelled television show, Firefly, who continue to gather every year to organise the fund raiser, “Can’t Stop the Serenity,” on behalf of the women’s rights and advocacy organisation, Equality Now.

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served to strengthen the military’s control during the post-Morsi era with an $8.6 billion project to expand and upgrade the Suez Canal region. The death sentence in 2013 imposed on twenty-one “Green Eagles”— members of the Ultras’ support group of Port Said’s Al Masri SC—on charges of being responsible for the deadly brawl, sparked a popular uprising in Suez Canal cities. This verdict tapped into a deep-seated vein of resentment in Port Said, Egypt’s third most important economic hub, against the central government in Cairo. The protests harked back to the city’s tradition of resistance rooted in multiple protests in its past: There was opposition to the British in the late nineteenth century, when Port Said was founded as a predominantly European city, nationalist demonstrations in the run-up to Egypt’s 1919 popular revolt, anti-government protests in the early 1950s and the city’s role as a military base in the 1956 and 1973 Middle East wars as well as the Egyptian–Israeli war of attrition in the late 1960s. Port Said’s perception of itself as a city that had sacrificed for an ungrateful nation was reinforced by the Mubarak regime’s failure to forge a national identity rooted in citizenship rather than servitude. The city’s history of resistance and its perception of sacrifice fostered a sense of entitlement and regional identity that at times played out in Port Said’s football rivalry with Cairo. As an unintended side effect, the military-led expansion of the Suez Canal, from which Port Said stood to benefit, would restore the confidence of the city’s popular Ultras as well as their historic rivalry with Cairo’s Al Ahli fans (Solovieva 2014). Tension between fans and authorities mounted further as regimes across the Middle East and North Africa sought to stymy protest by criminalising it as a form of terrorism. Rulers of Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Syria denounced their domestic opponents, including football fans, as terrorists (Dorsey 2013b). While Egypt contemplated replacing security forces with private security companies in stadiums in a bid to lift a ban on spectator attendance at matches, Turkey moved to return security forces to the club as part of its effort to de-politicise football and criminalise politicised fans who had played a key role in mass anti-government protests in 2013 on Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square. The Turkish government further banned chanting of political

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slogans during matches and said it was monitoring the communications of militant fans. It demanded that clubs oblige spectators to sign a statement pledging to abide by the ban before they enter a stadium. Twenty members of Carsi, the militant support group of Besiktas JK, were charged with membership in an illegal organisation. A campaign by the Anti-Terrorism Office and the police warned that protests were the first step towards terrorism. The office issued a fifty five-second video featuring a young woman demonstrator-turned-suicide-bomber and warning the public that “our youth, who are the guarantors of our future, can start with small demonstrations of resistance that appear to be innocent, and after a short period of time, can engage without the blink [of an eye] in actions that may take the lives of dozens of innocent people”. Throughout the video, the words “before it is too late” are displayed. Meanwhile, Egypt’s state-owned Al Ahram newspaper, a longtime mouthpiece for the government, asked: “Will the Ultras be shown the red card9 after crossing the red line? Are they digging their own grave? … Football Ultras of the football powerhouse Egyptian clubs, Ahli and Zamalek, have become a dangerous phenomenon … These days the Ultras are a symbol of destruction, in their attack of the opposition…” In a frontal attack on the Ultras, who pride themselves on their financial independence, officials of Al Ahli and Zamalek suggested that they were being funded by third parties and challenged them to make their funding sources public. “Now they are using not just firecrackers but also bird shot in attacking us. They don’t spend money on tickets anymore but spend it to destroy the club”, claimed Zamalek chairman, Mamdouh Abbas. Al Ahram noted that the Ultras “spend much money on their trips to buy tickets, firecrackers and other tools for supporting their teams. Their social background doesn’t explain their having that kind of money. Their main income comes from selling T-shirts” (Mazhar 2013). Major General Talaat Tantawi, a retired military officer-turned security consultant, charged that the Ultras, much like their counterparts in Argentina, were being manipulated by groups seeking to exploit their popularity: “It is so easy to penetrate these groups and utilise their 9 https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/egypt-s-ultras-have-shown-military-rule-the-red-card-1.

