Football fandom as a Subject-Matter of Social Sciences

Abstract

Football fandom may appear as quite a marginal object in the social sciences, with regard to both its form (a passionate attachment) and its content (football). The social sciences have long seen the passions as a minority phenomenon, which is believed to be linked to individual preferences and to be an object of psychology. The sociology of culture paid attention to amateurs of art or cultural objects but was quite reluctant to study football fandom. The present article aims at questioning football fandom as an object of social sciences. Based on the case of Russian football fans, it explores the main characteristics of football fandom and shows how it could influence fans' social representations. It shows in particular the heuristic value of the notion of "passion", which allows us to grasp the intense relationship between the fan and the object of fandom. In that sense football fandom appears to be a rich mediator: it is materialised in several external signs, becomes an object of identification and knowledge, as well as a source of solidarities and oppositions. The passion for football also includes a dramatic dimension that allows the production of narratives and the creation of new social representations. At the same time, football fans are far from being blinded by their passion and demonstrate reflexivity and a critical distance toward their practice. This reflexivity is thus another reason for social sciences to take the passions seriously.