On the plot of antifascist fights and the criticism to the football industry: communication, resistance and political activism

• Grant number: 20/03906-4
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: December 01, 2020
• End date: November 30, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Communications
• Principal Investigator: Felipe Tavares Paes Lopes
• Grantee: Felipe Tavares Paes Lopes
• Host Institution: Pró-Reitoria de Pós-Graduação, Pesquisa, Extensão e Inovação. Universidade de Sorocaba (UNISO). Sorocaba , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research aims to understand how members of anti-fascist football fans organize, interpret and disseminate their political activism and to what extent and how this activism can represent a form of resistance to the social order of football. To achieve this goal, I will seek to articulate two theorical fields: ideology and resistance. In relation to the first one, I will adopt the concept of John B. Thompson, who understands that a discourse can be considered ideological when it establishes and sustains relations of domination, understanding that we can characterize a relationship as being of domination when it is systematically asymmetric. In relation to the second one, based on both Thompson's and Douglas Kellner's work, I will use the term resistance to refer to those actions (discursive or not) that can transform these relationships. At the methodological level, the proposed research is organized in three stages. The first one seeks to (re)build the socio-historical process of emergence of anti-fascist football fans groups. To carry out this (re)construction, I will do a literature review on this subject. The second one seeks to understand the ways of organizing, interpreting and disseminating the activism of these groups. For that, I will carry out a thematic analysis of the content of their official Facebook pages, a discursive analysis of semi-structured interviews with their members and systematic observations of their activities, accompanying them, mainly, in football matches and street demonstrations. The third one seeks to (re)interpret this activism. In order to carry out this (re)interpretation, I will discuss, in the light of the relations of domination that characterize the context analyzed in the first part, to what extent and how such activism can represent a form of resistance to these relationships or, conversely, how it can serve to maintain them, even if not intentionally. (AU)