366811

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enthusiasm and youth. They have become easy targets for achieving political goals while distracting them from focusing on their main vision and mission, which was supporting sports. Others joined in and became Ultras and are acting as we see now”, said Tantawi (Mazhar 2013).

Conclusion Since the late nineteenth-early twentieth century, football has played a key role in multiple areas of the Middle East and North Africa in the formation of nations, states and regimes as well as in the assertion and molding of national and ethnic identities and the clamor for independence, freedom and greater rights. For much of the last century, Middle Eastern and North African leaders have employed the sport for multiple purposes—to achieve independence, strengthen their grip on power and further their political goals—even if the pitch at times became a venue of anti-government protest. The ability of ever more autocratic leaders to do so was significantly curtailed in the early twenty-first century with the emergence of militant, highly politicised, increasingly street battlehardened groups of football fans or Ultras, who challenge fundamental pillars of repressive regimes. Their challenge positioned football and stadiums as battlefields for political control, greater political freedom, equal economic opportunity, identity politics and gender rights. Post-revolt nations like Egypt and Tunisia confronted fan and youth groups determined to ensure that the goals of the popular uprising were achieved with the complex and as yet unresolved question: Should they retreat from contentious politics and revert to engaging in electoral politics? The question highlights what is both the strength and the weakness of the Ultras, as their unity is based on a shared passion for the game, a vision of the power structure of their club, deep-seated animosity towards security forces and a willingness to fight for what they believe is a right goal that is neither politically nor ideologically defined. As a result, the existence of the club is possible without adherence to any shared political stance. This renders the Ultras vulnerable to internal splits and manipulation by external forces; it increases the potential for renewed rivalry and

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hostility among groups that had worked together for a common cause during popular revolts and their immediate aftermath.

References Aarts, P., & Cavatorta, F. (2013). Debating Civil Society Dynamics in Syria and Iran. In A. Paul & C. Francesco (Eds.), Civil Society in Syria and Iran (pp. 1–19). Boulder, CO: Lynne Riener. Calcraft, J. (2011). The Arab Uprisings: Mass Protest, Border Crossing and History from Below. Lecture at London School of Economics and Political Science, November 10. London, UK. Dal Lago, A., & De Biasi, R. (1999). Football Fans, Culture and Organization. In R. Giulianotti, N. Bonney, & M. Hepworth (Eds.), Football, Violence and Social identity (p. 81). Abingdon: Routledge. Dorsey, J. M. (2010, January 6). Franchised Repression. Qantara. http://en. qantara.de/content/brian-whitakers-whats-really-wrong-with-the-middleeast-franchised-repression. Accessed 2 Nov 2019. Dorsey, J. M. (2011, April 11). Soccer Emerges as a Political Force in the Middle East. The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. Retrieved May 18, 2013, from http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2011/04/soccer-emerges-as-pol itical-force-in.html. Dorsey, J. M. (2013a, February 4). Fan Culture—A Social and Political Indicator. The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. http://mideastsoccer.blo gspot.sg/2013/02/fan-culture-social-and-political.html. Dorsey, J. M. (2013b, August 13). US Tightrope Walk: Arab Autocrats Try to Redefine Terrorism. The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. Retrieved July 25, 2013, from http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2013/08/us-tightropewalk-arab-autocrats-try-to.html. Goodman, A., & Koudous, S. A. (2014, March 31). Exclusive: Egyptian Activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah on Prison & Regime’s War on a Whole Generation. Democracy Now. http://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/31/exclusive_ egyptian_activist_alaa_abdel_fattah. Accessed 2 Nov 2019. Hussey, A. (2014). The French Intifada: The Long War Between France and Its Arabs (Kindle edition). London: Faber & Faber, Loc 3233. Ismail, S. (2006). Political Life in Cairo’s New Quarters, Encountering the Everyday State (p. 165). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

