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The Identity Effect of Europeanised Lifeworlds: Becoming European through Football?

Subject Area Political Science
Term from 2017 to 2022
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 386268084
 
Final Report Year 2022

Final Report Abstract

Football is certain to be a significant social domain, which draws in masses of people, from all segments of society, engages them in the context of leisure time (much time, money, emotions are being invested), and arguably contributes to shaping their world views and patterns of identifications. It does so largely unconsciously, yet with powerful and pervasive force. As football throughout Europe has integrated to considerable extent over the last two and a half decades (structural Europeanisation), fans, supporters and followers have responded to this, even though not in uniform fashion. Exposure and access to Europe via frequent competition of one’s own team has beget some normalisation of Europe as the ‘natural’ frame of reference among fans. Depending on how thoroughly a squad of a club one is following has been Europeanised, or the domestic players market in general, the importance of nationality might vary. This also paves the way for more inclusive conceptions of the in-group, and hence potentially also appreciation for more Europeanised communities of belonging. This is only supported by the insight that football has the potential to continent-wide collective memories and networks of cross-boundary collective action. It is in this sense that empirical results demonstrate that there have been effects of normalisation of ‘Europe’ in the minds of those people who follow football, and that this happened arguably because they are fans. How much of such football-related attention towards the European level (and even appreciation of Europe, not to speak of EU institution and politics) really spills over into more conscious political attitudes still needs to be ascertained. In many cases we studied it seemed no obvious contradiction to act as a fan in a ‘European frame of reference’, with a fairly Europeanised notion of in- and out-groups, and nevertheless to scathe the EU (not necessarily Europe!) for all sorts of ills. On the other hand, fans and followers of football far away from European competitions may at times define their region in a quite transboundary fashion, appreciating cross-border experiences alongside football, which seems to defy crude nationalism. What was both puzzling and challenging to us – leaving the unexpected pandemic situation aside – was that there seemed to be a growing unwillingness, occasionally resistance among some football fans to be treated as objects of investigation. This varied hugely between countries and clubs selected, yet it might be an indicator of the fact that a point of saturation has been reached among football fans being studied for all sorts of purposes (marketing, football reform, fan cultures). In terms of public (incl. media) outreach, we compiled a list of talks in non-academic settings, contributions to thematically related panel discussions, contributions to various football-related and local online media and blogs. Krauss, M.: ‘Wie viel Europa steckt in der Champions League? Das muss erforscht werden’, die tageszeitung, 21 December 2017, https://taz.de/Wie-viel-Europa-steckt-in-der- Champions-League-Das-muss-erforscht-werden/!5472693/ Daams, A.: ‘Klever Forscher nehmen den Fußball unter die Lupe‘, Neue Ruhr Zeitung, 9 June 2019, https://www.nrz.de/staedte/kleve-und-umland/klever-forschernehmen-den-fussball-unter-die-lupe-id226112335.html Braunegger, P.: ‘Fußball, Fans und Forschung’, der Grazer, 26 January 2020, https://epaper.grazer.at/epaper/der-grazer-042020-e964.html#page/52-53

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