As opposed to the discourse marking the division between the subculturalists and the post-subculturalists, we hold that subculturalisation and tribalisation are essentially the same social process. ...The process within which the Croatian ultras subculture was formed, took place from the late 1970s to the late 1980s. Nationalism and violence are broadly acknowledged as the main features of this new subcultural style in socialist Yugoslavia. However, to fully understand the process it is necessary to study broader spectrum of influences and relationships between actors on the social scene. Therefore we put emphasis on the interaction between football supporters and subcultural styles founded on rock and similar genres of music. This interaction proved to be crucial in anti-establishment and anti-mainstream sensibilities of the emerging football supporter scene. This is particularly important while these sensibilities have remained one of basic characteristics of the ultras subculture in modern Croatia.
This paper is based on sociological research on Torcida, football supporters of Hajduk Football Club from Split (Croatia). We used ethnographic methodology throughout 37 months of fieldwork (from ...July 2012 to August 2015) and conducted 23 in-depth interviews with hardcore members of Torcida. Although our research included the distinction between carnival supporters and hooligans, these elements are much more interconnected within the hard core of Torcida than they are separate. Because of various social efforts (sometimes coordinated with other Ultras groups) against the local and global football establishment - especially against the Croatian Football Federation and UEFA - we consider Torcida part of a wide, heterogeneous social movement against modern football. This corresponds to the self-reflection and self-perception of the core group of Torcida. Ultras subculture in the Croatian context represents a key (although not the only) social actor in bearing the AMF movement.
Youth in conflict: space and subculture Perasović, Benjamin; Mustapić, Marko; Ibañez Garzaran, Zyab Luis ...
Journal of youth studies,
03/2023, Letnik:
26, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The steady decline of youth participation in society has been a concern for social scientists since the 1970s. Recent research has sought to move beyond concluding this signifies a 'crisis of ...democracy' or explaining the phenomenon by distinguishing between formal and extra-institutional types of participation by redirecting attention towards everyday life. Through a similar focus on the 'everyday', we seek to enrich our understanding of how youth participation manifests today, by drawing on the rich vein of (post)subcultural theory and the study of everyday youth practices. Specifically, we consider the meaning and role of space in the everyday lives and activism of youth in conflict with social institutions. The article draws on cross-national ethnographic data, from research with stigmatised groups of youth in Croatia, Finland, Spain and Slovakia, collected within the framework of the project. The findings affirm that space is a socially, politically and economically determined category that reflects existing social inequalities and power relations between social groups. At the same time, space is used by the young research participants, often through subcultural practices, for: self-integration; empowerment through the appropriation of public and private space; broadening the spectrum of their capabilities; and active participation aimed at achieving social change.
In the 1980s, in the period before the collapse of Yugoslavia, football stadiums became one of the most important public spaces in which forbidden and suppressed discourses were exposed. ...Correspondingly, it has been widely accepted that the state repressive apparatus perceived football supporter groups as an exceptionally dangerous political opponent to the socialist system. However, according to the analysis of archival materials from the Yugoslav secret service Croatian supporters per se were not perceived as such. Supporter groups were approached primarily as subculture actors with a special system of social norms and values. This is evident from a 1989 operative investigation code-named 'Stadion', the purpose of which was to surveil four of the largest Croatian supporter groups. The surveillance of supporters began mainly as a consequence of the foundation of the first opposition political parties. This increased the possibility that supporter groups would be instrumentalized, which was a real potential danger from the perspective of the secret service.
From 2016 to 2018, we conducted ethnographic research on young members of the ultras group White Stones in Varaždin. We analysed the social activism of this group as related to the ‘AMF’ club NK ...Varteks in order to affirm how members of White Stones view their club as opposed to similar examples in Europe, as well as to determine whether this group of youth are stigmatised. As opposed to the European context, opposition to the commercialisation of football is present implicitly in their case, while opposition to crime and corruption are the key causes of this group’s social activism. They feel as if they belong to the 'AMF' movement, and stigmatisation is partially present.
Sociological researches in the field of youth subculture worldwide have lasted longer than half a century, and in the last twenty years, part of the researchers have been divided into ...'subculturalists' and 'postsubculturalists', according to the interpretation of research notions in the recent social context. The key theses of both ingroups are related to social class, the relationships among musical taste, style and identity, to the boundaries between styles and to the role of media in the emergence and maintenance of subcultural styles. Considering the recently completed study of the punk scene in Croatia, the research notions are brought into connection with the contemporary framework of the debate. In the Croatian context, social class is an important dimension of the emergence of subculture, although none of the local authors considers it a determining category in terms of the subcultural theoretical tradition. The connections among musical taste, style and identity, which postsubculturalists claim are disappearing, were solidly, visibly and powerfully present in our research. Also, the postsubculturalists1 thesis of permeable and fluid forms of gathering do not find their place in the research findings on the punk scene in Croatia, because in our case, there are firm and clear forms of belonging without large fluctuations in the relation between the core and the expanded circle of sympathizers. Theoretical implications of our research point to the need to overcome and to reject the division to subculturalists and postsubculturalists in this field. Adapted from the source document.
Sociological researches in the field of youth subculture worldwide have lasted longer than half a century, and in the last twenty years, part of the researchers have been divided into ..."subculturalists" and "postsubculturalists", according to the interpretation of research notions in the recent social context. The key theses of both ingroups are related to social class, the relationships among musical taste, style and identity, to the boundaries between styles and to the role of media in the emergence and maintenance of subcultural styles. Considering the recently completed study of the punk scene in Croatia, the research notions are brought into connection with the contemporary framework of the debate. In the Croatian context, social class is an important dimension of the emergence of subculture, although none of the local authors considers it a determining category in terms of the subcultural theoretical tradition. The connections among musical taste, style and identity, which postsubculturalists claim are disappearing, were solidly, visibly and powerfully present in our research. Also, the postsubculturalists' thesis of permeable and fluid forms of gathering do not find their place in the research findings on the punk scene in Croatia, because in our case, there are firm and clear forms of belonging without large fluctuations in the relation between the core and the expanded circle of sympathizers. Theoretical implications of our research point to the need to overcome and to reject the division to subculturalists and postsubculturalists in this field.
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.
U razdoblju od 2016. do 2018. proveli smo etnografsko istraživanje mladih pripadnika ultras grupe White Stones u Varaždinu. Na temelju prikupljenih podataka analizirali smo društveni aktivizam ove ...grupe vezan za djelovanje AMF kluba NK Varteks s ciljem utvrđivanja percepcije svoga kluba naspram sličnih primjera u Europi te prisutnosti stigmatizacije ove grupe mladih. Za razliku od europskoga konteksta, u ovom slučaju otpor komercijalizaciji nogometa prisutan je implicitno, dok je otpor kriminalu i korupciji ključni uzrok društvenoga aktivizma ultrasa. Pritom ultrasi osjećaju pripadnost AMF pokretu, a njihova stigmatizacija je djelomično prisutna.
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