Play for us supporters!: A socioethnography of the caravans of Corinthians fans

• Grant number: 24/03482-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: September 01, 2024
• End date: February 28, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Urban Sociology
• Principal Investigator: Bianca Stella Pinheiro de Freire Medeiros
• Grantee: Bruno Vieira Borges
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Every sport is a social organization of leisure, therefore, it is expected that different societies choose the modalities that best reflect their cultures. In Brazil, football, in particular, seems to enjoy a remarkable capacity to reconfigure public spaces (streets and highways, train and subway stations, squares, bars, schools, etc.), sometimes suspending or tormenting expected patterns of sociability. However, the emphasis on decoding the rituals carried out in the stadium, the "temple of football", has meant that the mobility practices that actually connect fans to sporting spectacles have been little investigated. This research is thus part of the dialogue between the sociology of mobility and the sociology of sports, understood here from a cultural perspective, and pays attention to the plots and impasses that emerge from the movements of the Organized Fans, with travel as an empirical choice. from Gaviões da Fiel, a fan base linked to Sport Club Corinthians Paulista and which has the largest number of members in the country. These travels, which occur daily, are called caravans and although they have already appeared in ethnographic explorations and historical-genealogical studies, they have not yet been taken as a specific object of sociological reflection. Through participant observation, documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews, I intend to understand the meanings that are developed, embodied, managed, disseminated, shared and disputed by Gaviões da Fiel in its mobility practices and intentions; consider in a less dispersed way the activities that make up the preparation and exercise of their caravans, capturing connections and interdependencies that need, or not, to be mobilized for them and through them; and, finally, evaluate the importance that caravans may have had as a behind-the-scenes role in the processes of internalization and globalization of football and in the formation and affirmation of different identities.