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Lopez, S. (2009). On Race, Sports and Identity: Picking Up the Ball in Middle East Studies. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 41, 359–361. Mazhar, I. (2013, September 28). Ultra-violent. Al Ahram Online. http://wee kly.ahram.org.eg/News/4236/17/Ultra-violent.aspx. Accessed 6 Dec 2013. Moussa, S. (2008, September 28). My Nasser, Salamamousa. http://salamamou ssa.com/2013/09/28/my-nasser/. Accessed 2 Nov 2019. Mubarak, H. (2011). Hosni Mubarak’s Speech to the Egyptian People: ‘I Will Not… Accept To Hear Foreign Dictations’. Transcript, The Washington Post. http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/ 02/10/AR2011021005290.html. Accessed 2 Nov 2019. Sharabi, H. (1992). Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society. NY: Oxford University Press. Shenker, J., Beaumont, P., & Sherwood, H. (2011, February 2). Egypt Protesters React Angrily to Mubarak’s Televised Address. The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/02/egypt-protestersmubarak-address. Accessed 2 Nov 2019. Solovieva, D. (2014, April 3). Suez Canal: Egyptian Military Takes Charge of Economic Development, International Business Times. http://www.ibtimes. com/.

Index

A

Algeria’s national team late 19th and early twentieth century 268 opposition to colonial administrators 268 projecting noninstitutionalized ethnic and national identities 269 vehicle for national liberation 269 venues for protests: nationalist, anti-colonial and anti-French 269 anthropology of affect 2 emotion 83, 86, 102 love discourse 89, 90, 92 subject 83 Arab fans attain integration and acceptance 205

“beat the Jewish men” 205 display of political protest 205 Arab male football players muting their expression of nationalist aspirations 200 rehabilitate their threatened masculinity 195 autocratic rule brutal security forces 277 brutal violence 277 autoethnography based on dual perspectives 120 critical feminist methodological approach 118 personal self-knowledge 118 reflexive narrative 118 study bodily experience 119 three autoethnographies 119, 120

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 T. Rapoport (ed.), Doing Fandom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46870-5

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284

Index

B

Basketball as a Counter-example 208 body articulate and exhibit the meaning of being a fan 5 assimilates, curates and reflects society’s power relations 10 essential for understanding social life 6 locus of practical knowledge 6 Bourdieu, P. (1977) 38, 39, 41, 52 Butler, Judith (1990) dramaturgical approach 146 passing challenges the binary gendered social order 146 post-structural perspective 146 transgressing gender boundaries 146

C

Challenge to Sovereignty 259 children and fandom 37, 52, 55 collective intense emotions 72 quasi family 73 commodification 83, 84, 87, 94, 95, 98, 100–104 Endüstriyel football (industrial football) 83–88, 90, 94, 97–106 fan as consumer 83 Passolig 87, 88, 100 resistance 85, 88, 100, 101, 103–107 Connerton, P. (1989) “habit memory” 45 critical moments encapsulation of the emotional repertoire 64

Csordas, T.J. (1993) somatic nature 67

D

Denzin, N.K. (1984) emotional practices 63, 65 dimensions of emotional experience broad emotional range 61 emotional fluctuation 61, 67 emotional intensity 61, 64 doing fandom collective attribute of fans 4 creates a strong bond between fans 4 internalised in fans’ bodily behaviour 5 repeated use with other fans 4 subject to social conventions and constraints 4 doing gender doing fandom and doing gender are co-constructed and co-performed 13 inseparability of doing fandom and doing gender 138 reciprocal relationship 13 re-legitimises the hierarchical gendered social order 137 seeking to receive affirmation 13 social expectations and rewards 137 socially expected performance 13 social-historical norms and structures 137 social interactions 137, 147 subject to continuous social evaluation and self-examination 12

Index

West, C. and Zimmerman, D.H. (1987) 137, 147, 155, 156 woman is accountable 137

E

Egypt 268, 270–273, 275, 277–280 Elias, Norbert and Dunning, Eric (1986) 60 fandom fulfills the yearning for excitement 60 embattled rulers 272 banned football matches 272 suspend matches 272 “emotional toolkit” 63, 75 early habituation 65 emotional dynamics 75, 76 unfold along a timeline 63 Emotional Pendulum intense emotional fluctuations 60 repeatable, diverse and passionate range 60 Endüstriyel football (industrial football) 83 ethics ordinary 163, 169, 178, 183 universal 163, 167, 170 ethno-national and class conflicts at football stadium(s) 205

