Cultural Considerations (Asynchronous Session)
Football Fandom in Brazil: Violence, Popular Resistance, and Organized Supporters' Groups View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Bernardo Buarque De Hollanda
Brazil is considered one of the countries with the highest rates of fatal clashes between football supporters. The increase in casualties has alarmed the public opinion since at least 1988, when a premeditated murder was committed against the founder and leader of a significant organized fan club in the city of São Paulo. Since then, over two hundred deaths have been reported by the specialized sports chronicles. Over the last decades, initiatives from the Department of Public Prosecution have been trying to mitigate this scenario with legal prohibition measures and acts of legal extinguishment of the fan organizations. However, the expected effect still seems far from being reached. Federal laws of repressive nature, as the Fan Statute, have also been applied, leading to equally dubious results. The purpose of this paper is to present, in sharp contrast to the single theme of violence in the media daily agenda, an overview of the football cooperation and youth associations in Brazil. This will be done based on the description of concrete experiences in the creation of organizations representing the fans. Supported in sociological elements, we aim to offer a summary of the set of initiatives conducted by the leaders of organized fan clubs in the country. Their actions were grounded on the search for overcoming the inter-club intolerance levels, on the demand for representation among its members and on an attempt to gain legitimacy among other people who play roles in football, whether they are team managers, media professionals, or police forces.
Featured Rowing Upstream: Men Resisting Homophobia In Team Sport View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Chris Borduas, Brendan Gough, Michael Kehler
Historically sport has intersected masculinity, athleticism, and heterosexism. In large part “sporty bodies” have remained dominant and aggressive in the central configuration of sport culture. Scholars have argued that “sporty masculinity” is fundamentally about how the performance of male bodies convey or express other normative requirements relating to gender and sexualities. The bodily displays and performances of sporty masculinities is centrally located at the nexus of masculinities, homophobia, and sport. And while sporting masculine identities often hinge on stereotypical assumptions of what it means to be a man, we examine the profeminist politics of male athletes invested in resisting and challenging heterosexism and homophobia in sport. Informed by masculinities studies, sport sociology and feminist research, this paper draws narratives of a group of young men who took-part in semi-structured interviews to help provide insight into the complicated and messy understandings intersecting sport, masculinity, bodies, heterosexuality, and homophobia. We argue that bodies are not limited as symbols or signs but rather they are seen as sharing in social agency, in generating and shaping courses of social conduct. As critical researchers, drawing on interview data we highlight recurring themes across a group of male athletes whose investment in sport has lead them to take up activist positions addressing homophobia. Rather than reaffirming and perpetuating the regulative rules and codes of masculinity, this research contributes data that suggests how and when some men intentionally disrupt hegemonic masculinity and challenge homophobia in team sport.
Community Development in Female Sport: The Coventry Cougars Identity and Dynasty View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Peter Evans
Dixon, Green, Anderson & Evans (2020) identified the opportunity for new sports to enter the marketplace to help cater for sport participants, particularly girls, who continue to drop out of traditional sport programmes at alarmingly high rates. The research established the need to offer female participants differentiated opportunities, utilising innovative approaches that were often outside the structural norms. Utilising Community Development Theory (a long-term value-based process underpinned by equality, empowerment, co-operation and informal learning) the research adopts a qualitative methodological approach of case studies and ethnography, analysed from site visits, in-depth interviews, and participant observation of a UK-based Female Flag American Football Community Club (the Coventry Cougars). The findings promote the argument that recomposing of socially constructed gender roles in sport can lead to opportunities for females to develop community capacity, a collective group conscience and social identity through informal learning and social bonding. This paper informs theory in community development through sport and provides insight into the socially gendered benefits of female sport participation.
In Support of the Socially Conscious Athlete: What the Sport Hierarchy Can Learn from Outspoken Athletes View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Robert Romano
On time professional quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, sparked a national argument by ‘taking a knee’ during the ritual playing of the national anthem before every NFL game. Kaepernick’s symbolic, unspoken protest was a way for him to create awareness of various social issues surrounding the continued subjugation in this country of black people and other people of color. As a result, Kaepernick was punished for his actions. But Kaepernick is not the only athlete, or in some cases group of athletes, who has been ‘punished’ by the predominately white-male sport hierarchy after speaking out on issues regarding race and basic civil rights. But why and by whom were these athletes punished? Since most of the athletes are now celebrated as trailblazers and are held in the highest regard, wouldn’t it be prudent for today’s sport hierarchy to learn from the past and instead of punishing the athletes, come to their support and partner with them in an effort to raise the overall social consciousness of our society?This paper explores the history of the athletes who spoke out on various social injustices, while also focusing on the predominately white men within the sport hierarchy who felt it necessary to punish them for their actions.
Colin Kaepernick as an Heir to Tommie Smith and John Carlos? : Let's Rethink That View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Anthony Moretti
Beginning in 2016, a media narrative developed in the United States as former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick drew more attention by continuing to protest racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem. That narrative equated the actions of the multi-million dollar quarterback to two blue-collar runners from almost 50 years earlier. Kaepernick was seen as a kind-of heir to Tommie Smith and John Carlos, both of whom were expelled from the 1968 Mexico City Olympics after their black power salute during the 200-meters medal ceremony. This paper examines that narrative and suggests it is flawed. There are critical differences among the men, most especially evident in their upbringing, and between what Kaepernick did in 2016 and what Smith and Carlos did 48 years earlier; these differences mitigate the association between the men and their actions. Moreover, the media reaction to what took place in 2016 and 1968 was different.
