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This thesis endeavours to develop a more nuanced understanding of contemporary football culture. As such my research adopts a consumer-oriented cultural studies approach to analyse the ways in which modern ‘consumer’ fans negotiate their position within football culture and the power operating upon them as they do so. Drawing on data from unique ethnographic research I argue that modern fans engage in processes of complex discursive negotiation, constructing their identities at the juncture of the hegemonic discourses that surround football culture: capitalism and tradition, but also their individual understanding of how they are expected to enact fandom. I argue that modern fans are able to negotiate the discourses of capitalism and tradition operating upon them to enact their own power and identity within football culture. As such, this thesis seeks to advance debates about collective identity formation and the scope of representation within contemporary football culture. In doing so, my research contributes to football scholarship’s long tradition of making perceptive social commentaries, drawing on football culture to contribute to wider debates concerning capitalism and collective identity formation. |