F

fairness/hakkaniyet 162 as/vs. fair play 167 feminization of 178 as masculine/delikanlı/ibne/gentlemanly 182 and UEFA/FIFA/TFF 166

285

fandom acquired, internalised routine habituation 7 behavioural and emotional toolkit 2 civilizing fandom 17 gender-differentiated routes 54 intersection of age and gender 52 publicly accessible human performances and activities 3 repertoire of learned and performed bodily practices 2 the story of the body 7 fandom as a social practice action and social order 3 corporal 1 human agency 3, 4 investigating everyday behaviour 3 routinised bodily behaviour (Reckwitz 2002) 2 social order in action 3 “Toward a Theory of Social Practices: A Development in Culturalist Theorizing”, Reckwitz (2002) 3 fandom as habitus 5 fandom field actors (fans) share common assumptions and activities 2 a sociocultural, physical space 1 emotional and relational physical space 20 traditional masculine bastions 17 unique set of behavioral rules and knowledge 1 women’s increasing entry 17 fandom liberates 54

286

Index

fan love 83, 84, 88, 91, 93, 94, 96, 97, 101 arabesk 93 a¸sk 83, 88–92, 94, 96, 98, 101–106 fan subjectivity 83, 103 good/authentic/genuine/true fandom 103 negotiation/contestation 84, 96, 97 sevda 83, 88, 90, 91, 93, 94, 101–106 social class 105 violence 84, 87, 102–106 Fanon, Franz (1952) 145, 146 “mimicry” 146 post-colonial perspective 146 racial boundaries 145 fans “anti-racist”, “anti-establishment”, “left” and “familial” 222 challenge sovereignty 259 civic urban activities and projects outside the stadium 229 common sense of otherness 236 consolidate their urban identity 221 intentionally non-normative minority 222 invocation of sacred cows 224 minority in their socio-political values 223 minority sports-wise 223 relationships among the various sub-groups 233 traitors 221, 224 fans’ bodies subject to evaluation 141 fans “claim the right to space”

extend the practices of doing fandom from inside to outside 23 extend the stadium’s boundaries 22 fans’ agentive capacity to resist 23 sociopolitical and educational activities outside the stadium 23 symbolically and practically 22 fans turn from nationality to locality 221 football 193–196, 198–205, 207–210 ethno-national stratification 210 protecting/cultivating the masculinity of men 210 football and gender [men] owners of the stadium and football 11 mostly exclusive sphere of manhood 12 ‘natural’, desirable expression of manhood and masculinity 11 preserving gender distinction 11 was invented by men for men 11 football fandom 60–63, 71 immune 62 tenacious, withstanding 62 football fans anti-autocratic mass protests 271 anti-capitalist 246, 250 anti-establishment 246 challenging the autocracy’s claims to ownership of stadiums 271 claim to stadium ownership 273 confrontation 246, 248, 255, 258 confrontations in and around stadiums 271

Index

287

obstacles to inclusion of women 196 three-fold struggle in regard to masculinities 196 use football to rehabilitate their threatened masculinity 195

destruction of the barrier of fear 272 leftist strongholds 246 social and political force 272 Foucault, M. (1980) 141 regulatory gaze 141

G

Garfinkel, Harold (1967) continuous effort demanding secrecy 145 Geertz, Clifford “kinesthetic empathy” 73 gender creates and reproduces hierarchical power relations 11 signifier and a classificatory term 11 socially expected performance 13 sociocultural regime 156 what a person does 12 gender and fandom 118, 119, 129, 131 Gendered Fandom 11, 138 Giulianotti 2005; McDougall 2013 236 [football can] challenge and even dismantle national identity 236 Goffman, Erving (1963) 141, 146 everyday coping techniques 145 impossible to pass perfectly 145 stigma 145 groups of Israeli men – Arab Palestinian, Mizrachi Jews, European Jews “deorientalise” “modernise” their self-image 195

H

habitus “a feel for the game” 41 assimilated in the body 38 body-context linkage 41 deterministic definition 52 imitation 38, 39 “implicit pedagogy” 41, 47 “practical sense” 48 “practice without theory” 46 system of bodily schema 38 young age 38, 47, 48, 52–54 Habitus Pierre Bourdieu (1977, 1990) acquisition and assimilation is virtually unconscious 8 deterministic dimension 10 inculcated and acquired through socialization 7 inculcated and learned by the body 6 ingrained in the body 7 invisible pedagogy 9 reservoir of memories, thoughts and feelings 9 transpires almost invisibly with young children 9 Hamburg Hafenstraße 244, 246, 247, 253, 254, 260

