engleski

FOOTBALL SUPPORTERS IN THE CONTEXT OF CROATIAN SOCIOLOGY: RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES 20 YEARS AFTER

The aim of this paper was to re-introduce the issue of football supporters in Croatia, after two decades of absence from sociological field research, in four steps: first, by giving a brief explanation of the changes in Croatian society, secondly, by giving a brief overview of changes in modern football, thirdly, by describing the theoretical and methodological framework of Croatian research done in the past as well as by describing the contemporary theoretical context in which our research has been performed, and finally, by presenting the preliminary results of our ongoing research within the FP7 MYPLACE (Memory, Youth, Political Legacy and Civic Engagement) project. Croatian society passed through the painful process of war and transition, and football supporters strengthened their role as social actors particularly regarding their own formal structure which was not imaginable in a one-party system, as well as regarding social actions like protests, boycotts, demonstrations, petitions and other forms of resistance to the local and national political-economic elites of the new consumer society.

social changes; modern football; ultras; ethnography; Croatia; Torcida

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