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SAMKUL-Samfunnsutviklingens kulturell

The Fan Can: The media and football supporter communities as enablers of social change

Awarded: NOK 0.24 mill.

Investigating communities of football fans can help us understand better the many ways communities and societies experience, debate, come to terms with and react to development and change related to multicultural aspects of community, belonging and identity. This network brings together Norwegian and international researchers representing international organizations, leading journals in the field and authors of seminal books and articles on sports, football and fandom, to investigate cultural conditions of development. It proposes to see football fandom as a prism for understanding the innovative, dynamic and organic ways in which agency can respond to and engage with structure to create new conditions for social and economic relations. The network will investigate football fans and cultural conditions for development of multicultural communities in Israel, England, Scotland, Sweden and Norway. The network will develop research applications which will form the basis for analysis and thus a deeper understanding of the cultural conditions for multicultural and natural aspects of football fandom and communities of fans. In addition, the project includes workshops and conferences organized jointly with major fan organizations.

Funding scheme:

SAMKUL-Samfunnsutviklingens kulturell