288

Index

Rote Flora - Concert Hall complex 260 St. Pauli Quarter 243–245, 262 Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem, FC alternative socio-political agenda 5 anti-capitalist 136 barring racist or sexist behaviour 5 democratic 136 fan-owned 136 fan-owned football club 5 free of aggressive and (explicit) sexist behaviour 136 liberal-democratic orientation 5 non-violent and non-sexist 136 welcomes women’s participation 136 Hapoel Tel Aviv FC 220 hegemonic sports culture constructing heterosexual masculinity 195 exclusion of women supporters 195 focus of national pride 196 Hirsch, D. (2010) man’s body is ‘unmarked’ 142 woman’s body is marked 142 hyper-masculine stadium(s) preserves gendered regime 138

Israeli society Israeli flag 220, 225–227, 230, 232, 233 national identity sparks division and friction 236 nationalism and sport affinity 219 nation-building project 220, 236 Israeli women footballers marginalisation 193 struggle for recognition 193

J

Jewish European and Arab Masculinities under Threat Jewish European Nationalism, Sports and Masculinity 196 Jewish -Israeli football fortifying diverse masculine identities 210 lower-class fans intensify the ethnonational conflict 205 offers protection to Arab citizens 205 Jewish Israeli society Israeli liberals embrace Arab football 210 Israeli-Palestinian conflict 192 socio-economic inequality and discrimination 210 “tame” Arab men 192, 193

I

Illouz, E. (2008) 61, 63, 74 commercialization of intimate emotions 61 consumer culture manipulates emotions 61 Investigative Black Hole 270

K

Kanter, Rosabeth Moss (1977) equalise opportunity 143 Men and Women of the Corporation 143 token 143, 151, 153, 157

Index

L

289

“permission zone” 251 process of de-individuation 251 revolutionary potential 244 Mimesis impersonate men fans 148 truly endeavour to pass 148 Mizrachi masculinity under Threat 201

language 171, 173, 174, 177, 179 chants, cheers, songs 170, 180 ideology 179–182 swearing 170, 175, 179–182 language of fandom 139, 152 embodied and habitual 140 learning fandom executed unconsciously 42 family heritage 46 mimicry and tutoring 39 muscular bonding 42 occurs/within the body 48 seminal somatic events 49 Lefebvre, Henri (1995) the right to the city 22

no-men-allowed policy 144 penalty procedure 144 utilization of women 144 nourishing power of disappointment 71

M

P

Male hegemony Connell [men] claim to authority 12 the right to exclude 12 men fans 138–140, 142, 144, 148–151, 153–156 sense of ownership 140 Middle East and North Africa 267, 268, 270, 271, 273, 276–278, 280 militant football groups accelerators of social movements 277 challenge existing hegemonies 276 provoke political or social change 276 rejection of neo-patriarchy 275 Tahrir Square demonstrations 274 Millerntor stadium leftist strongholds 246

Passing: A Conceptual Lens for Exploring Doing Fandom attempt to conceal a social stigma 145 be accepted 138, 144 cross categories of identity 144 risk of being exposed as impersonators 145 permission zone allowed to deviate temporarily from behavioural norms 2 autonomous behavioral and emotional domain 154 dominant norms of behaviour are distinct 154 legitimizes violations of behavioural norms 21 room for performing fandom 155 unrestrained emotions and gestures 21

N

290

Index

political practices 249, 255 Anti-racism campaigns 247 Civil, political, and social 247 politics in football Middle East and North Africa 267, 268, 270, 271, 273, 274, 276, 277 rooted tradition 267 post-fandom literature (Redhead and Giulianotti 2002) 24 practices of women fans for passing 147 practice theory Ortner (2001, 2006) Reckwitz (2002) Rouse (2006) body is essential for understanding social life 6 reconciling social structure or culture with individual agency 4 relationship between the body and society 6 presence 140, 142, 143, 148, 153, 154, 157 no attempt to conform to the male model 152 resistance and criticism of passing 154 press and electronic media 139 sexualization of women’s bodies 139

R

radius game imposed by football administrators 8 no-men-allowed policy 15 penalty for offensive behaviour 8

reconstructs moralistic conventions 15 relaxing in the permission zone perform in non-traditional 154 Representing Hapoel, not Israel banner displayed by fans 220 manifested resistance 220 no open opposition 220 pulling back from nationalism 225 Representing Hapoel under the flag of Israel Representing Hapoel as well as Israel 233 Swing Back to National Identity 231 reunification of Germany East Germany clubs 248, 252 encounter between East and West 248 remnants of Nazism 248 violence and racism 248

S

security forces confrontations in and around stadiums with 271 ensuring political support 271 repressive arm of autocratic rulers 271 selection ‘keeping things [fandom] in due proportion’ 152 performing only certain practices 151 socialization into fandom agents and agencies 37 experiences 37–39, 51

Index

inculcation, learning and acquisition 38 perform practices 37 sociocultural genesis 38 timing 37, 46 spaces of doing fandom affinity to locality Geertz (1985) 19 globalization shrinks spatial and informational distances 24 local and national 19, 23 stadium(s) 271–275, 278–280 affinity binding a locality, a club and fandom 19 emotional and physical tolerance 77 emotional playground 76 John Bale (2000) 19 panopticon (Foucault 1977) 21 permission zone 21 players-fans bodily dialogue 76 protest and resistance 267 space-time capsule 20 time and space capsule 76 topophilia – a love of place 19 St. Pauli FC 244, 246–250, 252–254, 257–259, 263 anti-fascist policy 248 politicization process 253 Swing towards the “State of Tel Aviv” 228

T

Taylor Commission (1990) change in the stadium 22 redefined the nature of fandom 22 restraining of fans’ behaviour 22

291

tragedy at the Hillsboro stadium 22 threatened masculinity colonial dynamics 193 ethnic tension 193 masculine anxieties 193 national conflict 193, 201 unthreatening masculinity 193 twenty-first century neo-patriarchal autocrats 272 popular Arab revolts 270 [rulers] demonise fans as criminals 275 typical fans common elements in their fandom biographies 117

U

Ultras accelerators of social movements 277 Challenge fundamental pillars of repressive regimes 280 Fan power 273 provoke political or social change 276 vulnerable to internal splits and manipulation 280 war-like attitude towards the police 274 Ultras Hapoel (UH) 229 Ultras movement in Germany 257 political changes 256 working against the extreme right 256 Ultras St. Pauli confrontations with the police force 261

292

Index

confront the state and undermine its sovereignty 263 ongoing political struggles 263 work outside the stadium 257 undoing gender 155, 156 gender relaxation 155, 156

V

Violence Law 88, 104 civilizing 85 Eurocentrism 86–88 fair play 85, 105, 162–170, 172, 175–178, 180, 181, 183 social class 105 visibility of fandom 148, 152 established signifiers 141 inclusion and exclusion 141 visible behaviour ear 16 eye 15, 16, 20 male body is unmarked 15 media 12, 15, 17, 20, 24 objectifying the female body 16 sexism 15 social supervisory mechanism 16 surface bodily manifestations 15 voice of women is often silenced 16 voices or silence of gendered inter-personal interactions 16 woman’s marked body divulges her otherness 15

W

West, C. and Zimmerman, D.H. (1987) 137, 147, 155, 156 Williams, J.S. (2001) body and emotions 63 women’s exclusion from football dynamics of inclusion and exclusion 208 obstacles to inclusion of women 196 women’s fandom 137, 144, 155, 156 comparing doing fandom 136, 152 contradictory requirements 14 increasing entry into the fandom field 17 lack of a model 10, 12 male fandom model 12 paradox 13, 14 token 15 with the hegemonic male model 136, 152 women doing fandom 136, 137, 147, 154, 156 gendered bodily practices 138 women fans boundary crossing 140, 141 different paths to fandom 129 entrapped in the stands 140 fandom motivation 130 football connoisseur 130 impersonation 140, 145 right to claim belonging 132